To date, 96 women are listed in our Jazzwomen Directory
Feel free to click on the links, watch the videos of our Amazing Musicwomen Presentation, and please share with others.
Join our global organization that promotes women musicians:
Listen to the archives of over 275 podcasts with women composers:
Listen and purchase our 6 CDs of women composers:
Music: Work or Play?
By Professor Joan Cartwright
[March 25, 2016] Most musicians begin their careers at four or five years old and continue until they die. Does the term play effect people’s thinking about what musicians really do? Does the action of playing music mean that musicians do not work?
In my 40-year career as a vocalist and songwriter, I have run into stone walls getting to the next level. I started singing at a theater in Jamaica, New York, at the age of four. By eight, I was a headliner in the annual Bernice Johnson Dance Recital. Mother doted on my Shirley Temple curls and my outfits of shiny tinsel and crinoline-lined, lacy dresses, not to mention the ballet, tap, and interpretive costumes my parents paid for.
I studied piano with a woman whose name is long forgotten. But her stern face never encouraged me to learn. I was 27 when I met Gerald Price, the musician whose demeanor catalyzed my growth as a vocalist, pianist, and composer. My harp teacher, Caliope Proios, with whom I studied for two years, listened to my life stories as she showed me the difficulties of changing pedals and string fingering.
In the seventies, my formal education involved music, but I dueled my B.A. with Communications, a new department, separate from English. Television production fell under this banner, with radio, journalism, marketing and advertising, while The Medium is the Message (1964) by Marshall McLuhan led me to do everything to get the message out that I am a musician and I have something to say.
For the first 10 years of my career, I was paid to do what I love – sing. But I was told that singing for free at benefits was good ‘for exposure’ by a singer friend. However, I decided that we would get more exposure standing on a corner, taking our tops off than performing at benefits. Finally, I told people, “I can do it, but I cannot ask musicians to work for free.”
After all, I worked (or played) with grown men and women who had children to feed and bills to pay. Every doctor and lawyer has pro bono cases in their filing cabinet that comprise less than 10% of their case load. But a musician, who plays for a living, is invited to perform at benefits at the ratio of three benefits to one gig. This had to stop and I was the only one who could stop it.
In 1990, I traveled overseas to sing in Switzerland, where I was treated with dignity. Europeans do not see musicians as people who play. Music is work. So, I was paid well and given lots of respect. When I returned to the States, in 1996, people treated me better than before I took the step across the big pond. I determined that musicians must leave the comfort of their homeland in order to be appreciated at home.
Ten years later, I had completed a five-month tour of Asia, and people in Atlanta, who never thought of me as a professional before, seemed to take me more seriously. In China, I worked at two clubs, where I did not make as much money as I did in 1990. Musicians’ pay always reduces, while the cost of living rises. That is ridiculous. People think musicians do not pay bills. After all, they spend their lives playing instead of working like other people.
The truth is that musicians do the job that doctors and lawyers cannot do. In one hour, musicians heal hundreds, even thousands of people. The right song keeps a couple from divorcing or pushes them to see that they are not right for each other, saving thousands of dollars of legal deliberation.
Music permeates the planet, bringing joy to all who hear it. People enjoy a concert more than they do a hospital stay or sitting in law office. Yet, they will pay doctors and lawyers extortionate fees and squint, when they get a high quote for a band of four or five adults to perform at a wedding or office party, where they will be enjoying themselves because of the music!
I am befuddled at what people will pay for and what they want to get for free. Learning music is not free. You pay for lessons. You pay with your time to practice. You continue to learn more music. You must stay in front of the pack in order to be seen, heard, and appreciated. Producing music is not free. Studio time is extremely costly. Paying musicians to perform your music is expensive, even if they are your friends. Mixing and mastering music is expensive (up to $100 per song). Duplicating CDs, producing videos, and marketing music runs into the thousands. But getting paid for a gig can be the hardest part of a musician’s job.
Finally, unlike most professionals, there is little in the way of retirement or insurance funding for musicians, who do not belong to the Musician’s Union, which few musicians either can or will afford. Musicians give joy to others throughout their lives and, unless they have a hit song or record, they have very little income to fall back on in their old age. Most die destitute, leaving little inheritance for their spouse and offspring.
