[PDF] Jazz and gender issues Mélodine Lascombes Lucas Le

Opposed to the pension reform and to the French law on research programming (LPPR), the editorial team of the journal Epistrophy would like to declare its solidarity with the ongoing protests of the Revues en lutte collective. Call for papers Epistrophy, the jazz journal - n°6 Jazz and gender issues Under the scientific direction of : Pauline Cornic With the collaboration of : Joana Desplat-Roger, Hugo Dumoulin, Édouard Hubert, Mélodine Lascombes, Lucas Le Texier. Numerous works have shown how jazz constitutes a field that is mostly polarized around a certain construction of the "masculine", whether in terms of gender roles distribution or rules of socialization, o r the way c ritical and ac ademic d iscourses have emerged. Practical and aesthetic standards have been established in specific ways, operating in particular through a factual or disc ursive sidelining of the women, cause and consequence of an implicitly or explicitly negative perception of what is regarded as "feminine". These phenomena of marginalization have led to specific subversive approaches by female instrumentalists and vocalists in jazz, both in terms of practice organization, of transmission, and socialization as much as on the musical content. Beyond the question of male hegemony and the place of women in jazz, arises the question of what this polarization reveals, what these categories of "feminine" and "masculine" in jazz discourse and practice contain, what is at stake in these gendered constructions, and how they relate t o other levels o f individual and co llective, personal and political identity, in the different cultural and temporal spaces in which jazz unfolds and has unfolded for more than a century.

In other wo rds, one has t o question the role t hat these g endered categories play within jazz and how the acc entuation of their opp osition c an be considered as specific to this music. Indeed, a comparison between jazz and other musical styles shows that the latter is particularly struck by the question of genre1 . Moreover, this gendered construction has been combined with a strong gender normativity linked to an exacerbated heteronormativity. It therefore seems important to question the notion of gender identit y within jazz, on queer, transgend er and non-binary identities in jazzistic practices and narratives. Epistrophy intends to explore these different questions through four non-exhaustive themes: Gender and jazz discourses While academic and journalistic discourses on jazz differ in many ways, particularly in the terminology used, their analyses remain in both cases, mostly established by men, which "reinfo rces the id ea that jazz is a male spac e, reiterating b inary constructions and irrefutably recreating what Judith But ler calls t he 'heterosexual male matrix'. 2» Beyond exclusion of the women from the jazz canon and their media and historiographical invisibility, we should study the way jazzwomen and their music are evo ked when they are, as well as t he way in which gendered co nstruc tions impact on critics journalistic or academic writings. What conceptions of gender do discourses on jazz reveal? How do these conceptions of gender influence the construction of the jazz canon? What spaces of exposure are accorded in jazz discourses to identities that fall outside the normative framework of gender and heterosexuality? Negotiating the identity and "authenticity" of jazz If the development of the jazz canon has been polarized around the masculine, it also implies a strong tens ion between gender and "authenticity" in jazz. Christopher Wells, for example, looking at the case of Ella Fitzgerald's debuts reception, showed that the feminine and the vocal had been as sociated with the po pular and the commercial, considering that female artists and audiences were unable to grasp the essence of instrumental jazz considered "authentic"3 . The logics at work behind this pro cess are num erous and reflect a complex interweaving of race, gender, class relations and authenticity of jazz. Therefore, this tension between gender and authenticity of jazz must be understood in the light of the relationship between gender and other aspects of identity, especially regarding the racial iss ue. The not ion of intersect ionality could b e particularly useful to apprehend these intertwined phenomena, and to question the power relationships and gendered identity constructs at stake in the debates on the "authenticity" of jazz. 1SeeCugny,2014.2Willis,2008,p.294:"Thelanguageusedinthesetwojazzspacesreinforcetheideaofjazzasamasculinespace,reiteratingbinaryconstructionsandpositivelyrecreatingwhatJudithButlerreferstoasthe"heterosexualmasculinematrix".3Wells,2017.

Jazz performance: representation, normativity and gender subversion One may wonder how gendered categories are neg otiated, represented and contested in musical practice and j azz perfo rmances. The case of v ocalists is particularly significant, as the exacerbated presence of the body in singing implies a direct relationship of the performer to his or her gender identity. Yet the body can also be what, in the context of the performance, will allow singers, through vocal interpretation, to establish strategies for subverting these gendered assignments. Where, in order not to be marginalized, instrumentalists will tend to adopt behaviors identified as male, to play like men, to "talk like men4" in the context of improvised musical discussion between musicians, vocalists will develop specific strat egies, sometimes in the order of what could be called a feminist signifyin' lodged in sound stylization5. If the case of vocal performances is specific, one should also be able to question instrumental performances, or even dance. What are the rep resentat ions of gender in jazz performances? How do thes e representations connect with the norms conveyed by the canons of jazz? What forms of subv ersion of gendered assignments, gend er normativ ity and/or heteronormativity are to be seen and heard in jazz performances? Gender identity and gender expression in jazz. Finally, the issue of gender identity needs to be considered upon more specifically in the light of issues related to transg ender, non-binary and queer ident ities. The hegemony of masculine has been coupled with a diffuse heteronormativity, which Sherrie Tucker questions in an original way when she asks herself when jazz became "straight"6. This approach allows us to examine the perspec tive from which j azz studies address questions of gender and sexuality. This question o f the identity of gender c ould just as well co ncern the aesthetic contents as the social practices of jazz, which are articulated around these issues. Which mode(s ) of representation(s) of queer, transgender and non-binary identity(ies) in jazz performances? What place for these different identities in jazz discourses? What does the historiography of jazz stud ies reveal about gender identity? What are the spaces of diffusion for these musicians? The perspectives outlined here appeal to all disciplinary fields. 4Willis,2008.5SeeBéthune,2018andCarby,2015.6SherrieTucker,"WhenDidJazzGoStraight? AQueerQuestionforJazzStudies",CriticalStudiesinImprovisation/CriticalStudiesinImprovisation,vol.4,n°2,2008,https://www.criticalimprov.com/index.php/csieci/article/view/850/1411.

