Our latest 'In Conversation with...'episode is now live! We have tempted back special guest host, Hannah Horton who chats to Tatiana Gorilovsky, available here

Born in Russia, Tatiana Gorilovsky is an award winning freelance photographer based in London. She started to photograph jazz musicians around 2008 in Moscow and continued after moving to London with her family in 2015. Tatiana’s pictures have been published in Jazzwise magazine, The Guardian, The Times, Financial Times, Time Out and many other printed and digital media. She is the winner of several photographic contests and her photographs have been exhibited in Moscow, Stuttgart and London. Tatiana loves to convey the atmosphere of the gigs with creative shots which use long exposure and multiple exposure.  She also often photographs in the studio or outside to create portraits for different promotional purposes and album covers. Tatiana’s Covid innovative lockdown pro-ject, a ‘Women in Jazz’ calendar, presents 125 black and white portraits of female jazz musicians with the QR codes leading to the music for each one.

 http://www.tatianajazzphoto.com/

Hannah is a British Female Jazz Saxophonist who’s music is rooted in jazz, folk and funk. She has performed with many great jazz artists including Ian Shaw, Amy Winehouse, John Etheridge, Tina May, Georgia Mancio, Polly Gibbons, Natalie Williams, Esther Bennett and Irene Serra; and at venues including Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express Dean St, The 606, The Pheasantry, Love Supreme Jazz Festival, Royal Festival Hall and The Barbican. She has also toured in Europe and USA with her own and other groups. Her latest album has been going down a storm across the world. “Hannah makes the big beast of a baritone sax sound like an angel” – Ian Shaw https://hannahhorton.com/

Our new Women in Jazz Media Playlist is now out: Volume 11. We publish a new playlist each month and try to share a wide range of women from across the world - new releases, legacy artists, new and established artists and also some women we think you should know about but maybe don't! We keep it to 15 artists per playlist to give you time to discover, listen and share these incredible women. Do please get in touch if you have music you would like us to include - either your own or recommendations. We are especially keen to share music from female instrumentalists and composers.

As always we would encourage you to buy directly from the artist, and all the links are on our site here:

Emily Francis Trio The Fabulous Red Diesel Tokunbo Michele Osten Faye Patton Melody Dornfeld

Pearl Cutten  Alina Bzhezhinska Teagan Faran Alexis Lombre Geri Allen Regina Carter Tiny Davis

Joy Ellis Germana Stella La Sorsa

Welcome to our monthly team news! We like to share some of the work the team have been doing both inside and outside of their Women in Jazz media work and we have all been very busy with the recent International Women’s Day too! We have been overwhelmed by the reception of our magazine and have been having an amazing time sharing some incredible women with you all. Thank you for all of your support.

We are thrilled to have Tatiana Gorilovsky join our team and you will find some of her incredible photographs in our latest magazine. As per usual, Tatiana has had many incredible photoshoots including the 606, Pizza Express, The Cockpit and Jazz Café. She is starting to work on a second edition of her Women in Jazz Calendar. Tatiana shares with us ‘probably the most important photoshoot was in the Cockpit for "The concert for Ukraine" organised by Alina Bzhezhinska. It was really amazing line-up and very emotional gig’. You can support here

Jiaowei Hu has been busy exploring the rich jazz scene in China and shared her thoughts with us in our latest magazine in her article Jazz HER’s in China: Part of HER’s, Part of the Global Community Her latest article for Blue Note Jazz Club ‘Into the Frame: Welcome to the world of Jazz’ brilliantly explores artwork in Jazz.

Wendy Kirkland’s latest album ‘Latin Lowdown Live’ has had some more incredible reviews ‘Lowdown Live is proof that some good came out of all of this; some great music, that started life in Wendy’s living room, but is now being heard by hundreds of thousands of people. Highly recommended’ and she is, as always, busy gigging across the UK. Do check her site here to buy tickets and her music.

