Other Voices: The Story of Jazz and the Women Who Shaped It

Since its inception, jazz has benefited from the contributions of women.  Indeed, throughout every significant era, every stylistic change, women have played a vital role in the development of the music.  Whether it be as instrumentalists, singers, bandleaders, composers, arrangers, writers, managers, club owners or patrons, the women of jazz have historically worn many hats and continue to play an essential part in the jazz diaspora.

Early Days: The Vocalists

Starting in the early 1900s, women played an active role as the musical idioms of ragtime, marches, field hollers, blues, and European classical music coalesced into what we now call jazz.

Brothels in New Orleans’ fabled Storyville district (famous for its sex workers) were presided over by madams, such as Antonia P. Gonzales (herself a musician) and Lulu White. 

The best of these brothels featured live music- small string ensembles or solo piano players.  This provided steady work for the likes of pianist/singer Tony Jackson and future jazz legend Jelly Roll Morton.

Starting in the early 1920s, opportunities opened up for singers such as Mamie Smith, the first Black woman to be recorded.  She would later work with famed jazz stride pianist Willie “The Lion” Smith.

Around the same time, Gertude “Ma” Rainey, dubbed the “Mother of the Blues,” would find work first in minstrel shows and vaudeville.  Renowned for her powerful vocal stylings, energetic disposition, majestic phrasing, and a “moaning” style of singing, Rainey would influence scores of other singers, from Janis Joplin to Bonnie Raitt to Louis Armstrong, with whom she would later collaborate. 

The 1920s also saw the first recordings by the “Empress of the Blues,” Bessie Smith.  The decade saw her popularity rise to such a level that she became the highest-paid Black entertainer of the day, traveling in her own 72-foot-long railroad car.  By the Swing era, she was recording with some of the top jazz musicians of the day, including Louis Armstrong, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and pianist/arranger/bandleader Fletcher Henderson.  Her influence would be felt for generations to come on such singers as Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday and many others.

Speaking of Louis Armstrong, his second wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, would cement her place in jazz history as a talented singer, pianist, composer, arranger, and bandleader.    For a time, she cut her teeth as the pianist in trumpeter King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band.

(Pianist Lil Armstrong with Louis Armstrong & His Hot Sevens)

It was in this group that she met and fell in love with Louis.  Lil is credited with helping him update his fashion sense and assisting him in learning classical music.  Eventually, it was she who convinced him to leave King Oliver’s band and go out on his own. 

In 1925, and later in 1927, Lil recorded with Louis as part of his Louis Armstrong & His Hot Five and Louis Armstrong & His Hot Seven groups.  One hundred years later, these recordings stand as some of the most important and influential in all jazz history.  Lil contributed not only with her piano playing, but also with her songwriting, including such tunes as “Struttin’ With Some Barbecue”- compositions that are considered classics today.

The styles and recordings of these early blues and jazz vocalists, such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Lil Hardin and others, would continue to influence future vocalists (and instrumentalists) for generations to come.

Swing & Bebop: The Instrumentalists

As the early jazz of the 1910s and early ‘20s gave way to the Swing Era (roughly, 1925-1940), new opportunities arose for women jazz performers- often as featured vocalists with big bands.  Future vocal legends such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan all spent formative years working with the top big bands of the day, including those led by Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and Billy Eckstine.

(Vocalists Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald))                                                               

While Billie Holiday’s vocal style drew from the influence of Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan drew from the influences of both vocalists (Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby) and instrumentalists (Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie).   In this way, they extended the possibilities of the vocal scat singing tradition.

(Sarah Vaughn, vocalist)

Additionally, the Swing and Bebop Eras gave rise to other kinds of jazz performing opportunities for women.  Brass players such as trumpeter Clora Bryant started to appear on the scene. 

(Trumpeter Clora Bryant)

Bryant, the only female trumpeter to have worked with both Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, was a member of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm- believed to be the first racially integrated all-female jazz band in the US.  Later, she joined the Black all-female jazz band the Queens of Swing as a drummer.   In 1951, this group, performing as The Hollywood Sepia Tones, became the first all-women’s jazz group to appear on TV.

