Female Jazz Artists

[Steve Reynolds]

Current great female musicians I’m always interested in hearing:

maybe not including older more established (for decades like Myra Melford, Joelle Leandre, Marilyn Crispell, etc.)

Tomeka Reid

Mary Halvorson 

Kris Davis

Ingrid Laubrock

Jaimie Branch

Sylvie Courvoisier 

Nicole Mitchell

Sara Schoenbeck

Lisa Mezzacappa 

More of course and not sure more interesting than their male peers but very cool that so many wonderful improvisors from all backgrounds are heard these days...

 

[clifford_thornton]

yes to all of these.

I have a private recording of Karen Borca with Irène Schweizer, Wm. Parker, and Andrew Cyrille that is absolutely burning. Would love to have actually been at the show!

[Steve Reynolds]

A few friends saw Mary Halvorson multiple times during her recent week at The Stone while I took a new friend to see her 1/30 show - a duet with Randy Peterson.

My friend is a 22 year old guitarist who had seen a few you tube videos but his first real exposure to Mary was from a few feet away that night. I think he was spellbound but he would have to speak for himself. For me the 4 improvised pieces that spanned 65-70 minutes were pretty much great to otherworldly. First meeting with the iconclastic drummer and although Randy can teeter on the edge of a bit too much, the music was worthy of a CD release. Very strong. Good to hear their first encounter and thrilled she takes such risks.

Edited February 21, 2018 by Steve Reynolds

[jlhoots]

Silke Eberhard

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

...Karen Borca...

I find that not everybody "gets" Karen Borca, but holy shit, she can play, I don't see how that's not blatantly obvious.

[clifford_thornton]

Agreed. Fascinating foil for Jimmy but underestimated on her own/outside of that orbit.

[JSngry]

You know, bassoon is not an instrument to just fuck around with and finger-wiggle to get the emotion out, those notes come hard.

[Steve Reynolds]

The reason I put Sara Schoenbeck on he list is she played a few amazing bassoon improvisations both times I saw her / once in a larger ensemble with Harris Eisenstadt and the other time a woodwind & strings Marty Ehrlich led Quartet that also had Nicole Mitchell & Tomeka Reid. Sara was the musician I was unfamiliar with and she more than held her own in that company.

With Eisenstadt her solo/improvisation was as impressive as Nate Wooley’s or Jeb Bishop’s. Shockingly inventive and powerful.

 

[Gheorghe]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

You know, bassoon is not an instrument to just fuck around with and finger-wiggle to get the emotion out, those notes come hard.

I must say I´m not really familiar with that strange instrument. Don´t remind I would have seen somebody in action with it. I think there was a bassoon added on the studio version of "Cumbia" (Mingus) and.....yeah maybe it fits even if Jimmy Knepper was critic about it.
But those are really strange otherworldly sounding instruments to my tastes, this and oboe , sounds a little bit like being played to make a snake get out of a basket on some oriental marketplace......, somehow the beautiful sounds of saxophones, trumpets, trombones made me feeling unconfortable on the more rarely played woodwinds.....

[clifford_thornton]

15 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

The reason I put Sara Schoenbeck on he list is she played a few amazing bassoon improvisations both times I saw her / once in a larger ensemble with Harris Eisenstadt and the other time a woodwind & strings Marty Ehrlich led Quartet that also had Nicole Mitchell & Tomeka Reid. Sara was the musician I was unfamiliar with and she more than held her own in that company.

With Eisenstadt her solo/improvisation was as impressive as Nate Wooley’s or Jeb Bishop’s. Shockingly inventive and powerful.

 

Yeah, she's very good -- I'm trying to remember the small group I saw her with at Andrew Drury's Soup & Sound; Harris wasn't in it, that's for sure.

Katherine Young is another fantastic young bassoonist who has work with Braxton and others. Her solo music is amazing, although it falls more into the contemporary composition/structured sound art realm.

[mjazzg]

1 hour ago, clifford_thornton said:

Yeah, she's very good -- I'm trying to remember the small group I saw her with at Andrew Drury's Soup & Sound; Harris wasn't in it, that's for sure.

Katherine Young is another fantastic young bassoonist who has work with Braxton and others. Her solo music is amazing, although it falls more into the contemporary composition/structured sound art realm.

Any specific Katherine Young recommendations?

[clifford_thornton]

I really liked the one on Porter and that group Pretty Monsters that she's in is also very enjoyable.

[mjazzg]

29 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said:

I really liked the one on Porter and that group Pretty Monsters that she's in is also very enjoyable.

thanks, I'll take a look

[brewski]

Anita could scat better than any female singer that I have ever heard. Try " Sings the winners"        Don't sweat the things that are petty, and don't pet the things that are sweaty.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Felser Rules !!!

To continue, if I am senile I think my posts have influenced some of above members.