Wendy interviewed the fantastic Zoe Rahman in our latest magazine, which you can read here: Where Worlds Meet

Esther Bennett recently interviewed Emily Francis for her ‘Something New’ series on our Jazz in Europe Column, which you can read here and her next gig is at The Red House on March 26th, singing some original classics and some jazz standards. Tickets here Photo by Monika S Jakubowska and talking of which...

Monika S Jakubowska has been out and about as per usual taking incredible shots and her photo of the brilliant Cleveland Watkiss was chosen for the front cover of the brilliant Echoes. You will also find her photos in our latest magazine and she gets a special mention in this review of Alina Bzhezhinska gig at Ronnie Scotts on International Women’s day – read here

Diana Torti shared her thoughts on the inspirational Jeanne Lee in our latest magazine in her ‘Women Who Inspire’ article here

Kim has brand-new music coming soon and is thrilled to have some of her original music featured in a new release audio drama 'The Humanist' by WE Roberts and published by Blackstone. Keep an eye out for her new release music and forthcoming music video!

Kim is also busy performing at jazz clubs and music venues, with many clubs inviting her back this year to perform her 'Great Music, Good Times' show with her band of top UK jazz musicians. Most recently her return to 'Jazz at the Manor' in Tamworth saw a record number of audience members keen to get back to happier times. Forthcoming 'live' performances include a collaboration with phenomenal jazz violinist, vocalist and pianist Ben Holder on Friday 25th March and a return to Chapel Arts in Cheltenham on Wednesday 13th April following two sell-out gigs last year. Tickets available here: The Draycote Chapel Arts Next month Kim is also embarking on a mini tour with her US guitar buddy B.D. Lenz, performing at Nantwich Jazz, Blues & Music Festival, The Bear Club Luton and Smokey Joe's Cheltenham. 

And lastly for this month, we don’t normally include Fiona Ross, but she has interviewed some incredible women lately, so we wanted to share some of her recent articles. Molly Johnson The Woodshed Network Women in Live Music and Alina Bzhezhinska

Thank you for reading some of our updates!

We are all devastated by the horrors happening in Ukraine and we are doing as much as we can to support the incredible fund raising initiatives and projects happening across the world. We would like to highlight the following:

Alina Bzhezhinska Support Ukraine

Solidarity with Ukraine Charity Evening

Housing for Ukrainian Refugees

Ladies that do so much than Lunch! Our new zoom series!

After the huge success of our ‘Ladies that do so much than Lunch’ event in London as part of the London Jazz Festival, we are launching a series of online events.

One of the key things we hear from women is that they feel alone and unsupported. Wondering if their experiences are the same as others, from small things to big things – who does your PR, how do you get gigs, how do you find the time, juggling life and work, can we really do it all… sharing experiences and having the opportunity to ask questions in an open and transparent environment is vital.

Each session is an opportunity to meet other women working in the jazz industry, ask questions and share experiences and stories, very relaxed and open. We will have a special guest for each session and will begin with a Q&A with our guest to get the conversations started.

Finding a time when everyone is available is of course, impossible, so we will run these sessions at different times and different days, every couple of months, so hopefully, if you are interested, you will be able to attend one, some or all! Each session is a stand-alone session, so you can attend any, whenever you would like to.

Dress Code: Dress how you feel! Onesies, ballgowns, jeans – dress up or dress down. Wear whatever makes you feel you. Don’t feel like being on camera? No pressure to have it on – up to you.

Refreshments: Tea, coffee, smoothie, champagne, whisky – come prepared with anything you would like to raise a glass/mug with!

Please note these sessions will not be recorded and will not be public. Zoom link will be sent once you book place.

Our first session is on April 1st at 6pm UK time and our guest is Kim Cypher! Email us here to book a place!