It is uncanny. What brings people the most pleasure, rarely sustains those who create it. But the beat goes on and, somehow, musicians find venues where they can keep the music
playing. (918 words)
References
McLuhan, M. (1964). The medium is the message. Understanding media: The extensions of man. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdf
__________________________________________
Diva Joan Cartwright is an internationally-known vocalist, composer, and author of 11 books. She holds a BA in Music/Communications from LaSalle U, in Philadelphia, PA; an MA in Communications from FAU, in Boca Raton, FL; and is a doctoral candidate for a DBA in Business Marketing online at Northcentral University, in Prescott Valley, AZ. Since 1997, Joan has been the CEO of FYI Communications, Inc. and, since 2007, her non-profit, Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. with 304 members promotes women musicians, globally. In 2016, WIJSF released its 6th CD of the music of women composers. Joan hosts an online radio show, MUSICWOMAN, featuring women composers at www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman. Joan’s personal CDs are Feelin’ Good (1995) and In Pursuit of a Melody (2005). She owns MJTV Network with her daughter Mimi Johnson and she is actor in the sitcoms Last Man and The Siblings produced at www.mjtvnetwork.info. In 2014, Joan was honored in Atlanta, GA, as the first Lady Jazz Master. In 2016, she was honored as one of the Top 25 Women of Color in Business and Leadership by Legacy Magazine. She has two children (Michael Serrano and Mimi Johnson), five grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. She is retired from music performance and resides in Sunrise, Florida. Currently, Joan is a professor of Speech Communications as Southeastern College in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Diva JC Online:
Of course Jazzmen are dynamic. So are Amazing Musicwomen!
Freddie Hubbard is an icon! He recorded my tune SWEET RETURN (1983) and put it in his Song Book making me historical (herstorical). I sat at the feet of Miles, Diz, Buhaina, Shepp, Yusef, Rahsaan, McCoy, and Ron Carter, learning all I could about the art of improvisation. I sat with Helen Morgan 3 years before she shot Lee. I AM JAZZ!
Joan Cartwright, Freddie Hubbard, Jerry (owner of Allotria in Munich, Germany) Jeff Chambers, lady, Ronnie Matthews circa 1993
I’ve been in conversations with Ella, Betty Carter, Irene Reid, Ruth Brown, Abbey Lincoln, and Dorothy Donegan. I was THERE at the Blue Note, Slugs in the Far East (Village) with Lee Morgan, Buhaina, Miles, Frank Foster, Charles McPherson, Bill Hardman and Joe Lee Wilson, Village Gate, at the Galleon (Bronx), and the Village Vanguard with Lou Donaldson, Dr. Lonnie Smith who recorded my first demo tape with me that got me gigs all over the European continent. Ellington’s bass player Aaron Bell first listened to my tune “Loneliblue” and said the musicians would love playing it.
Joe Lee Wilson and Joan Cartwright, Brighton, England
With Lou Donaldson at Jazz Inn, London, UK
Joan Cartwright and Dorothy Donegan, Marian’s Jazz Room, Bern, Switzerland (1996)
Abbey Lincoln and Joan Cartwright, Montreux Jazz Festival (1993)
Joan Cartwright and Betty Carter, IAJE Conference, El Paso, TX, 1993
In Philly, Gerald Price taught me composition and piano, and in New York, Barry Harris was my teacher on piano and vocals. Budd Johnson was my babysitter from 4-8 years old. Milt Hinton (The Judge) was my cousin’s Godfather and he got me my first gig in Berne, Switzerland, at Marion’s Jazz Room, in 1990. I sat on Jay McShann’s lap and asked him to marry me. I proposed marriage to Quincy Jones just before I interview him for my Master’s Thesis, The Cultural Politics of Commercial Jazz, in 1993, which explained why I had to go to Europe (1990-1998) to make a living. In July 2013, I gave my book A History of African American Jazz and Blues to Quincy with the interview I did of him in 1993, 20 years earlier, in the exact same building – Stravinsky Hall, in Montreux, Switzerland [photo].
I AM Jazz!