Trombonist, arranger, and composer Melba Liston, one-time classmate to saxophonists Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon, began playing music with saxophonist Gordon while both were in their teens.  At 17, she joined a big band led by Gerald Wilson. Then, in 1948, she joined Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, which at that time included future legends John Coltrane, Paul Gonsalves, and John Lewis.  Gillespie specifically sought her out for her talents as both a trombonist and arranger. 

(Trombonist and arranger Melba Liston)

She later toured with both Count Basie and Billie Holiday.

In the 1950s she started collaborating with pianist Randy Weston, arranging compositions for mid and large-size ensembles. Then in later years, she worked as an arranger for several recording companies, including most notably Motown.

A fellow native of Los Angeles was saxophonist Elvira (Vi) Redd, who toured with Earl Hines and Max Roach.  In the early 1960s she recorded two albums as a leader.  Then in the 1970s she recorded an album called “Now’s The Time” with an all-female group comprised of pianist Marian McPartland, guitarist Mary Osborne, bassist Lynn Milano, and drummer Dottie Dodgion.

(Vi Redd, saxophonist)

Starting in the 1970s, Redd taught and lectured for several years after her return to Los Angeles, serving on the music advisory panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.  In 2001, she received the Mary Lou Williams Women In Jazz Award from the Kennedy Center.

Other female jazz musicians would be drawn to wind instruments to express themselves.  These include saxophonist/bandleader Peggy Gilbert, and much later, flutist/singer Bobbi Humphrey.

If it seems like there is a theme of women jazz musicians pulling double, and sometimes even triple, duty, that is not coincidental.  There are several examples of women who both sang and played an instrument (usually piano)-such as Nina Simone, Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Horne, Eliane Elias, and Diana Krall.

The Bandleaders
Many women established themselves as both bandleaders and instrumentalists- such as pianist/composers Toshiko Akiyoshi, Carla Bley, both of whom led successful big bands.  This tradition has continued to the present day with award-winning composer/arranger/bandleader Maria Schneider.

(Pianist/bandleader/composer Toshiko Akiyoshi)

Other female bandleaders and big bands of note include Blanche Calloway, Ina Ray Hutton, and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm.

The Pianists

There is a rich tradition of women jazz pianists, stretching from the aforementioned Lil Armstrong in the Early Jazz era, to Swing and Bebop era pianists Mary Lou Williams, Marian McParland, Jutta Hipp, and Terry Pollard, to more avant garde-leaning stalwarts in the 1960s like Alice Coltrane, to bandleaders like Toshiko Akiyoshi and Carla Bley in the 1970s and ‘80s (and beyond).

(Pianist Mary Lou Williams)

More modern and contemporary proponents such as Joanne Brackeen, Geri Allen, Renee Rosnes, Marilyn Crispell, and Kris Davis have extended the jazz piano tradition taking it in new and unexpected places.

The Vocalists

Perhaps the most visible and popular tract open to women in jazz, historically, has been that of the vocalist.  Tracing all the way back to the early recordings of blues and jazz-leaning progenitors like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, women singers were often featured soloists throughout the Swing/Big Band era (roughly 1925-1940).

It was in big bands that the great lady jazz singers Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan (Count Basie and Artie Shaw, Chick Webb, and Billy Eckstine, respectively) all got their start before becoming featured stars with their own small groups. 

Most of the singers who went on to greater fame in the 1950s and 1960s (and even later), started in big bands.  This includes Dinah Washington (Lionel Hampton), Betty Carter (also Lionel Hampton) Anita O’Day (Gene Krupa and Stan Kenton), Peggy Lee (Benny Goodman), and Carmen McRae (who worked early in her career as a pianist with the bands of Benny Carter, Count Basie, and Mercer Ellington). 

Notable exceptions to this were Nina Simone, Abbey Lincoln, and Nancy Wilson, all of whom established themselves early on as solo acts apart from big bands.

Beyond any other role, female vocalists have been present in every stylistic offshoot of jazz since its inception.  As the Big Band era ended and bebop promoted a shift of focus to small groups, audiences were drawn to the intimacy and immediacy of women vocalists adept at connecting and communicating in the smaller confines of a nightclub (rather than large dance halls and theaters).

