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Revolutionary Women In Jazz

Dianne Reeves

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Revolutionary Women In Jazz Revolutionary Women in Jazz aims to inform users about the trajectory and path breaking experiences of talented women from different ethnic backgrounds who defied societal norms. The project examines their struggle against gendered and racialized social standards during the mid- twentieth century. This digital project defines “Revolutionary Women in Jazz” by referring to women who had to overcome barriers of race, musical talent, and/ or gender oppression. While many of the women shared common themes, i.e., family life, influence, the sources did not yield a similar result for all of the women. However, because of the information's relevance, our DHi team deemed it important to include. We found the following women to be just a few Revolutionary Women in Jazz out of many: Ann Rabson, Dianne Reeves, Etta Jones, Holly Hofmann, Maria Schneider, Mary Lou Williams, Michi Fuji, Nancy Wilson, Terri Lyne Carrington, and Vi Redd.

How To Use This Website
Navigating and using this website is very simple. At the top left of the website there is an icon that when hovered over with the mouse reveals the navigation menu for the website. From here, you can access and explore any part of the website and visit pages on each individual woman. Also included on the webpages are YouTube videos of various video clips of the particular woman beign interviewed. They can simply be viewed by clicking on them effectively pressing play. After that there are also full transcripts of the interviews that can be viewed.

