06/05/2021
I am SO EXCITED to share with you my guest for Episode 12 - trumpet player, legend of the music industry and long-time advocate for women in jazz, Ellen Seeling 💥🎺
A Milwaukee native, Ellen was the *first woman* to earn a degree in Jazz Studies from Indiana University. In 1975 she moved to New York City, where she worked with the likes of The Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra, Machito, the Slide Hampton Big Band, Sister Sledge, Chic, The Temptations, Martha Reeves, and her own jazz fusion band Deuce, which she formed with her now-wife, saxophonist and composer Jean Fineberg.
Ellen has also done an incredible amount of work for women in jazz: In 1998 (after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area) Ellen founded the Montclair Women's Big Band; spent many years teaching at universities including the University of California, Berkeley, and the Jazzschool in Berkeley; founded and co-directed the United States’ first summer jazz camp for girls, the Girls’ Jazz & Blues Camp; and in 2015 co-founded Jazzwomen and Girls Advocates, along with attorney Sara Sanderson. Thus far, the organisation has consulted with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, playing a role in their adoption of new hiring processes, and also helped to encourage the Monterey Jazz Festival’s 500% increase in women instrumentalists programmed for its 2018 edition 🔥
It was an absolute pleasure talking to Ellen, and I think for anyone interested in jazz music and women's place in the industry, this interview is a *must listen*
FIND IT HERE: https://womeninjazzpodcast.buzzsprout.com/737081/8459847-episode-12-ellen-seeling