By the early 1960s, as the Bossa Nova craze swept the nation, it was singer Astrid Gilberto’s voice that could be heard coming from the hi-fi’s across the country.

A few years later, as the late 1960s/early ‘70s gave rise to the avant garde (or so-called “New Thing”) in jazz, vocalist June Tyson was a featured member of the Sun Ra Arkestra.  By the late-‘70s, pianist Marilyn Crispell established herself as one of the formidable voices of the avant garde as part of the Anthony Braxton Quartet.

(June Tyson, vocalist with the Sun Ra Arkestra)

By the 1970s Fusion Era, vocalist Flora Purim could be heard on seminal recordings by Chick Corea and Return to Forever.  The 1980s brought pianist/vocalist Eliane Elias to the public eye (and ear) as part of the fusion supergroup Steps Ahead, featuring saxophonist Michael Brecker and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri.

(Flora Purim, vocalist)

Multi-Instrumentalists

Several women forged paths in jazz via a multifaceted approach (vocalist-pianists, bandleader-pianists, instrumentalist-arrangers, etc.).  Others established themselves on multiple instruments. 

(Terry Pollard, vibraphonist and pianist)

For example, Terry Pollard became a major voice in the Detroit jazz scene on both piano and vibraphone in the 1940s and 1950s.   Once part of the house band at Detroit’s famed Blue Bird Inn (along with legendary drummer Elvin Jones), she would later perform with some of the biggest names in jazz, including John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, Duke Ellington, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Likewise, Alice Coltrane (born: Alice McLeod), herself a native Detroiter, became a major voice in the Avant Garde Jazz movement, first as a pianist and then- at the encouragement of her husband, saxophonist John Coltrane- harpist.

Another harpist from Detroit was Dorothy Ashby, once described as one of the most “unjustly under-loved jazz greats of the 1950s.”  A former student at Cass Technical High School, and later Wayne State University, she played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, winning critics’ and readers’ awards in 1962 in Down Beat magazine as one of jazz’s best performers.  Ashby did not restrict herself stylistically, playing bop, soul, Brazilian, African, Middle Eastern, and free jazz.  In later years, she got into studio recording, working with Bill Withers and Stevie Wonder.

(Harpist Dorothy Ashby)

Writers and Composers

Jazz has presented other opportunities for women’s voices to be heard besides performing.  

Lyricist Dorothy Fields set words to some of the most iconic and beloved songs in the jazz lexicon.  Teaming up with composer Jimmy McHugh in the late 1920s/early 1930s, they produced such hits as “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” “Exactly Like You,” and “On the Sunny Side of the Street.”  Her 1936 collaboration with Jerome Kern on the song “The Way You Look Tonight” earned them an Academy Award.

Other lady songwriters of note include Ann Ronnell, (whose “Willow Weep For Me” stands as another jazz classic still performed today) and Irene Higginbotham, whose “Good Morning Heartache” was a fixture in Billie Holiday’s repertoire.

Additionally, women composers like Toshiko Akiyoshi, Carla Bley, Melba Liston, Maria Schneider, and Mary Lou Williams have all left an indelible mark on jazz.

Likewise, authors and columnists like Valerie Wilmer, Michelle Mercer, Lara Pellegrinelli, Jennifer Odell, and Farah Jasmine Griffin have all contributed to jazz discourse and expanded our knowledge base about major jazz figures.

Clubowners/Patrons/Benefactors/Managers

Many jazz artists have flourished thanks to the contributions of women working behind the scenes.

These include Lorraine Gordon, who took over ownership and management of New York City’s famed Village Vanguard club after the death of her husband, Max Gordon.  Formerly married to Blue Note Records co-founder Alfred Lion, Lorraine’s passion for jazz inspired her tireless efforts to promote the music she loved.  In 2013, she received the NEA Jazz Master Award for jazz advocacy. Lorraine and Max’s daughter, Deborah Gordon, now owns and runs the Village Vanguard.

A staunch supporter of jazz at the height of the Bebop era and beyond was the illustrious Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.   Born in London into the famed Rothschild family- one of the wealthiest families in the world at the time- “Nica” (as she was known) became a kind of “black sheep” of the family.

(Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, jazz patron and advocate)

Writer, photographer, pilot- Nica wore many hats.  During World War II, she joined the Free French Army alongside her husband, working first as a decoder for Gaullist intelligence and later as an ambulance driver.

But it was her post-war friendship and patronage of the leading jazz musicians of the day that earned de Koenigswarter a place in jazz history.  The doors of her hotel suite were always open to jazz musicians, and she often hosted jam sessions there. 

Though not a musician herself, she earned the title of the “bebop baroness” or “jazz baroness” thanks to her tireless support of jazz musicians.  She would assist them financially, helping to bail them out of jail, offering her hotel suite as a safe haven and rehearsal/jam space, give them rides to and from their gigs, and even provide the means for legal representation. 

A fixture in the best jazz clubs of the day- the Five Spot Café, Village Vanguard, and Birdland- Nica developed close ties to such legends as Charlie Parker (who died in her hotel room), Bud Powell, Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, and Thelonious Monk. 

In the 1950s, Nica was licensed as a manager by the American Federation of Musicians.  Her clients included Horace Silver, Hank Mobley, Sir Charles Thompson, and The Jazz Messengers.

Other women have provided management to jazz artists.  These include Helen Keane, who served as manager and producer to pianist Bill Evans from 1963 to 1980.  Later clients included Kenny Burrell, Art Famer, Paquito D’Rivera, and Joanne Brackeen.

Similarly, Lorraine Gillespie served as manager to her husband, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.  Likewise, pianist Thelonious Monk’s wife, Nellie, was indispensable to him throughout his professional career, managing his business affairs and organizing travel arrangements.

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins also chose his wife, Lucille, to act as his manager and producer for the last half of his professional career.

Another long-time advocate and supporter of jazz and jazz musicians has been activist/humanitarian/blues musician Wendy Oxenhorn.  Nicknamed “The Barefoot Baroness,” Oxenhorn was the founding director and vice chairman of the Jazz Foundation of America. 

Under her leadership, the JFA, which provides assistance to elderly professional blues, jazz, and R&B musicians in need, expanded to over 500 cases per year and became a national organization.   In 2001, she conceived and produced a major fundraising event “A Great Night In Harlem,” a concert at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater featuring dozens of prominent jazz musicians. 

This concert helped attract noteworthy and influential board members, including Quincy Jones, Elvis Costello, Danny Glover, and Lou Reed. 

At the JFA, Oxenhorn’s work assisted in relief efforts for displaced musicians following Hurricane Katrina, providing re-housing and employment opportunities.  She also created the Agnes Varis Jazz in the Schools Program, which enables hundreds of elderly musicians to introduce jazz, blues, and live music to over 80,000 public school children a year.

In 2016 the National Endowment for the Arts presented Wendy Oxenhorn with the NEA Lifetime Honors Jazz Masters award for her significant accomplishments and for dedicating her life to assisting jazz and blues musicians in need.

The Modern Era: Women In Jazz Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond

Whether as performers, managers, club owners, writers, benefactors, or mentors, women have made consistent and significant contributions to the history and development of jazz since its inception.

Today, in 2026, there are more women in jazz than ever before.    Today, jazz thrives thanks to performers like vocalists Cassandra Wilson, Norah Jones, Diana Krall, and Cecil McLorin Salvant, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, clarinetist Anat Cohen, saxophonists Lakecia Benjamin and Melissa Aldana, harpist Bandee Younger, pianist Kris Davis, guitarist Mary Halvorson, bassists Esperanza Spaulding and Linda May Han Oh, and drummers Terri Lyne Carrington and Cindy Blackman Santana.    

(Cecile McLorin Salvant, vocalist  and Melissa Aldana, saxophonist)

(Bassist Esperanza Spaulding)

Today, jazz thrives thanks to all-women, or women-led, supergroups like Straight Ahead, Artemis, Nubya Garcia, and Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom.

(Artemis)

Today, jazz thrives thanks to the many women mentors who serve as public school band directors and college professors.

And today, jazz thrives thanks to the tireless efforts of patrons, benefactors, and advocates like Wendy Oxenhorn and Gretchen Valade.

(Jazz advocate Wendy Oxenhorn)