The messages in the music of women is refreshing and nurturing. This month, women brought music back to many areas of the planet.
Meanwhile, we’re working in the background to publish the 2023 issue of Musicwoman Magazine, featuring Singers and Horns. See our past issues here: https://issuu.com/joancartwright
The second issue of Musicwoman Magazine was printed through a grant from Conquest Graphics. The company, located in Richmond, VA since 1922, has supported our non-profit Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. with a FREE printing grant for five years.
Help us show our appreciation by patronizing www.conquestgraphics.com printing services.
Today, the second issue of Musicwoman Magazine is at the printer. This issue features veteran women musicians and young lionesses who are making their mark in the world of jazz. Here’s the inside scoop!
http://www.musicwomanmagazine.com
Read the online magazine here:
Musicwoman Magazine is here!
Women musicians earn less than women in other fields.
Find out who and where they are in Musicwoman Magazine!
The Spring 2019 issue of Musicwoman Magazine is receiving rave reviews. We’re moving forward with building the next issue publishing in January 2020. What do we need? Advertisement and articles! The links above will take you to the information you need to advertise and submit an article. WIJSF Members get a deep discount on advertising and have an opportunity to earn a commission on ad sales.
The launch of Musicwoman Magazine in Lake Worth, Florida, at Jazz on J Street hosted by Blanche Williams and attended by several members of Women in Jazz South Florida was a huge success!
Finally, after 10 years of planning, collecting stories, and acquiring advertisers, Musicwoman Magazine is here! The online version will be available for download until the launch: https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicwomanmagazine2019
Our first launch was on June 18, 2019, in Lake Worth, Florida, hosted at Jazz on J Street by Blanche Williams!
Many thanks to all WIJSF members, advertisers, featured artists, writers, and friends!
Join us here: www.wijsf.com/join.htm
The premiere edition features Gayelynn McKinney, our 340th member and the last drummer to perform with the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin! The inside stories are based upon our members’ experiences with the six keys to success for all musicians and entrepreneurs: branding, marketing, networking, teamwork, negotiation, and accounting.
We plan to grow this publication through subscriptions from our members and the general public. We trust you will enjoy the attention paid to women musicians who have dedicated their lives to producing music to live your life by!
The launch was on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 @ 7 p.m.
The 4th Catalog of Women in Arts & Business published on March 7, 2018. We printed 3,000 catalogs and sent copies to advertisers and members for distribution. Ten years ago, our marketing team from Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. sat at my dining table to discuss the creation of Musicwoman Magazine©®™. We focused on funding this project and the bottom line was a strong advertisement base. Musicwoman Magazine©®™ is an idea whose time has come! Women musicians are upward bound and need vehicles like this for promotion.
The upside of this venture is the printing grant we competed for and won for five consecutive years from Conquest Graphics in Philadelphia, PA. The grants we won ranged from $750 to $5,000, which enabled us to print our catalog for four years and got us to where we could publish a full-sized magazine, highlighting the work of women musicians, globally!
Dr. Joan Cartwright
Our launch for Musicwoman Magazine is on Tuesday, June 18, 2019, at Jazz on J Street, hosted by Blanche Williams and Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. The location is
The Book Cellar, 801 Lake Ave, Lake Worth, FL 33460
After 10 years of planning, the first print edition of Musicwoman Magazine is ready for its sneak preview. https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicwomanmagazine2019
A New York Times article I read, today, motivated me to post this blog about Blues Women, the first civil rights workers.
Brent Staples wrote, Francis Harper “vexed white women reformers by accusing them “of being directly complicit in the oppression of blacks,” and by demanding that they rid themselves of racism.”
In my book, I discuss how “Black singers in the United States of America emerged from Spirituals and Blues to develop Jazz. Their free-spirited songs delivered messages of liberation, signaling to Africans in America that they could be free.”