With Quincy Jones, Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland, at Claude Nobs’ Chalet, 1993
I am the Chronicler of this music. While everyone else was PLAYING, I was documenting it. I met Quincy Troupe, co-writer of Miles’ biography. I penned lyrics to A NIGHT IN TUNISIA, TUNE UP, BLUE BOSSA, and BESSIE’S BLUES and sang them all over Europe, the East Coast of the USA, and in China and Japan. I Am the female Jazz Messenger, who sang on Jazzmobile with Buhaina, Frank Foster, Frank Wes, George Coleman, and Charles McPherson. The first person to take me on the road was Philly Joe Jones, who took me to Baltimore to perform with Shirley Scott, Arthur Harper (bass), and Sonny Stitt, in 1978. I AM the only woman in the world with a Jazz and Blues Song Book that I submitted to the Guinness Book of Records.
Google me – www.joancartwright.com. But, more importantly, I am the foremost authority on Women in Jazz and Blues and I will not be quieted about the role of women as the Mothers of the Blues and the innovators of Jazz. That’s why, in 2007, I founded www.wijsf.org to promote women musicians, globally! That’s why, since 2008, I’ve interviewed over 200 women composers at www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman
That’s why I created the Jazzwomen Directory that features 90 women musicians that most musicians, let alone people, do not know about and I put 40 of them in my book Amazing Musicwomen that I taught over 10,000 students (3-12 grade and college) in the U.S., Switzerland, Sicily, China, and Japan about.
I AM JAZZ!
Joan Cartwright and Dizzy Gillespie, Sunfest, West Palm Beach, FL 1985
READ my books:
This book Amazing Musicwomen has lots of information about Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Marian McPartland, Peggy Lee, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, and other Musicwomen. Musicwoman Radio and Musicwoman Magazine tell the stories of Amazing Musicwomenwho paved the way for vocalists, song stylists, singers, composers, and instrumentalists. Their songs are from The American Song Book that includes original songs like Alberta Hunter’s “Downhearted Blues”, “Handy Man”, and “Rough & Ready Man” plus songs of Broadway composers of the early 1900s, Duke Ellington, Billie Strayhorn, Hoagy Carmichael, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Fats Waller, and Broadway composers Michel LeGrande, Stevie Wonder, Burt Bacharach and Isaac Hayes. [NOTE, after Alberta Hunter, the absence of women composers. Who were they? Does anybody know?] OK, Barbra Streisand, Carol King, Carly Simon, Roberta Flack, and who else? www.lulu.com/spotlight/divajc
References
Cartwright, J. (2008). Amazing Musicwomen. FYI Communications, Inc.
Davis, A.Y. (1999). Blues legacies and black feminism. New York: Random House.
©2014 Joan Cartwright, M.A.
Newest Members of Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that promotes women musicians, globally. Join us
Watch now
During my stay in Kingston, Jamaica, where I performed for the U.S. Embassy’s Blues on the Green Concert on February 26, 2010, I visited two primary schools: Linstead and Windwood Road, where I shared my books with several students ages 10-14. They sang songs from my book SONGS FOR MY CHILDREN, specifically, "Butterfly" and "Funky Monkey". I shared the stories of AMAZING MUSICWOMEN and the advice and guidance from my book SO, YOU WANT TO BE A SINGER? A manual for up-and-coming Divas, composers and musicians.
The U.S. Embassy purchased 16 of each book for a total of 48 books to donate to the two schools (8 each). This is such an honor for me and the music teacher at Windward Road Primary told me that she really appreciated my talking with the students about the business of music. She said she emphasized the business side of music and my talk was confirmation of what she’s been instilling in the students.
The concert was a blast. I performed with the Maurice Gordon Quartet and the Blues was just wonderful as the audience sang along with me to their delight and to mine, "Oh, Baby!" See photos at: http://www.joancartwright.com
I enjoyed the four days I spent on this island in the sun. The people were very friendly and the embassy staff took care of me, calling me "Diva" at every turn!
