Women in Jazz

It's mighty sweet of you, so let that music swing some of these days.

Narrator: They were the divas of jazz, Ida Cox, Nina Mae McKinney, Maxine Sullivan to name a few. But except for the likes of the legendary Billie Holiday, the impact women have had on jazz and blues remains a well-kept secret. Rosetta Reitz owns a record company devoted to keeping alive the works of female jazz musicians.

Reitz: Lester Young learned to play the saxophone from his older sister, Irma. Cab Calloway learned all about jazz from his sister Blanche.

Narrator: At the turn of the century, many women performed in family bands travelling with circuses and playing in small theaters. By the 1920s, however, women's voices became a force in jazz and their lifestyles reflected it.

Reitz: They had Cadillac cars, furs, diamonds, jewels, all the lovers they wanted.

Narrator: And they had power.

Reitz: Those women hired their own musicians, hired the chorus line that would travel with them; hired the comedians. There is power when you have the right to hire and fire. And they were mostly, they were adored, and looked up to as quintessential women because they were successful. They were, in a world of poverty, they were beacons of success.

Narrator: Women played alongside such greats as Duke Ellington and Count Basie here performing with Helen Hume. Though some of their songs were about lost love and abandonment, they also sang of pride and passion.

A woman's a fool to think she's not a whole man by herself.

Narrator: Some of the songs these women sang are hardly a victim's, when they use [unintelligible] metaphors to describe [unintelligible] sexual.

Baby rocks me with that jelly roll. My baby rocks me...

Narrator: From the sounds of Ida Cox to the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, women blazed a significant path through the world of jazz and blues. And though we may best remember Billie Holiday, she was preceded by a long list of women whose sounds and styles played an important role in the history of music.

In Manhattan, Debbie [unintelligible] New York One.

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