Virtual Presentation by Dr. Kelsey Klotz

To be a woman in jazz (or a woman who enjoys jazz) is to contend with jazz patriarchy. Jazz patriarchy has developed its own language, values, and relationships, which determine what sounds were curated as “real” jazz, how women were depicted in jazz imagery and literature, which audiences were welcomed in which jazz spaces, which musicians were admitted to the jazz canon, and more. In this presentation, we will examine some of the myriad ways jazz patriarchy has been at work over the past century, focusing particularly on its impact on jazz’s audiences and musicians. Throughout, we will balance jazz patriarchy’s historical weight and impact with some of the work musicians like Terri Lyne Carrington and Esperanza Spalding have undertaken to redress its legacy.

Kelsey Klotz is an (ethno)musicologist specializing in jazz history, race and gender studies, and American cultural studies. She is Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Maryland, College Park. She received her PhD in Musicology from Washington University in St. Louis with a graduate certificate in American culture studies. Her work is motivated by her interests in creating inclusive music histories. Her recent book, Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness (Oxford University Press, 2023), is the first critical, book-length study of the role of whiteness in shaping jazz history. It uses jazz pianist Dave Brubeck’s mid-century performances of whiteness across his professional, private, and political lives as a starting point to understand mid-century whiteness, privilege, and white supremacy more fully. Drawing on archival records, recordings, and previously conducted interviews, Dave Brubeck and the Performance of Whiteness listens closely for the complex and shifting frames of mid-century whiteness, and how they shaped the experiences of Brubeck, his critics, and his audiences. She is currently working on a project titled jazz patriarchy, which examines how both spoken and unspoken gender norms historically defined the ways in which women could and could not participate in jazz, and how jazz was/is and was/is not defined.