I was a guest on three radio shows with Diane Thomas (KOOL.FM), Michael Anthony Cuff (Power 106 FM) and Allan Magnus and Paula Ann Porter (RJR). Then, I was on TV with hosts Neville Bell and Simon Crosskill on the morning television show "Smile, Jamaica" and "CVM at Sunrise" with Miss Jamaica, who had attended one of our concerts in Lauderhill, Florida, in 2009. What a coincidence!
Many thanks to Angella Harvey and Fern Whyte of the U.S. Embassy for this extraordinary experience!
Links:
See all of my books:http://fyicomminc.com/books.html
The key to the internet is networking. Visit and join our networks.
For several years, I’ve built a site with content from emails and online of interest to me and, obviously, others. Click the image to see the 92 posts I’ve saved there. Here, I will add other conversations.
WORDS.
What do they mean?
As a musician and wordist, I have the opportunity to communicate with lots of people worldwide about the challenges of artists in this present economy. Actually, very little has changed for most musicians. We “play” music, therefore the larger society doesn’t really take us serious. We’re expected to pay all of our bills, but we’re also asked to perform for FREE or next to FREE on more than one occasion. The account that follows speaks to this problem.
Heather,
I’m waving lots of flags. Here are some of them – http://www.floridajazznetwork.com
Here, the government is supposed to be “The People”. However, when parents allow the arts to be taken out of school and give their children drugs to subdue their creativity, we definitely have a problem. Obviously, it’s not just on this side of the planet. Your attestation confirms it’s a disease around the world.
Of course, Europeans appreciate the arts. Maybe we need to meet in Italy! Even there, they don’t have much money to pay anymore.
What to do? What to do?
Let’s keep talking and see if we can come up with a solution. We surely have a wide space in which to work. America ——— Australia.
Love and Music,
Joan
From: Heather
To: Joan
Sent: Sun, November 22, 2009 5:32:51 AM
Subject: Re: Music heals alllllllllllll!
Yes! There’s quite a number of us out there, so we’ll need to wave some pretty big signs…and ask for help from above!
Thank you for your email. It’s so weird to have this conversation with you, then have it in the park where I went for a picnic soon after!
Lobbying the government will be the hardest part – as usual.
Have a good week : )
2009/11/22
Understanding is a wonderful thing. See the new blog I started, based on an old site I’ve been building on my website for many years. http://www.wordswespeak.wordpress.com. Be sure to follow the link
I think all of what you’ve said is true about here too.
POPE is more like POOP, Place of ODD People is what a jazz space is now.
On Oct 17, we had 100 people at our jazz series #1.
Tonight, at #2, we had about 50 people. Why? Everyone in Florida is at the Classics.
Now, you would think that means a Euro-Music concert.
Noooooooooooooooottttttttt
Official Site Of The Florida Classic
Negroes really know how to reuse Caucasian terms. Here, it stand for Sports!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go figure.
About medicine and music, did you ever see http://www.healingmusic.com
I pay $50 a year to be on this site. Joan Cartwright [North America, Florida, USA]
Maybe one day, the world will turn back from killing and competing to sweet soul music. Let’s hope.
JC
November 21, 2009 8:33:50 PM
Re: Music heals alllllllllllll!
Hahaha – what a response! How do I answer all that? Ah, see the responses in purple. Hope it makes sense. cheers, Heather
Heather,
This message is so full of FOOD FOR THOUGHT for http://www.musicwoman.ning.com
We need to break it down. From my point, here are some points to ponder:
I was so busy studying and stressed to the max with an ill man in my life! WHICH ARE YOU DOING NOW? Men tend to be a great obstruction to a woman’s musical career. Neither. Just finished study. Moved out in July, so the man is at arm’s length. In recuperation mode (for both of us) – altho’ he is still not at all well, and yes, I will look out for him but on my timetable. I’m now looking for permanent work, either in teaching or where I am in the Bureau of Statistics – Commonwealth job.