Sarah Pickup, Lissette Acosta, Matt Goon, and Terri Moise completed this project in fulfillment of the partial requirement of the Introduction to Digital Humanities Course taught by Dr. Angel Nieves at Hamilton College.
Dianne Reeves Dianne Reeves
INDEPENDENCE
From an early age Dianne Reeves learned that it was not possible to sing the same song the exact same way twice. She learned that in fact, it was very difficult. At first, this really disappointed her but it was from that point on that she learned that it is important to have your own concepts when you’re dealing with music and songs. She truly wanted to develop her own voice.¹ After Dianne’s first album, the critics were very harsh towards her. They claimed that she was “too broad” and then was singing too traditionally. However, this only made her skin tougher because she realized that there was something stronger than their words. Dianne realized that in her heart, she was doing what she loved and what was correct and that that was the most important thing. Once realizing this, she truly took off and followed herself.² Dianne believes that music, especially jazz music, should be without boundaries. She realized from an early age that you could take any popular music and make it into your own and make it jazz. With this, she has always wanted to sing the songs that really addressed her life early on.³ When Dianne has to improvise, she claims that for her, the way she does it has a lot to do with what the song is about for her.⁴ In her music, Dianne has certain feelings and emotions she wants to project. Even when working with a band she realizes the importance of having her own voice. She often finds herself sitting down with her band members and telling them what it was she wants to do and what it was that she wants to sing.⁵ Having your own voice and fighting for your own voice is truly important in music. Dianne does not think she would be able to survive in todays recording world because there are too many regulations and people are losing sight of who they are. Dianne believes that you have to fight for what is yours and fight for what you want.⁶ “I just want to be Dianne Reeves… You must stress, in the very beginning, that you want to be your own self. Because that’s what is needed.”⁷ Dianne finds success in always feeling more comfortable being hungry. She puts herself in positions that are somewhat scary and that make her dig deep and find things. For her, improvising is her “soul utterance.” She feels that whatever she sings, improvise or lyrics, is all the same. The biggest fear that she has had to overcome was in between songs. She used to be so uncomfortable and has had to learn how to deal with that and find a way to make it work both for herself and for the audience. What she ended up doing was improvising at the end of every song and then that would lead into a story. She found that she was much better at telling a story through song than speaking so she made that work for her.⁸
INFLUENCE
Dianne has found that music does not have boundaries. With her foundation in jazz, she finds ways to take the influences of other music and make it her own.⁹ When performing with Harry Belafonte, Reeves realized that she had all of these songs that came from all over the world with such dual meanings. Some of them were political, some social, and she found that the way that she performed the songs was the way that she communicated these messages. This shows that the social and political encounters that she faced, were truly influential in the way that she performed. She also realized that after her experience with Harry Belafonte, she didn’t care as much about her instrument of her voice, but rather that she wanted to be able to tell stories and use the colors that she gathered from the very beginning to color the words and make her point clear with her story. None of this would have been the case if it wasn’t for the influence Belafonte had on Dianne, especially with his rich, beautiful, but simple harmonies.¹⁰ One critique Dianne Reeves has during her interview with Monk Rowe is with the music industry. She feels as though in music today, too many producers are making artists a blank piece of paper that they can write all over to make them what they want to hear and see for their company. The new artists are fighting to have their own voice in the music industry in the new and controlling world of today.¹¹ When Dianne listens to other people’s jazz music, she always thinks to herself, “how do you do that” and “why did you do that, “can I add a different dimension to this?” She uses the music of others to realize what it is that she wants to do and how she wants to project her story to an audience.¹² When asked, “How would you sing to America after September 11th?” Dianne answered, “I guess the way I am now, from my heart. The interesting thing about what happened September 11th is it brought about, God, a profound sense of fear that I don’t think that I’ve ever felt before. But also it made me think about some of the stories that my grandmother used to tell me of the things that she went through. And I heard the stories but I didn’t feel that kind of fear. Didn’t know what she’d been through, being like just a could steps out of slavery. And one of the things that came out of it was forward movement and try to stay aware and clear and present. Because there are so many things right now that are happening that can seduce you into feeling like maybe- not that it’s worse than what it is, but losing your, I don’t know, your things that you believe in. Breaking down your belief systems. And you can’t let it do that. So I will continue to sing the kinds of songs the kinds of music that I’ve always sung, the kind of music that’s always gotten me through, and the kind of music that really has gotten me through this time.”¹³ This shows that she has been influenced by current events and that these events both drive her and humble her and it is reflected in her music and what she sings. Music saved Dianne’s life. Growing up she would always listen to music that was a backdrop from the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. The music was full of hope, positivity, and brotherhood on all different levels. This music addressed issues about how men felt about women, political issues, as well as social meanings. All of these things were very beautiful to Dianne and she needed to hear all of it in order for it to push her through to be the woman that she is today.¹⁴ When Monk Rowe asks Dianne “Were there horn players that inspired you from an improvisation standpoint?” Dianne replies that one of the biggest and earliest influences in her life was Cannonball Adderley. She heard him when she was really young and he really inspired her when it came to his way of creating places and times and pictures with an instrument that had no words. She says that with this, he was able to take you to these certain places and feel certain feelings about this places that you had both been to as well as never been to in your life. This feeling was made very familiar to you through his music and was even accompanied with pictures and this truly inspired and influenced Dianne.¹⁵
FAMILY LIFE
Dianne Reeves comes from a very long lineage of musicians in her family. Her cousin is George Duke but she also has an uncle who started out playing with the San Francisco Symphony and then played with the Colorado Symphony for over 40 years. She also had two great aunts and a great uncle who were musicians and they played the music of the early 1900s, which was much more blues oriented. Growing up, music was all around Dianne and always playing in her house. When Dianne told her family that she wanted to be a musician and make a career out of it they were very supportive. Her mother did not exactly understand at first what she was going to do with it, or what Dianne even wanted to do, but she was always supportive. Her father also was always the person who was making it possible for Dianne to follow her dreams and supported her the entire way. Lastly, her uncle was truly her mentor from early on and was always there for her. ¹⁶
EDUCATION
Dianne was mostly a very self- taught and self- driven musician. This is proven when Monk asks her about all of the method books that are out nowadays and if she uses them. Dianne replies by saying that they only came out much later in her career and that she never really used them. Most of her talent was gained through experience and teaching herself through what she was observing around her.¹⁷
RACE
The issue of race arises when Monk asks Dianne how she feels about the fact that Jane Monheit was on the cover of the “New York Times Magazine” even though Dianne had been around for about ten to twelve years longer. Dianne’s response to this was interesting because she said that it did not matter to her whether or not she was on the cover but more that she has a criticism of the industry as a whole. Sarah Vaughan is a black female artist who didn’t win a Grammy until she was 59 years old. She is an incredible artist and had tons of experience with many different talented jazz musicians but because she was black, she was not recognized for her work. However, Dianne claims that she draws strength from things like this and it only inspires her and other women of color in jazz to push back harder and truly make themselves known.¹⁸

Sample performance:

For full interview transcript, read the following:

1 For more details see, Dianne Reeves, interview by Monk Rowe and Michael Woods, Hamilton College Jazz Archive, October 13, 2001, lines 32-40, transcript.
2 Interview, lines 67-74.
3 Interview, lines 78- 86.
4 Interview, lines 185- 186.
5 Interview, lines 115- 124.
6 Interview, lines 257- 275.
7 Interview, lines 279- 281.
8 Interview, lines 352- 365.
9 Interview, lines 78- 86.
10 Interview, lines 213- 224.
11 Interview, lines 243- 275.
12 Interview, lines 168- 175.
13 Interview, lines 412- 426.
14 Interview, lines 322- 331.
15 Interview, lines 41- 48.
16 Interview, lines 125- 135.
17 Interview, lines 201- 204
18 Interview, lines 237- 248.