Blowing their own horns

As many female musicians will tell you, play a “manly” instrument — a heavy, loud bass guitar or a big, long trombone, for example — and you’ll be told at least once in your musical career that maybe you should try something a little more feminine: a flute, perhaps.

Fortunately, many of the artists involved in Pasadena’s Instrumental Women Project have ignored this kind of stereotyping and have gone on to become some of the greatest jazz musicians around.

On Sunday, nine of these musical luminaries plus high school- and college-age women from the Pasadena Youth Musicians Orchestra will perform together at the Ford Amphitheatre during the Instrumental Women Project’s ninth annual concert, “Lady Jazz in the Key of Grand.”

The idea for an all-female concert began in 1998, when Monrovia jazz drummer La Quetta Shamblee decided to hold a benefit show to raise money and awareness for HIV/AIDS prevention. That event was a success, so Shamblee began to research grant opportunities that would fund an organization spotlighting women in jazz. After winning one from the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department, she held her first concert in 2000.

“As a result of doing the first show and seeing how exciting it was, I realized the need to start up the nonprofit [Instrumental Women Project],” said Shamblee, an educator who became the first deputy director for Caring for Babies with AIDS in Los Angeles and later director of programs and services for the Pasadena AIDS Service Center.

“As a female who played drums in a high school band, I knew what it was like to play an instrument that was not traditionally played by women. The reason I do Instrumental Women is because, if you ask most people, they can name five male jazz musicians. But if you ask the same group if they can name even three females, not including vocalists … [they can’t],” she said.

From that first show, Shamblee’s idea has grown into an eight-year partnership with the LA City Arts Commission which covers about half the cost of the group’s annual concerts.

The rest is up to members of the group, who raise money by performing at various concerts throughout the year — each event also playing a small part in their mission to increase recognition of and respect for women in the world of jazz.

The skilled players who belong to Instrumental Women, which is one of many smaller nonprofits that partners with Pasadena’s Armory Center for the Arts and keeps an office there, have rich musical backgrounds of their own. When they play together there is rarely a need to rehearse; they simply sit down and sight-read the music and riff off of one another’s talents.

One of the group’s more famous members is Corky Hale, a jazz harpist, vocalist and pianist who, in addition to acclaimed solo shows, has performed with Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Barbra Streisand and Liberace. She also performed with Tony Bennett at the White House and, more recently, with Icelandic pop star Björk on an MTV special.

“When I first started playing, no one at that point had heard of jazz on a harp,” said Hale, who will be taking time out from volunteering for the Barack Obama presidential campaign to perform at the Instrumental Women concert this weekend. “If you do something no one else does and do it well, you will succeed.”

Doing things well has come naturally to pianist Karen Hernandez, who started playing in jazz clubs at age 15 and is this year’s Lady Jazz honoree. Hernandez has recorded six of her own albums and has performed with numerous other accomplished musicians. The Burbank resident is also a regular headliner at Jax Bar and Grill in Glendale and Colombo’s in Eagle Rock.

Despite all her accomplishments, she’s often felt discriminated against because of her gender. “They would always say, ‘She plays good for a girl,’ but there are women that can play just as good as the men,” said Hernandez, who volunteers with Instrumental Women because, “It lets people out there know how many women are involved in music.”

The group’s mission doesn’t only play out on stage, however. Shamblee has been working with UCLA ethnomusicology professor Cheryl Keyes to document the histories of legendary female jazz musicians through research and recorded interviews. The project, funded by a university grant, is slated to produce an educational book and DVD by Keyes and Shamblee plus an archive that by sometime next year will be accessible to the public through UCLA’s Web site.

Learning about what women have accomplished can be highly inspirational to young female musicians. And so can performing on stage with some of these greats, said Jo Stoup, music director and conductor of the Pasadena Young Musicians Orchestra. Five of the six musicians she’s sending to the “Lady Jazz in the Key of Grand” concert — hosted this year by KABC 7’s Jan Monreal and jazz radio personality James Janisse — are still in high school.

“It is wonderful for the young women; they see a whole new opportunity in the music world. Most of them haven’t been exposed to much jazz before, so they are able to see that there is a whole new area of music out there for them to pursue. They see these women that are so successful in this field, and it really broadens their horizons,” said Stoup, who also conducted at a previous Instrumental Women Concert.

Above all, Shamblee is proud to be affiliated with all the women on stage.
“These are the women of the music world who would be compared to Tiger Woods of the sports world,” she said. “These are top-of-the-line musicians — they just happen to be women.” 

“Lady Jazz in the Key of Grand” begins at 6 p.m. Sunday at the Ford Amphitheatre, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. East, Hollywood. For tickets ($25 to $35), call (323) 461-3673 or visit fordtheatres.org. To contact the Instrumental Women Project, visit instrumentalwomen.com.