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JOSEPHINE
BAKER
 Born
on June 3, 1906, Baker was a Parisian dancer and
singer, the most famous American expatriate in France.
Josephine Baker was born in a poor,
Black slum in East St. Louis, Illinois, on June 3,
1906, to 21-year-old Carrie MacDonald. (Source)
After opening at Carnegie Hall to a
standing ovation, she became a French citizen, in
1937. Most noted as a singer, Baker was a celebrated
dancer in her early career. She was given the
nicknames the "Bronze Venus" or the
"Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole
Goddess" in anglophone nations. In France, she is
known in the theatrical tradition as "La
Baker".
Joséphine was noted for being the
first female African American to star in a major
motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall,
and to become a world famous entertainer. She is most
noted for her contributions to the Civil
Rights Movement in the United States, and for
being an inspiration to generations of
African-American female entertainers and others. (Source)
EARTHA KITT
Eartha Mae Keith was
born out of wedlock on a cotton
plantation in the tiny town of St. Matthews, SC, on
January 17, 1927. Her mother was African-American and
Native American and her father was German or Dutch
American. She was not raised by her parents because of
her multi-racial heritage. Anna Mae Riley, a black
woman raised Eartha and she believed Anna was her
mother, until she went to New York City with Mamie
Kitt, Riley's sister. Mamie was her biological mother,
she says, but she has no knowledge of her father,
except that his surname was Kitt and he was the son of
the plantation owner where she was born.
Kitt is remembered
for voicing her opposition to the Vietnam War, during
a 1968 White House luncheon, hosted by Lady Bird
Johnson, a move that caused Kitt to be blacklisted
professionally for some time. It was falsely reported
that she made Lady Bird Johnson cry, when in fact, the
First Lady replied, diplomatically. The public
reaction to Kitt's statements were extreme, both for
and against her statements. Professionally exiled from
the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas
performances. (Source)
"Eartha
Kitt is the freest spirit you have ever met."
-Sidney
Poitier
It was revealed that
Kitt was the subject of a federal investigation. Her
house was bugged and she was tailed by Secret Service
agents. When the FBI failed to find evidence that Kitt
was a subversive, the CIA compiled a highly
speculative dossier that attempted to portray her as a
nymphomaniac. Unable to find work in America, Kitt
moved to Europe, where she would spend most of the
following decade. In 1974, she courted controversy
once again by touring South Africa; although she
performed for white-only audiences, her show was
racially integrated, and she raised money for black
schools by selling autographs.
Kitt recorded her
debut album, RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt, in 1953,
and it was a major hit, climbing into the Top Five on
the LP charts. She scored a minor success with
"Uska Dara (A Turkish Tale)," and had a
breakout Top Ten hit that August with the
French-language "C'est Si Bon (It's So
Good)," which became her signature song.
Kitt returned to the
U.S. in 1978, in the Broadway show Timbuktu,
an all-black adaptation of Kismet. The audience
greeted her with a standing ovation, and she earned a
second Tony nomination. President Carter welcomed her
back, personally. Her career in America rehabilitated,
Kitt returned to the cabaret/supper club circuit, and
revived her film career in the late '80s, in the
comedies Erik the Viking, Ernest Scared Stupid and
Eddie Murphy's Boomerang. (Source)
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BLUES WOMEN
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NINA SIMONE
 Born
Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21,
1933, in the small town of Tryon, NC, Nina
Simone was raised physically, spiritually,
and musically in her parents' church. Her
mother, the Reverend Mary Kate Waymon, was
minister of Tryon's only African-
American Methodist church. Along with her
three sisters and four brothers, she began
serving in the church at an early age, and
by first grade, she was performing as an
accompanist in her mother's choir
(alongside her father, John Divine Waymon,
on guitar). Members of the congregation
soon caught on to the talent that Simone
possessed, and in 1939, a local benefactor
began paying for professional piano
lessons for the young girl.
