Playing Trumpet with My Full Identity

Every year, my school holds auditions to send our best jazz ensemble to New York City to participate in a festival celebrating Duke Ellington, one of the greatest band leaders and composers of the 20th century. The festival, called Essentially Ellington, publishes new big band arrangements for the competing bands to perform every year. This year, the theme was arrangements by Melba Liston, the only prominent female brass player to have been on the scene in the 1940 and 50s. 

However, Liston is not the only woman who has made an impact in the contemporary jazz scene. Jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Anat Cohen is another leader in the genre. In an interview with the Fillius Jazz Archive at Hamilton College, she was asked about her experience in the historically male-dominated industry. Cohen replied that she never knows whether she is being hired for a festival or venue because they like her playing, or if they just need more women performing. She added that when people don’t know who's playing, the “music has no gender.”

Cohen, a three-time Grammy-nominated musician, is getting at a theme I’ve seen commonly expressed by women in jazz: if I’m good enough, it won’t matter that I’m a woman. While twenty-first-century feminism has released women in many fields from the confines of idealized femininity, jazz seems to be stuck in the past. The norm I’ve experienced for female jazz musicians is often to “move past” their identity as a woman and focus on proving themselves as musicians, despite their feminine presentation. Cohen has decided to present herself from the angle of a Jewish musician. She plays Israeli folk songs and, in an interview with the Hartford Courant, said that Tel Aviv, where she grew up, will always be her home. Cohen emphasizes her personal connection to Jewish tradition while downplaying her contributions to jazz as a female artist.

Despite her seemingly nonchalant attitude regarding her womanhood, Cohen was a founding member of an indisputably feminist contemporary jazz group named ARTEMIS from 2020 to 2023. They came to Seattle in June, and I had the opportunity to see them perform (without Cohen) at a local jazz club. It was interesting to see an all-female, all-star band, but what most caught my attention as I was watching was the personality behind their playing. Their phrases seemed to suggest welcoming and warmth, and they were obviously all friends. Ingrid Jensen, a fellow trumpet player, soloed over her original compositions and showed the audience her creative personality through drastically high notes and complicated figurations. When the bassist, Noriko Ueda, and the drummer, Allison Miller, were trading solos, Ueda humorously played a little of the Christmas song “Let It Snow,” and Miller managed to artfully clang it back to her on the drum kit. The expressiveness they demonstrated struck me; they all managed to give a representation of themselves with the sound coming out of their instruments. Seeing an all-female jazz group portray their individual identities was a revelatory experience for me. It was the first time I had ever seen people truly in conversation with each other through their instruments. Even better, they brought us, the audience, into their conversation. Before them, I had always seen women in jazz bands as a unique anomaly, certainly not something to be expected. With ARTEMIS, their aptitude did not surpass their gender. Instead, they took it in their arms and brought it with them on stage. 

Cohen’s contribution to jazz as an Israeli is an inspiration to me as a Jewish musician. She shows the world how to love and perfect the art of jazz, while making it her own. Her accomplishments, as well as ARTEMIS’s work, have shown me that there’s no point in achievement if I am de-emphasizing part of myself.

 If my school makes it to Essentially Ellington, it will be our band’s twenty-first time going. If I go, it will be my first time. And on stage, I will play not just as a talented trumpet player, but with my full identity.