We are excited to publish our #IWD2022 magazine! Nearly 200 pages of incredible women. It's fully interactive - and free! Huge thank you to our WIJM team members for all their amazing work for edition: Wendy Kirkland Pianist Singer Kim Cypher Lara Eidi Diana Torti Jiaowei Hu Fiona Mactaggart Fausta Joly Paulette Jackson and Monika S. Jakubowska

And a huge thank you to our special guest contributors Jordannah Elizabeth Jazz Views Carol Leeming Ron Milsom Nigel J. with stunning photography from Barka Fabiánová and Tatiana Gorilovsky and our poetry competition winners Helena Jane Summerfield and George Parker.

Lots of incredible women inside including Molly Johnson The Woodshed Network Elina Duni Barbara Thompson & Paraphernalia Zoe Rahman Tara Minton Ilaria Capalbo Patricia López Cecilia Sanchietti Shannon Barnett Alina Bzhezhinska Harpist and so many more...access it here

The fourth episode in our podcast series ‘On The Bookcase’, featuring female authors from across the world, with host Fiona Ross, with original music from Hannah Horton. In this episode we welcome the brilliant Maria Golia, who has an inspirational portfolio of work including her recent book ‘Ornette Coleman: The Territory and the Adventure’.  Listen here

'An American Author in Egypt. ‘Egypt where I’ve lived for thirty years, has been a source of inspiration in my life and writing.  My non-fiction books, Photography and Egypt and Cairo, City of Sand involved extensive historical research alongside an intimate understanding of the country’s present moment, its place in today’s world as much as in that of the past. In addition to many years as columnist and commentator for Cairo, Beirut and British publications (including the New Internationalist, Oxford), I’ve contributed to Vogue (New York), The International Herald Tribune, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), and the New Statesman (UK). I’m currently Middle-East reviewer for the Times Literary Supplement (London).

Following Egypt’s 2011 popular uprising, as the unrest continued for over two years, writing about it all became rather fraught and frankly repetitive. The political side of the story may be summed up as follows: power seeks to preserve itself and Egypt’s seemingly inflexible authoritarian regime has so far managed to bend with the winds of the Arab Spring without breaking, while ensuring that no viable opposition can emerge. In terms of Egypt’s fragile desert environment, the subject of many of my articles over time, the main advances have been towards greater destruction. To achieve some intellectual distance, I turned to outer space. Meteorite, a cultural history of space rocks (2015). While writing Meteorite, I started listening Ornette Coleman(1930-2015), who I had the chance to meet while working at the Caravan of Dreams, in Fort Worth Texas (1985-1992), Ornette’s hometown. I hadn’t heard those CDs in over twenty years, nor had I been particularly receptive to Ornette’s music before. But the time had come and Ornette worked his magic. I was reminded of how little I knew about the musicians I booked to the club, and hung out with after hours. I grew up with jazz, thanks to my father’s love of music and my brother Frank’s decision to make a career of music and composition, but I had paid virtually no attention to these great artists’ lives. This knowledge gap needed to be filled in order to make those seven years of experience at Caravan mean something. Plus, someone needed to get the history of this progressive arts venue, located smack dab in the heart of defense-industry corporate American, on the record. It was quite a juxtaposition; while we were promoting the break-away arts in the 1980s, building on the gains of the 1960s and 1970s, corporate culture was consolidating, as a way of life and political force.

Hearing Ornette in the wake of Egypt’s uprising, when I had dared to hope that this part of the world would one day experience its summer of love, got me thinking about the 1960s. I was a little too young to experience it firsthand, but the ideas that emerged from that opening marked me. It was a time when artists of every genre were breaking with convention, convinced of their power to change the world, which for a while at least, they did. Ornette was not only there, his music was the soundtrack of the moment. In fact, Ornette was key to everything I needed to learn more about and to share: Texas music history, 1960s art collectives, the pre-internet 1980s, the role of jazz in the international avant-garde, and the life stories of some of the greatest American musicians of all time'

Maria Golia website