Frustrated with racism and
discrimination in America, Simone became
an expatriate in 1969, moving to Barbados,
Trinidad, Liberia, Switzerland, Belgium,
and finally settling in France. Her
marriage ended in 1970 and she devoted
much of her time over the next decade to
touring and recording. In 1978, upon
returning to the U.S. for a tour, she was
arrested for withholding taxes during the
years of 1971 to 1973. Pleading that her
actions were in protest of Vietnam
conflict, she was eventually
released.
During the 1980s, she made
infrequent visits to the US, instead
spending much of her time performing in
Europe and staying at her home in France.
In July of 1995, she ran into trouble with
the law again; this time for firing a
scatter-gun at a group of rambunctious
kids outside of her home, in the Provencal
town of Bouc-Bel-Air. After paying the
medical bills of one boy who was shot in
the leg and a $4,600 fine, she was
released. Her daughter, Lisa Celeste
Stroud (now vocalist for Liquid Soul),
remained very close to her mother during
this period, appearing frequently with her
on stage. On her last trip to the US in
2001, it was apparent that the once
boisterous and hardy Nina Simone was
ailing. She died on April 21, 2003, at the
age of 70, in her home in France. (Source)
Simone wrote several
protest songs including Mississippi
Goddam, Young, Gifted and
Black, and I
Put A Spell On You.
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AFRO WOMEN
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CELIA CRUZ
On
October 21, 1925, Úrsula Hilaria Celia
Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born in the
diverse Santos Suárez neighborhood of Havana,
Cuba, the second child of Catalina
Alfonso and Simón Cruz, who worked the
railroads as a stoker, while Catalina took
care of the family. When she was
a teenager, her aunt took her
to cabarets
to sing, but her father encouraged her to keep
attending school, in hopes that she would
become a Spanish teacher. One of her
teachers told her that as an entertainer she
could earn in one day what most Cuban teachers
earned in a month.
Cruz began singing in
Havana's radio station Radio Garcia-Serra's
popular "Hora del Té" daily
broadcast, she sang the tango
"Nostalgias", (and won a cake as
first place) often winning cakes and also
opportunities to participate in more contests.
Her first recordings were made in 1948 in
Venezuela. Before that, Cruz had recorded for
radio stations. She thanked her young nephew
Cesar for all the hard work he put into it
also. "He was an amazing little boy he
was like my own son, rest in peace
Cesar".
In 1950, she
made her first major breakthrough, after the
lead singer of the Sonora
Matancera, a renowned Cuban orchestra,
left the group, Cruz was called to fill in.
She wasn't accepted by the public at first
because she was black, however, the orchestra
stood by their decision and Cruz became famous
throughout Cuba.
When Fidel
Castro assumed control of Cuba, in 1960, Cruz
and husband Pedro Knight were in Mexico. They
refused to return to their homeland and became
citizens of the United States
In 1966,
Cruz and Tito
Puente began an association that would
lead to eight albums for Tico Records. The
albums were not as successful as expected,
however, and Cruz later joined the Vaya
Records label. There, she joined accomplished
pianist Larry
Harlow and was soon headlining a concert
at New York's Carnegie Hall. (Source)
Some have
said that she is indisputably the best known
and most influential female figure in the
history of Cuban music. The New York
Times called her “one of the world’s great
singers” and various specialized
publications have named her the best female
vocalist in the United States on a number of
years. She is called “the queen of
salsa”, with her catchy Afro-Cuban rhythms
she won several generations of listeners. (Source)
MIRIAM MAKEBA
Miriam
Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg in
1932. Her mother was a Swazi
sangoma
and her father, who died when she was six, was
a Xhosa.
As a child, she sang at the Kilmerton Training
Institute in Pretoria, which she attended for
eight years.
Her
professional career began in the 1950s with
the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her
own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of
jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.
In 1959, she performed
in the musical King
Kong alongside Hugh
Masekela, her future husband. Though she
was a successful recording artist, she was
only receiving a few dollars for each
recording session and no provisional
royalties, and was keen to go to the U.S. When
she starred in the anti-Apartheid
documentary Come
Back, Africa in 1959, the Italian
government invited her to the premier of the
film at the Venice
Film Festival, she did not return home and
her South African passport was revoked.
