Bessie Smith: Women's Role In Early Jazz

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Women have been deeply involved in the history of jazz since its origination; however, their achievements and contributions are significantly less recognized and less renowned than their male counterparts. Women in jazz have historically been oppressed by the American culture’s view of a female’s proper role in society and from the even more severely male dominated world of jazz. In the early days of jazz, scorn was poured on the very possibility of women becoming instrumentalists. Because of this stigma, women contributed to early jazz by becoming vocalists and pianists because those two roles were seen as more traditional and acceptable positions for women. Many of the primary jazz instruments such as the trumpet, saxophone, and trombone were seen as aggressive, male oriented instruments that women had no business playing. Nevertheless, there were still women who defied the rules and competed with their male colleagues on their masculine instruments. Women jazz players didn’t experience a shift in acceptance into the jazz world until World War II because many of the male jazz players were drafted to fight in the war. As I said before, a woman’s predominate role in early jazz was as a vocalist or pianist. One of the most prevalent early jazz vocalists was Bessie Smith. Bessie Smith had a rich, powerful voice, which made her the most popular female blues singer of …show more content…
Bessie Smith paved the way for female jazz vocalists and Valaida Snow encouraged women to break the bigoted rules of society and play “masculine” instruments. These women changed the face of jazz by overcoming many barriers in their quest for musical success. Racism, segregation, and working in a male-dominated industry were just some of the obstacles they had to deal with. While many of their names are all but unknown to audiences today, they set the stage for today’s female
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