The 1960s is one of the most talked-about, argued-about, mythologized periods of American history. This edition of Night Lights highlights some women jazz artists who made records of note during that troubled and interesting time when women's rights was an issue at the forefront of American culture.
Women had always had a challenging road to travel in the world of jazz. For all of their progressive views regarding matters of race, jazz musicians tended to view women in a similar way to the rest of society. Women had made it as singers, they'd made it as pianists, and artists such as Mary Lou Williams and Melba Liston had succeeded as composers and arrangers, but the jazz scene remained dominated by men.
Reflections of Change
Many of the artists featured on this program got their start in the 1950s, but as the 1960s went on their music sometimes evolved in ways that reflected the artistic and cultural changes that were going on around them. Pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane was one such artist; she'd come out of Detroit as a bebop-influenced pianist, but after marrying John Coltrane, who eventually brought her into his group as a pianist and encouraged her to start playing the harp, her music began to move in a freer and more exploratory direction. She also became intensely involved in Eastern-based religions, and her changing spirituality was reflected in the music that she made after her husband's death in 1967.
While Alice Coltrane's music involved explorations of the 1960s spirit, singer and pianist Nina Simone's music touched on the era's outspoken commitment to civil rights. Simone's music brooked no boundaries-she performed jazz, blues, pop, and R&B-and was dubbed "The High Priestess of Soul" for her fearless, assertive approach that could sound wary, proud, or full of mournful sensitivity. In some ways Nina Simone became as much an icon of the 1960s as Billie Holiday did of the 1930s and 40s. "To really understand the 60s," fellow singer Abbey Lincoln said many years later, "you had to hear Nina." We'll hear two performances by Nina Simone: "See Line Woman," the lyrics of which were suggested to her by her friend, the poet Langston Hughes (who would also join her in co-writing the civil-rights piece "Backlash Blues"), and "Young, Gifted and Black," which she co-wrote with Weldon Irvine for her friend Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright of "A Raisin In the Sun" who had passed away in 1965 at the age of 35.