Submission guidelines The issue "Jazz and Gender Issues" will be the subject of a symposium to be held in early 2021 in Nantes, and then published in the journal Epistrophy in the fall of 2021. Deadline for submission of communications proposals is set for September 1, 2020. They must be sent to epistrophy@epistrophy.fr. The editorial team of the journal will s hortlist the p roposals and inform t he applicants by September 30, 2020 at the latest. Proposals must include : - a title; - an abstract of approximately 3000 characters; - a brief bibliography; - a short bio-bibliography of the author; Recommended Bibliography Ake, David. " Re-Masculating Jazz: Ornette Coleman, "Lonely Wom an", and the New York Jazz Scene in the Late 1950s », American Music, vol. 16, n° 1, Spring 1998, p. 25-44. Arvidsson, Alf, Jazz, Gender, Authenticity : Proceedings of the 10th Nordic Jazz Research Conference, Stockholm August 30-31 2012 [Online], 2014,: , accessed on 04/17/2020. Atkins, Jennifer, " Class Acts and Daredevils: Black Masculinit y in Jazz F uneral Dancing », The Journal of American Culture, vol. 35, n° 2, June 2012, p. 166-180. Attrep, Kara, " From Juke Joints to Jazz Jams: The Political Economy of Female Club Owners » IASPM Journal, vol. 8, n° 1, 2008, p. 9-23. Baber, Katherine, " "Manhattan Women": Jazz, Blues, and Gender in On the Town and Wonderful Town American Music », vol. 31, n° 1, Spring 2013, p. 73-105. Barg, Lisa, " Queer Encount ers in the Music of Billy Stray horn », Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 66, n° 3, Autumn 2013, p. 771-824. Béthune, Christian, Blues, Féminisme et Société : Le Cas Lucille Bogan, Camion Blanc, 2018. Brown, Jayna, Babylon Girls : Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern, Duke University Press, 2008. Burke, Patrick, " Oasis of Swing: The Onyx Club, Jazz, and White Masculinity in the Early 1930's », American Music, vol. 24, n°3, Autumn 2006, p. 320-346.

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Rustin, Nichole T., and Tucker, Sherrie (dir.), Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies, Durham/London : Duke University Press, 2008. Sadikalay, Philip, " Le Geste Jazz et La Condition No ire F éministe : Une Étude Comparée Des Dissonanc es » [Online], Archipélies, n°6, 2018, , accessed on 04/17/2020. Suzuki, Yoko, " Two Strikes and the Double Negative: The Intersections of Gender and Race in the Cases Of Female Jazz Saxophonists », Black Music Research Journal, vol. 33, n°2, Autumn 2013, p. 207-226. T. Royst er, Francesca, " Queering the Jazz Aes thetic: An Interview with Sharon Bridgforth and Omi Osun Joni Jones », Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol. 25, no. 4, p. 537-552. Tucker, Sherrie, " Nobody's Sweethearts: Gender, Race, Jazz, and the Darling s of Rhythm », American Music, vol. 16, n° 3, Autumn 1998, p. 255-288. ---, " Telling Performances: Jazz History Remembered and Remade by the Women in the Band », The Oral History Review, vol. 26, n° 1, 1999, p. 67-84. ---, Swing Shift : "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s, Duke university Press, 2000. ---, " When Did Jazz Go Straight ? : A Queer Question for Jazz Studies » [Online], Critical Studies in Improvisation / Etudes Critiques En Improvisation, vol. 4, no. 2, 2008, , accessed on 04/17/2020. Wells, Christop her J., " "A Dreadful B it of Silliness": Feminine Frivolity and Ella Fitzgerald's Early Critical Reception », Women and Music: A Jo urnal of Gender and Culture, vol. 21, 2017, p. 43-65. White, Matthew B. " "'The Blues Ain't Nothin' But a Woman Want to Be a Man": Male Control in Early Twentieth Century Blues Music », Canadian Review of American Studies, vol. 24, n° 1, 1994, p. 19-22. Whiteley, Sheila, Women and Popular M usic: Sexua lity, Identity, and Subjectivity, Routledge, 2000. Willis, Vickie, " Be-in-Tween the Spa[]Ces: The Location of Women and Subversion in Jazz », The Journal of American Culture, vol. 31, n° 3, September 2008, p. 293-301.