Nine Women In The Room: A Jazz Musicians’ Roundtable

Roundtable sisters: From left to right: (top row) Geri Allen, Ingrid Jensen, Terri Lyne Carrington, Esperanza Spalding, Tineke Postma and Helen Sung; (bottom row) Nona Hendryx and Gretchen Parlato

by Tom Cole
Over the summer, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington brought together some pretty high-profile musicians from all over the world to record The MOSAIC PROJECT: pianists Geri Allen, Helen Sung, and Patrice Rushen; bassists Esperanza Spalding and Mimi Jones; percussionist Sheila E.; woodwind players Anat Cohen and Tineke Postma; trumpeter Ingrid Jensen; violinist Chia-Yin Carol Ma; flutist Hailey Niswanger; and vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Carmen Lundy, Nona Hendryx, Patricia Romania, and Gretchen Parlato. Activist and author Angela Davis even contributes spoken word to one track.

You may have noticed they're all women. That was both the point of the session — and not the point.

After a full day of recording, eight of the musicians sat down with Lara Pellegrinelli for a conversation on the topic of women in jazz. They shared some of their own experiences and discussed the media, the music business, audience, mentors, and role models.

The story, discourse at NPR Music: http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/11/01/130978669/nine-women-in-the-room-a-jazz-musicians-roundtable?sc=nl&cc=mn-20101102