My report about Gender and Identity in Jazz at the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt is now online at downbeat.com

It’s posted, as of last week, with this photo …

Wolfram Knauer and Sherrie Tucker (U of Kansas)

Wolfram Knauer directs the Jazzinstitut Darmstadt, and Sherrie Tucker is American Studies Professor, University of Kansas. Happily, they opened the conference. I love these additional photos, also by Wilfried Heckmann.

Martin Niederauer photo by Wilfried Heckmann

Viewing this image, Martin Niederauer (Male Hegemony in Jazz) explained his gesture: “…[C]ompeting against each other and trying to establish hierarchies does not push the competitors away from each other. Rather, they are getting closer and are tied to each other.” Martin is a scholar at University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Institute for Music Sociology.

Based at the University of Pittsburgh, Yoko Suzuki has  interviewed  dozens of women  – especially saxophonists – about their New York jam session experiences. Yoko delivered some conclusions from her research, then she jammed in the ancient, lovely stone cellar below the Jazzinstitut, the largest public jazz collection in Europe.

Yoko Suzuki at the jam session

You can see Wilfried Heckmann’s jazz photography at Jazz-vision.de. And read the full downbeat.com story here.

Here’s my parting shot of an office in the library. I like the vibe.

And this is my shot of an office at the Jazzinstitut ..

And note this: TODAY Oct 26 is the release date of the complete Life and Art of Jutta Hipp from Be! Jazz Records (Germany). Thanks to  presenter and saxophonist Ilona Haberkamp, who teaches at Ernst-Barlach-Gymnasium, Castrop-Rauxel, for her dedicated work about pianist JH, who would be 90 this year.

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