2015 Tsou Scholar: Sherrie Tucker, University of Kansas
Thursday, October 2 at 8 p.m.
Helen Filene Ladd Hall, Zankel Music Center
Lecture: "A Conundrum is a Woman-in-Jazz: Reflections on 100 Years of Ongoing Improvisation on the Categorical Exclusions of Being Included."
Jazz is often thought of as a particularly masculine musical practice; its history
usually depicted as a lineage of musical instrumentalist-geniuses, all of whom are
men鈥攗nless an 鈥渆xceptional woman鈥� is thrown in for good measure (usually a pianist).
Jazz artists who are women show up in feminized and devalued spheres (鈥渁ll-girl鈥� bands,
singers), or as perpetually emergent instrumentalists who never quite make it into
jazz recognition without gendered qualifiers鈥攔ecurrently set apart as 鈥渨omen in jazz.鈥�
This lecture is a reflection on select moments from a century of attempts by artists
and scholars to improvise their way 鈥渙ut鈥� of the 鈥渋n鈥� in the persistent category of
鈥渨omen in jazz.鈥� Whether taken as a devalued realm of feminized labor as novelty or
gimmicks, or as a revaluation project of conferences or festivals devoted to recognizing
the significance of female players, the sheer continuity of categorical exclusions
and inclusions of the 鈥渨oman in jazz鈥� category poses a conundrum for artists and scholars.
In expanding on the 鈥渨omen in jazz鈥� category as a lens for thinking through a selection
of similarly functioning inclusions of people and social categories presumed to be
鈥渙ut-of-jazz鈥� (鈥済ender in jazz,鈥� 鈥淟GBTQ in jazz,鈥� 鈥渟exuality in jazz,鈥� etc.), this
paper also raises questions about the efficacy of isolating one category at a time,
even for advocacy purposes, given that to trouble the parameters of jazz is also to
trouble the parameters of an African American music history that emerged within, alongside,
and against the rise of Jim Crow and its continued legacy of exclusionary inclusions.
Seeking alternatives to the 鈥渋n鈥� and 鈥渙ut,鈥� I explore creative ways in which artists,
advocates, and scholars have performed the intersections of gender, sexuality, race,
ethnicity, class, ability and nation when navigating the 鈥渨omen in jazz鈥� (and other
鈥淿___ in jazz鈥�) categories. What will it take to compose more innovative parameters
for embodied difference in socially engaged jazz practice and scholarship than struggles
over inclusion/exclusion, omission/addition, invisibility/recognition, yet, at the
same time, do not lose sight of power dynamics in unequal access?
About the Speaker
Sherrie Tucker, professor of American studies at the University of Kansasm, is the author of Dance Floor Democracy: the Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen (Duke, 2014), Swing Shift: 鈥淎ll-Girl鈥� Bands of the 1940s (Duke, 2000) and co-editor, with Nichole T. Rustin, of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies (Duke, 2008). She is a member of two major collaborative research initiatives: the International Institute of Critical Improvisation Studies and also Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice (for which she served as facilitator for the Improvisation, Gender, and the Body research area) both funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Tucker is a founding member of the Melba Liston Research Collective, a member of the
AUMI (Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) research team of the Deep Listening Institute,
and founding member of AUMI-KU InterArts, one of six member institutions of the AUMI
Research Consortium. She was the Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center
for Jazz Studies at Columbia University in 2004鈥�05, where she was a member of the
Columbia Jazz Study Group. With Randal M. Jelks, she co-edits the journal American Studies. Along with Deborah Wong and Jeremy Wallach she serves as a series editor for the
Music/Culture Series at Wesleyan University Press.