"The Girls in the Band" Documentary Showing

Just in time for Women’s History Month in March / KUWS 91.3 FM your campus radio atation which is part of Wisconsin Public Radio will present a showing of the film “THE GIRLS IN THE BAND”

This is an 88-minute full length feature film is by Producer/Director - Judy Chaykin. A well-researched documentary with historical footage of all women bands from the past, as well as interviews with the women artists. And commentary from current women performers in the modern jazz world.

THE GIRLS IN THE BAND: When the world told them they couldn’t play, they did it anyway!

They wiggled, they jiggled, they wore low cut gowns and short shorts, they kowtowed to the club owners and smiled at the customers…and they did it all, just to play the music they loved. In the thirties and forties, hundreds of women musicians toured the country in glamorous All-Girl Bands, while others played side by side with their male counterparts. Yet by the mid-fifties female jazz musicians had literally disappeared from the workplace; their names and their contributions to the music, completely forgotten.

This is the poignant untold story of female jazz instrumentalists, band leaders, composers and arrangers; their fascinating, groundbreaking journeys from the late 30s to the present day. These incredibly talented women endured sexism, racism and diminished opportunities for decades, yet continued to persevere, inspire and elevate their talents in a field that seldom welcomed them. Today, there is a new breed of gifted young women taking their rightful place in the world of jazz, which can no longer deny their talents.

Puts the issue of race, sexism, World War II history, discrimination, feminism, gender roles, Jim Crow, role models and social change through a sieve that results in the “herstory” of women in jazz.