In London,
she met Harry
Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining
fame in the United States. She released her
most famous hits there, including Pata Pata,
The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa),
and Malaika. In 1966, Makeba received
the Grammy for Best Folk Recording together
with Belafonte for An Evening With
Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the
political plight of black South
Africans under Apartheid.
In 1963,
after an impassioned testimony before the United
Nations Committee Against Apartheid,
Makeba's records were banned in South Africa
and her South African citizenship and her
right to return to the country were revoked.
Her marriage
to Trinidadian civil rights activist and Black
Panthers leader Stokely
Carmichael, in 1968, caused controversy in
the U. S. and her record deals and tours were
cancelled. As a result of this, the couple
moved to Guinea, where they became close with
President Ahmed Sékou Touré and his wife.
Makeba separated from Carmichael, in 1973, and
continued to perform in Africa, South America
and Europe. She served as a Guinean delegate
to the United Nations and won the Dag
Hammarskjöld Peace Prize in 1986.
After the
death of her only daughter Bongi
Makeba in 1985, she moved to Brussels. In
1987, she appeared in Paul Simon's Graceland
tour and published her autobiography Makeba:
My Story (ISBN
0-453-00561-6).
Nelson
Mandela persuaded her to return to South
Africa in 1990. In the fall of 1991, she made
a guest appearance in an episode of The Cosby
Show, entitled "Olivia Comes Out Of The
Closet". In 1992, she starred in the film
Sarafina!,
about the 1976
Soweto
youth uprisings, as the title character's
mother, "Angelina." She took part in
the 2002 documentary Amandla!:
A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony ,
where she and others recalled the days of Apartheid.
In January
2000, her album, Homeland
was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best
World Music" category. In 200, she won
the Gold Otto Hahn Peace Medal at the United
Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) in
Berlin, "for outstanding services to
peace and international
understanding".
In 2002, she
shared the Polar
Music Prize with Sofia
Gubaidulina. In 2004, Makeba was voted
38th in the Top
100 Great South Africans. Makeba started a
worldwide farewell tour in 2005, holding
concerts in all of those countries that she
had visited during her working life. She was
still touring as of May 2008. (Source)
Miriam Makeba and Hugh
Masekela spent years speaking out against
apartheid, within and outside their music.
In the 1960's, Makeba and Masekela were
South Africa's two most famous expatriate
musicians and they were also husband and
wife. With hits like "Pata Pata"
and "Grazing in the Grass," they
brought township rhythms to American
listeners. Masekela blended South African
music with modal jazz, while Makeba made
African songs part of her international
repertory. (Source)
[Editor's Note: This is a SPECIAL
EDITION of our Newsletter. It is an honor
to feature these amazing women in jazz and
blues who have maintained their humanity
and integrity throughout illustrious
careers. It is imperative that we continue
their legacy, using Music as Healing,
during a most difficult time in the
history of humankind. I call upon every Musicwoman
to remember these women and others like
them, to keep their stories alive and to
follow their lead in demanding justice,
civil liberties and the end to oppression
on the planet.]
SHOP AT CAFEPRESS
WOMEN IN JAZZ Concert & Lecture
Vocalist/Jazz
Historian Joan Cartwright traces the origins of Jazz from the West Coast of
Africa to the clubs of Harlem. This presentation highlights the life, times
and tunes of America’s premiere Blue and Jazz Women from Bessie Smith to Betty
Carter and beyond. Selections include compositions of Duke Ellington, Fats
Waller, Billie Holiday, Cole Porter, Norman Mapp and Joan Cartwright. (1-2 hours)
DIVA JOAN
CARTWRIGHT performs from her Song
Book,
IN PURSUIT OF A MELODY
(Trafford 2006).
READ DIVA JC'S
INTERVIEWS
with B.B. King, Dionne Warwick, Hugh Masekela and other
notable stars in the SOUTH
FLORIDA TIMES
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Alice
Coltrane
July 17 
Dear
Subscriber,
July is Independence Month and we are
celebrating five courageous 
