COVER STORY : There’s No Gender to Their Jazz

To slightly alter a popular lyric of a time, the past has presented us with standard-issue images of women in jazz that are often a little too cute for comfort.

But back in the ‘40s, all-female jazz ensembles were a splashy novelty, as the war effort siphoned off tenured male musicians, spiriting them away from their prominent big-band gigs and marooning them across the country or overseas. Women who could rise to the occasion stepped up for their 15 minutes: “Pretty girls” lifting instruments not traditionally associated with women--saxophones, trumpets, noisy drum kits or an upright bass to keep an ensemble’s heartbeat. Photo upon photo circulated of young women “goofing,” eyes popping, struggling under the weight of not just the instrument but preconceived notions and stereotypes as well. Most times it was almost impossible to get critics to look beyond the frothy dresses, elaborately ratted hair and high heels to hear the music.

Nowadays--with the possible exception of performers such as saxophonist Candy Dulfer, who are often played up as soft-focus sexpots--artists like pianist-composer Geri Allen, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, vocalist-guitarist Cassandra Wilson or those of the old guard (such as saxophonist Vi Redd, pianist Alice Coltrane, and composer-arranger Melba Liston) have boxed themselves out of the limiting category of “women in jazz.” They are musicians who demand to be judged on their merits as artists first, the issue of gender something not to be factored into ability and musicianship.

Like the rock world’s Riot Grrrls, who vehemently refuse to be ghettoized or trivialized (and ultimately banished to the neat pigeonhole “woman musician”), many women who diligently make their way through the jazz world choose not to linger on issues of gender or acceptance. The efforts and energy center most often on mastering the music, and ultimately the desire to reside at the top of their craft.

Most desired is the moment when gender classification will only be an afterthought, if that at all. Fortunately, the presence of female players on the scene has increased multifold, so that seeing a woman press a trumpet to her lips doesn’t quite cause the kind of stares, for example, that Clora Bryant remembers.

Bryant, 66, who refers to herself as a “trumpetiste” (“It sounds a little more feminine,” she explains), began playing in a marching-swing band in her Denison, Tex., high school just about the time World War II started. “My brother had just gone in the service in ’41. He played trumpet--my mom and dad were too poor to buy anything else.” So Bryant picked up his cast-aside, learning her scales from an uncle.

In 1943, the family moved to Los Angeles, where Bryant attended UCLA as a music major. But she decided to drop out after two years, feeling too restless to just mark time in a classroom when the city was lit up with jazz.

She became a regular along Central Avenue and was often seen at clubs like the Alabam, the Last Word and the Downbeat. She played behind Billie Holiday, Wardell Gray and Frank Morgan and pulled out her horn without hesitation at jam sessions with the likes of Dexter Gordon. Somewhere in there she also found time to do stints with several “girl bands,” even sitting in one week in 1946 with the Sweethearts of Rhythm at downtown L.A.’s Million Dollar Theater.

“I’d make all the jam sessions. And at first I’d hear the musicians say, ‘She plays like a woman,’ ” Bryant remembers, “but after a while, they said I played like a man--whatever that means.”

Truth be told, Bryant says, she didn’t run into too many obstacles back then. Much of it she attributes to her own tenacity to make herself a ubiquitous figure on the circuit as well as to the confidence and generosity of the male musicians she most often found herself surrounded by.

“I made a point to know all the young guys--Max Roach, Clifford Brown. . . . Dizzy (Gillespie) was my closest friend and mentor. (They) saw that I was serious,” she says.

Nowadays, Bryant believes, the local climate is a little different, the road to success tougher to scale: “Seems like the men are more insecure, (since) there are more (women) who are serious. During the war it was a little different. We weren’t really much of a threat. But now they are intimidated, when (women) can take jobs from them.”

That shift, Bryant observes, began in the ‘70s, “when rock came in and the studio guys came out. That’s what turned it around. Now that’s my opinion you understand.”

Grand dame of the piano Dorothy Donegan concurs. At 77 she finds, even still, that jumping race as well as gender hurdles is not simply frustrating but perplexing.

“It’s a double whammy--being black and a woman too,” Donegan says. “Men don’t want me on the bill. . . . They feel they get overshadowed.” Donegan believes that it is often a contest of ego and presence. “(The men) figure they need me like Custer needs more Indians.”

Donegan, who in the ‘50s was an elegant fixture at posh watering holes like Ciro’s and the Mocambo during Hollywood’s night-life glory years, also recorded for several labels, including Decca, Capitol and the now-defunct MGM (although Capitol, she says, was the only company to release the sides).

Yet still she feels a little bruised by the neglect and deferential treatment of others. Despite that, she’s had tenacious staying power, still playing club dates around town at Catalina Bar & Grill and Vine St. Bar & Grill.

She advises any woman who decides to develop her chops on the jazz side to set up an all-important safety net:

“Get the education, stay home with Momma so someone is paying the rent. You have to take care of more business now, because music is a business now. You have to be a showman and a musician. You can’t just sit up there, you have to start the revolution.”

Bassist Nedra Wheeler’s been packed and ready for that revolution. She speaks of a change in the wind locally, due largely to the community of musicians around Leimert Park’s World Stage and jam session nucleus-cum-coffeehouse 5th Street Dick’s. Wheeler, who quite deftly dodges age and gender pigeonholes, has been honing her craft and thriving in Southern California’s burgeoning jazz scene, a scene many denizens say resembles the verve and spirit of L.A. in the ‘50s and early ‘60s.

Wheeler, a CalArts graduate boasting a 24-page resume, has toured and performed with artists Kenny Kirkland, Jeff Watts, Cedar Walton, Pat Benatar and Freestyle Fellowship. Consequently, she hasn’t the time to think about whether her gender poses an obstacle. She’s instead immersed and busy with music.

“I try not to think about it,” Wheeler says. “The music is a priority. I didn’t concentrate on gender as much as I did on music.” To do so, she says, “would be falling into a trap. I recognize that there are difficulties about most things in life. But I have to continue my journey in spite of obstacles--whatever they are.”

The community within and surrounding the World Stage and 5th Street Dick’s, Wheeler says, has been tremendously supportive.

“Those places in particular had an enormous impact--communitywide,” she says. And for bands like Strangefruit, she says, the musicians find themselves around people they know and have grown to trust. “They’re practicing in a place where people (care) about the music . . . where people can develop their creative ability.”

As for Wheeler herself, who long ago digested some advice very much like that dispensed by Donegan, despite her flourishing career, she is starting to look into writing and teaching as well.

“I won’t say it was all smooth, but it’s not all sad either,” Wheeler says. “I haven’t had too many problems. . . . And I feel fortunate because people I work with really talk in terms of music first.”

Do other things to maintain your art, she advises, and trust those who paved your way or steadied you in your path: “My junior high school teacher is still looking out (for me).” And the specter of gender aside, “God knows, when you are a musician you need all the support you can get.”