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In the 1920s, women singing jazz music were not many, but women playing instruments in jazz music were even less common. Mary Lou Williams, known for her talent as a piano player, is deemed as one of the "mothers of jazz" due to her singing while playing the piano at the same time. [4] Lovie Austin (1887–1972) was a piano player and bandleader.
The first black American to host her own TV show, The Hazel Scott Show. Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidadian jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representation of Black Americans in film.
Anna Mae Winburn (née Darden; August 13, 1913 – September 30, 1999) was an American vocalist and jazz bandleader who flourished beginning in the mid-1930s. An African-American, she is best known for having directed the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, an all-female big band that was perhaps one of the few – and one of the most – racially integrated dance-bands of the swing era. [1]
Karen Briggs (born August 12, 1963), also known as the " Lady in Red ", is an American violinist. Born in Manhattan to a family of musicians, Briggs took up the violin at age 12 and committed to playing professionally at age 15. Briggs joined the Virginia Symphony Orchestra while still in college, but grew discontented with performing classical ...
In 1983, Duke University established the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture [41] Since 1996, The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. has an annual Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival. [42] Since 2000, her archives are preserved at Rutgers University's Institute of Jazz Studies in Newark. [43]
Jazz historian Rosetta Reitz pointed out that by the time Waters returned to Harlem in 1921, women blues singers were among the most powerful entertainers in the country. In 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for tiny Cardinal Records. She later joined Black Swan, where Fletcher Henderson was her accompanist. Waters ...
Carmen McRae. Carmen Mercedes McRae (April 8, 1920 – November 10, 1994) was an American jazz singer. [1] She is considered one of the most influential jazz vocalists of the 20th century and is remembered for her behind-the-beat phrasing and ironic interpretation of lyrics. [2]
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the " Empress of the Blues ", she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era ...