Dealing with one thing at a time and the job circuit and world is opening out. IS MUSIC YOUR CAREER? Please expand on “the is world opening out.” Kind of. To do music in this country, you need another job. For most, it’s instrumental teaching – or an office job. For me, doing classroom music teaching was to keep a foot in both camps. I put my teaching start date off until next year. At the moment, I’m working a bureacratic life in a government office but it keeps everything together while I get my creative feathers together again. (I stopped doing a lot of things musical for about 6 years.) So putting MY style of chart together has moved up the list, hindered a little by the fact that I used the piano as my tool, which was sold earlier this year. Right now, I’m in a home without a piano for the first time in my entire life. In a way, it’s OK ‘cos I have to clean up all the other mess in my life to make way, if you know what I mean. So it won’t be a distraction for a few months. Once I clear the hoardings away, there will be room for a piano in the basement. The man I ‘look after’ said I could have his lovely Ronisch. He nearly sold it. I begged him to keep it for me until I had room…and he did. He’s a good egg. His illness and side-affects filled my headspace with other angst that I truly didn’t need at the time. So now it’s up to me to get it all moving. It does depend a little on where the permanent work pops up! I’m breathing easy. For some reason, the universe has kept saying “sit tight”…so I’ll just do things bit by bit and do JUST that!
It makes sense but left my pal bitter about musicians and their carelessness. THIS IS THE BEAST WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH. How do we raise consciousness. I don’t know. The government heads and administrators talk but hardly put action or money where their mouth is…I’m kind of hoping that the medical science world is the way to get music back high on the agenda. You see, a lot of prominent people say ‘we all need music’, yet it isn’t reflected in attitudes among education or business people. The Arts is the first to suffer in the financial crisis, yet it is the substance that people need most at such a time. We don’t have philosophers like Aristotle around anymore, even Dewey, to raise the consciousness of the wellbeing of mankind – and music is a big contributor to the way our minds develop and process thought.
Local government laws which abandoned the licensing of live music venues. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Musicians are facing real challenges in society today. Our local government decided that if places were to put on live music, they needed to be licenced for such a purpose, as a POPE: Place of Public Entertainment. See: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/live-music-gets-a-boost-in-nsw-20091023-hcgw.html
I’ve gotta choof off for some FREEEEEEEEE creativity. WHAT’S CHOOF? Run/go. I’ve gotta run, or I’ve gotta go. Taken, I think, from the sound of a choo-choo train moving out of the station. Gotta choof! (Aussie slang, from Queensland, I think…where I grew up.) I could be wrong but I haven’t heard of another explanation.
: ) Heather
Joan
November 21, 2009 1:47:19 AM
Re: Music heals alllllllllllll!
Yes, Joan.
You are SO right.
It’s taken me 20 years to learn that lesson. Worse still, there have been open-minded (men) players around who said they are available for me! So I really need to get my shit together. I was so busy studying and stressed to the max with an ill man in my life! Dealing with one thing at a time and the job circuit and world is opening out.
I also need to learn how to have valuable time for me and my energy so there’s enough there for the creativity!
As said before, I’m co-writing with a VERY talented individual. I think he and I are coming from the same page. Unlike me, he didn’t stop doing music. However, he was burnt by a “starlet” – who rushed off to make $’000’s (supposedly) at the drop of a hat after his composition, energy and production time put her where she is today. THAT to me is poor taste – no matter how hard everyone is trying for a paid gig.
In a way, I guess it suits her – because she’s the crowd control performer…not really creative. So it makes sense but left my pal bitter about musicians and their, shall we say, carelessness.
Meanwhile, more Sydney venues have ‘closed out’ (as opposed to “shut down”)…despite a change in local government laws which abandoned the licensing of live music venues.
More later, I’ve gotta choof off for some FREEEEEEEEE creativity. : )
Heather x
2009/11/19
Heather,
First, let me say that your messages bring me such LIGHT! and I appreciate you even more than words can express.
Next, I sent you an invite to a private ning network, http://www.this-is-jazz.ning.com
Please join and CAREFULLY invite other jazzers in Australia to join IF YOU KNOW THEY UNDERSTAND WHERE REAL JAZZ CAME FROM.
Finally, I’ve passed up lots of opportunities to teach in the school system here for one reason – I refuse to subject myself to the narrow views of school officials and the outright disrespect of students. At 61 (62 on Dec 7), I’m not in the frame of mind to be insulted on a daily basis.
