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Revolutionary Women In Jazz

Nancy Wilson

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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.
Nancy Wilson Nancy Wilson
INDEPENDENCE
Nancy Wilson is a bold woman who was very independent. All throughout her life and her work she has focused on herself and it can truly be said that this has brought her much success. Nancy Wilson is truly an independent woman when it comes to being a true jazz artist. She admits to this and also admits to not being a true jazz vocalist. She does not scat and believes in being true to herself. She believes that being true to yourself involves an aspect of being able to improvise and leave the melodic structure. She is a lyricist and does not believe in the spoken word first, but that you truly have to come at it as an actress first before coming to it talking about the music.¹ Nancy does not truly care about being in show business and likes that she can be herself when working with John Levy, her long time partner. He has allowed her to be her own person and this has helped her be independent and enhance her music.² During Nancy’s first album with Billy May, he tried to write charts for her and two of her songs from her demos came out completely not how she expected. She feels as though as long as she is honest and up front, the music can be all hers and she can change what has been given to her. She does not let people tell her what she has to do with her music and does not believe in “molding people.” She believes that if you surround yourself with people who truly care about you and care about your music, then it is much easier to do what you want to do and do what is best for you.³ During Nancy’s beginning years in music, she was told many horror stories about the show business and how musicians were told they had to do certain things. For example, they were supposed to go to the bar. Nancy did not agree with this and told them no, she would not do the things she did not want to do because they didn’t have an effect on her music and bettering herself. She claims that if it has to do with her music or her on stage or her performance, then she is open for a conversation, but if it has nothing to do with that, “no.”⁴ Nancy just wanted to sing. She does not want to be in the show business and she made that very clear by making music and show business two separate things. She claims that you can get caught up in the show business and become totally involved and allow it to be the master but that is not what she wanted. She has told herself that the show business was not for her and that she needed to do things her own way in order to maintain, to be sane, and to be herself. She prefers to be herself rather than anybody else.⁵ When Nancy first moved to New York she was somewhat by herself. However, she felt that she did not choose to be in New York City and not be able to support herself. In order to survive while she was there, Nancy found many different jobs that allowed her to both work during the day and perform at night. She felt strongly about the fact that she was trying to earn her way into the music world and that she didn’t think it was “anybody’s responsibility but mine.”⁶
INFLUENCE
Male artists mostly influenced Nancy when she was growing up. She mostly listened to Little Jimmy Scott, Nat Cole, Bull Moose Jackson, Laverne Baker, Ruth Brown and Dinah. Her father was the one who bought the records so consequently she mostly listened to male artists.⁷ It was not until she was around 15 that she started hearing female artists. Because of all of the male artist influences, she mostly comes from a R&B and blues background than jazz.⁸ Nancy has been influenced to come from an old, traditional stance. Within her music she likes a story with a beginning, middle, and end and something that touches your heart. What truly influences her within a song is when the lyrics talk about relationships, the love of a man for a woman, woman, children, and God. All of these things inspire her and influence her to truly do what she loves and sing the songs with all of her heart and soul.⁹ When asked what advice Nancy has for young singers in Columbus, Ohio like she was, trying to get to New York, Nancy gives an answer that is truly inspirational and influential for young artists. She says “Sing anyplace they ask you to sing. Use your voice. Work. Learn your craft. And you can’t learn your craft at home. You need to work those little rooms. You need to put your music in front of people, not in a studio. You need to work. And this is something they’ve gotten away from. And we need rooms for these young people to learn their craft. We need more little Club Regals and more little places for kids to play. More places where you can just got and just have a piano if you can’t have a rhythm section. The object of the game is to put your music and put yourself in front of people. You don’t learn your craft just in front of a microphone.”¹⁰
FAMILY LIFE
Nancy has two daughters and a son. Her daughters are 19 and 20 and her son is 33 years old. When the kids were all younger, Nancy made it a priority to make sure that she was home with the kids. While doing this, she took a break from her singing because her family was so important to her.¹¹

Sample performance:

For full interview transcript, read the following:
1 For more details see, Nancy Wilson, interview by Monk Rowe, Hamilton College Jazz Archive, November 16, 1995, lines 45-55, transcript.
2 Interview, lines 121-125.
3 Interview, lines 208-297.
4 Interview, lines 297-301.
5 Interview, lines 306- 311.
6 Interview, lines 165- 174.
7 Interview, lines 88- 93.
8 Interview, lines 97-98.
9 Interview, lines 225- 232.
10 Interview, lines 392- 401.
11 Interview, lines 210- 213.