Although she was generally well received, some found Carter’s distinctive performing style puzzling. The performers at the evening concerts in Memorial Hall included McPartland with her trio and the improvisatory singer Betty Carter backed by the John Hicks trio. In March 1978, the first three-day festival opened with workshops by festival performers and jam sessions that attracted aspiring and experienced musicians. Hands-on promotion and fundraising included selling festival T-shirts and tickets to a basketball game between an all-women team from the city parks and recreation department and an all-men team of jazz musicians. Although some companies immediately turned down the fundraising requests and other businesses had qualms and ultimately did not donate, the author gave no indication that the theme of women performers was a significant negative point for potential donors. The board chose to open the festival to men as well as women performers and audience members this decision was driven partly by the need to appeal to potential donors, including federal agencies bound by anti-discrimination rules that forbade gender-based exclusion by donation recipients. They scored corporate donations from the largest business in town, Hallmark Cards, and from Western Union and several smaller local businesses.
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Without a professional fundraiser, the founders used their grant-writing experience to win matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). For the first few festivals, McPartland performed and Feather announced the shows. She brought in fellow British expatriate Leonard Feather, the jazz journalist and presenter who had long been supportive of women jazz musicians. The festival incorporated as a nonprofit corporation the Articles of Incorporation stated its purpose as educating the public about jazz through concerts, workshops, clinics, and “scholarships for students of jazz.” The WJF logo, designed by musician and board member Mike Ning, featured the symbol for woman, ♀.įor advice and resources, Gregg and Comer turned to jazz pianist Marian McPartland, a wholehearted supporter who joined the WJF board, provided contacts, enlisted performers, and signed on to perform. Some of the younger local musicians, such as Bobby Watson and Pat Metheny, had moved on to bigger cities, but those who stayed, such as Mike Metheny and Paul Smith, were major contributors to starting and sustaining the WJF. The Kansas City Jazz Incorporated festival had recently ended after 17 years of well received summertime editions. Comer and Gregg, portrayed as goal-driven, level-headed, and possessing the inspiration, energy, and time needed to start and sustain the festival, created an organization, sought artists and venues, raised money, and promoted the plan and the first edition of the festival.įor the site, they chose their hometown, centrally located and carrying a celebrated jazz legacy that still had an influence. The two friends were returning home from a jazz festival in 1977, grousing about the underrepresentation of women musicians in festivals, when Comer made a “radical” suggestion: Why not put on a women’s jazz festival? They joked about the crazy idea, but then they got serious. The WJF was founded by Carol Comer and Dianne Gregg, jazz journalists and performers in Kansas City. Along with contemporary media and jazz histories, the author’s sources included interviews with the festival founders, musicians, and other contributors, as well as black-and-white photos, footnotes, an index, and a bibliography that includes books, videos, films, sound recordings, and web sites.
In Changing the Tune, author and music educator Carolyn Glenn Brewer has described the festival performances and provided musical biographies of the major participating artists and less well known performers as well as extensive coverage of the festival’s organizational aspects-fundraising, arranging venues, hiring the performers, and producing the shows. The Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival (WJF) was the first jazz festival to feature women musicians. Changing the Tune: The Kansas City Women’s Jazz Festival, 1978-1985, by Carolyn Glenn Brewer University of North Texas Press, 2017 308 pps $29.95 hardcover.
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