Queen Bee(3)

Many gender focused and feminist jazz authors (Sherrie Tucker comes to mind) argue that women have always played a considerable role in jazz, but for various reasons--mostly because the white, male, upper-middle class critics chose not to write about them--their contributions have been celebrated so much less. Tucker and Leslie Gourse both assert that with a few well placed questions the veil lifts to reveal quite a few important women contributors in the band along with the jazzmen. I'd read the arguments and didn't disagree with them, but a recent experience leads me to believe that Tucker is more right than I ever imagined.

I was on the way to an afternoon gig at a nursing home in Mount Vernon, NY with Melvin Sparks and asked him why they had hired us that afternoon. Melvin said we were playing a birthday party for a woman who though now morbidly ill was once a bad-ass drummer (I don't remember her name, yikes!) and that, in fact, her trio, which also featured Gloria Coleman on organ, was his first gig in New York and that the two of them "introduced him to everybody." Wow. So his first gig was in a trio with two women, and those two women were responsible for getting him into the scene. And so what of these women? Have you heard of Gloria Coleman? I know little of her other than that she only recorded five albums and somebody keeps outbidding me on Ebay when I try to get them. I do know that Coleman is still around and I'm trying to get in touch with her for an interview.

So, on that note, let's celebrate the great Shirley Scott, decidedly one of the stronger voices on the Hammond Organ. Part of Scott's individuality comes from her choice to almost always use a bassist; it allows her to dry out the Hammond sound and jabbed and swell a bit more. Also, because she picked some great bassists, the music swings hard but stays a bit crisper and lighter than say a Groove Holmes swing.

On Queen of the Organ, a 1964 live set recorded in that Mecca of organ jazz, Newark, NJ, Scott teams up with her husband, tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Candy Finch and they play! Man the stuff is swinging. When I saw the Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" on the track list I thought that it would be the litmus test: would it be cheesy as hell or funky? Actually it's not really either; they play it like a burning Jimmy Smith blues and it's fantastic. The club is packed and loud, both for the music and just in general. Clearly the show was a social thing, not just a sit down and gawk affair, and the energy is high.

This rip is from the out of print Impulse! CD, they'd be wise to get it back in circulation. The link is in the comments.