Besides being effective entertainers, “Blues women provided the primary means of healing of the human spirit with their musical dalliance that we can forever be delighted with and grateful for. The paper concludes that Blues women Mamie Smith, Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Ida Cox, Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Josephine Baker, Ethel Waters, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Eartha Kitt, and Miriam Makeba were the first civil rights workers because their lives and songs symbolized liberty in its rawest form by tapping into the human spirit.” [Available here]
In light of the advances women have made in the male-dominated music industry, the opportunities for black women musicians are fewer and farther between. White women enjoy far more opportunities in music than do black women, who were the mothers of the blues that is the foundation for all American music.
Francis Harper, Suffragette
“Harper believed deeply in interracial collaboration but committed to it on the condition that white women treat black women as equals.” However, even now, in 2019, a black woman’s $5 is $100 for a white woman. Economic equity among and between black and white women has never happened in the USA nor can we ever expect it to happen when black women who are well-educated and who have years of experience cannot work in most corporations or the academy.
Although women musicians continue to be marginalized in the $27.5 billion male-dominated music industry, white women still out-earn black women and continue to proliferate even in genres that were nurtured by black women, namely, blues and jazz. There is nothing that black women have done or do that white women do not copy, package, and commercialize, most times with no mention of the black women they learned from.
The rub is that black male musicians tend to support white women musicians more than they will support black women musicians. This phenomenon has left many black women instrumentalists and composers out in the cold. Few people are willing to discuss this problem, therefore, the inequity of this situation continues on ad infinitum.
In colleges and universities, black women musicians are not engaged at the teaching level. Therefore, few role models exist for young black girls who want a music career. They follow the lead of white men and women who teach music but, rarely, if at all, have the soul quality of black musicians. The inability to earn as teachers and performers places black women in a position, under the poverty line, unless they have another career path, which stymies their time and ability to practice and hone their musical muscles.
Staples reported that “Fannie Barrier Williams, a member of the black elite who had a profound impact on Chicago during more than three decades of civic and political activism[,] . . . . bluntly reminded white women that racism in their ranks represented a prime obstacle for black women, writing ‘that the exclusion of colored women and girls from nearly all places of employment is due mostly to the meanness of American women.'”
In actuality, very little has changed. White women continue to dominate the employment rolls. Black women are rarely seen waitressing, as airline stewardesses, on corporate boards, or as professors in the academy.
In fall 2016, of the 1.5 million faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, 53 percent were full time and 47 percent were part-time. Faculty included professors, associate professors, assistant professors, instructors, lecturers, assisting professors, adjunct professors, and interim professors.
Of all full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions in fall 2016, 41 percent were White males; 35 percent were White females; 6 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander males; 4 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander females; 3 percent each were Black males, Black females, and Hispanic males; and 2 percent were Hispanic females.1 Those who were American Indian/Alaska Native and those who were of Two or more races each made up 1 percent or less of full-time faculty in these institutions.
The racial, ethnic, and sex distribution of faculty varied by academic rank. For example, among full-time professors, [82% were white] 55 percent were White males, 27 percent were White females, 7 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander males, and 3 percent were Asian/Pacific Islander females. Black males, Black females, and Hispanic males each accounted for 2 percent of full-time professors. [Source]
The chart below shows the low percentage of black faculty in the nation’s highest-ranked universities in 2007. Although that was 12 years ago, very little has changed. Consider this: Comparing Black Faculty to the Black Population in a Particular State – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill leads all flagship state universities in the total number of black faculty as well as the percentage of all faculty who are black. But when one considers the fact that more than 21 percent of the population of the state of North Carolina is black, an African-American faculty of a mere 5.9 percent is not an extraordinary accomplishment.
The chart below shows that Blacks are 12 and 13 percent of the USA population, yet, their representation as professors of higher education is far below the equity line when compared to Asians and Hispanics. Consequently, the Legion of Black Collegians has demanded an increase in the percentage of black faculty and staff members campuswide to 10 percent by this academic year, according to Flaherty (2017) [Source].
More research:
Musicwoman Magazine 