What I’m doing is promoting THE LAUDERHILL JAZZ SERIES and soliciting ads and sponsorship for this program so badly needed here since most of the jazz venues have become parking lots. I just put up new videos from our concert on Oct 17. See http://www.floridajazznetwork.com/fjnvideos.htm
About your band and music selections. The first group I worked with was Siembre, a latin jazz band of 8 men and me. I was with them for 1 year in Philadelphia. I loved being the center of attention, however, after one year of them doing conga solos on EVERY SONG I SANG, including ballads like My Funny Valentine and In A Sentimental Mood, I decided to leave the band and form my own jazz group – Take Five with piano, bass, drums, sax and me. I got to pick all the music we did and sang my original lyrics and songs.
This is what I’m teaching women to do – BE TRUE TO YOURSELF. If the musicians don’t want to do your material, get some more musicians.
Please let’s continue this conversation on the ning network. It’s very very important.
Love
Joan
November 18, 2009, 3:32 AM
Joan
Thank you, thank you so much!
I’m reading the book: The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidges.
It’s about neuroplasticity…and he is forever referring to cases about music and education.
For the same reason, I have every hope for the siamese twins that were just separated at the head. Now that the medical world and psychologists are recognising how we can shape our brains to shape ourselves and the information it absorbs, there are many ways to repair lost, damaged or traumatised cells.
Ah Joan,
I’m not sure why but I’m letting music teaching jobs slip by! I’ve passed with flying colours (100% for both assessments in my final semester). At this point, all I hear the univers saying is “sit tight”. I have no idea why yet. I sit quite content in a government bureaucratic job. Either way, there is room for developing my own music – so it’s like I would be juggling which path I travel down now.
Hmmm. What your book can’t address is when singers (namely me, on this occasion) have a dummy spit because the band boys are being too patronising, deceptive, controlling over the artistic output. Needless to say, the band I joined at the beginning of the year (with a view to Christmas functions work etc once we were out and about) is not on my agenda anymore.
So. I’m back to square one. Well, not quite. I’ve found another interesting avenue writing lyrics/melody with a great musician who’s put some soundtracks together. He and I have the same influences, so that’s really special. He’s got the best Blue Note collection I’ve seen in Australia. He totally loves Cuban to Brazilian music. And he’s quite eclectic as far as world music goes.
I know I’ve come full circle now and ready for the next phase because all the degrees of separation have kind of “imploded” down to ONE – no more than two, anyway!! I don’t know if that’s a good thing. We’ll see.
How are things for you?
Cheers, Heather
2009/11/18
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg
Diva JC
http://www.wijsf.com
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman
http://www.fyicomminc.com
Diva Joan Cartwright is the FIRST artist featured on Tania-Maria’s FIRST music show. Please listen and enjoy the music of all artists on this show. There are some real surprises.
Original Air Date: 6/4/2009 11:00 PM EST
The Colors Of Music – Debut Show Featuring ColoredPeople.net’s Talented Singers and Musicians
Our first ever music show featuring our talented ColoredPeople.net members who are singers and musicians.
Legendary Diva Joan Cartwright. Freddie Hubbard, recorded her composition “Sweet Return” on Atlantic Records, in 1983 and I am honored to be the first radio show host to debut Joan’s song “Making Love To You” recorded in 1981.
Chuk Barber – A percussionist with The Original Lowriders, the Soul / Funk group AKA WAR. “Low Rider” and “The Cisco Kid”.
Lamonte McLemore – The creator of the legendary five time Grammy Award winning vocal group, The Fifth Dimension. He has written two songs for the group.
Alison Lewis – Singer and songwriter who performs beautifully in a variety of genres.
Tonya Broach (Tonyarie) – Tonya is a phenomenal singer and actress whose vocal range is jaw dropping…
Ajay Johnson – A producer, director, editor, and cameraman. His experience as a music producer shines through with a new *multi artist release on iTunes “Regal Covers Live”. This is a wonderful CD with various talented artists and we are honored to bring a couple of cuts of this great production to you.
Sponsored by: DaughterNature.com
Diva JC
www.wijsf.com
www.blogtalkradio.com/musicwoman
www.fyicomminc.com
Musicwoman Radio, Magazines, and Members 