News & Updates — women in jazz

The original soul sister Rosetta Tharpe was the first secular gospel recording star, a huge influence on rock & roll and an excellent electric guitarist. Whether in church or in a concert hall in front of a big band, she captivated everyone. As a child she barnstormed across the South with her mom and was called a "singing and guitar playing miracle". She cut her first records in '38 with Lucky Millander's orchestra, including "Rock Me". She appeared at the Spirituals To Swing concert that year and played with Cab Calloway's band as well. As bad as it was to...

One of Brasil's most popular singers, Porto Alegre native Elis Regina started her career in '57 and became well-known as a teenager winning song contests and releasing albums. "Arrastão" was a huge hit for her in '65, propelling her to be the most popular singer in the country. She worked with some of the artists involved in the Tropicália movement of the late '60s/early '70s, recording songs by Gilberto Gil and others. (Indeed, she was a vocal critic of the dictatorial regime). She made a landmark bossa nova album (Elis & Tom) with Antonio Carlos "Tom" Jobim in '75. She...

Soul-jazz organist Shirley Scott came out of the Philly scene to cut a ton of sides for Prestige, Moodsville, Impulse, Atlantic, Strata East, Muse, Cadet and more. Usually in either just an organ trio format or with an added horn (often her husband Stanley Turrentine), her records were a consistently grooving mix of bop, soul-jazz, gospel, standards, and pop & Motown covers, with the funk underneath and even some light Latin fare. Born and raised in Philadelphia, she first played trumpet and then piano before switching to organ when she filled in on a club gig, immediately loving the instrument....

Happy birthday to "Mama Africa" Miriam Makeba, civil rights and anti-apartheid activist, singer, actress, UN delegate, Black Panther and warrior. From her birth in jail (where she spent the first six months of her life with her incarcerated mother) to her death immediately following a concert to raise awareness of mafia control, Miriam was a freedom fighter and compassionate voice throughout. One of the first stars of the African continent to be recognized internationally (after her big 1957 hit "Pata Pata"), she survived breast cancer in the '50s and founded an all-woman group The Skylarks (a rarity for the time)....

Happy birthday to the great Nina Simone!! Pianist, singer, anti-war and civil rights activist, an inspiration to generations. This great talent from North Carolina captivated everyone that came in her path or heard her music. A gifted arranger, she could take any tune, or combination of tunes, and turn them into epic statements. Her music melded gospel, jazz, classical, blues and pop, with the clear purpose of many politicized folk artists of her day. Born Eunice Waymon, she aspired to be a pioneering black concert pianist and only reluctantly became a jazz singer after racist rejection from a prestigious school....