The Institutionalization of Inequality: Female Vocalists’ Struggles in the Chinese Jazz Scene

ABSTRACT

Despite its importance to jazz’s origins, jazz singing has often been seen as secondary to the “higher” art of instrumental music largely dominated by male musicians (Pellegrinelli). Using interviews and ethnographic data from the Shanghai jazz scene, I show how the institutionalization of jazz programs without the inclusion of vocal training pathways has exacerbated gender inequality in the Chinese jazz field. The exclusion of vocal training in jazz programs in China further solidifies the idea of singing being “artless,” while the ideology of meritocracy leads to common discrimination against vocalists in the scene for their perceived lack of professional training.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• jazz
• music education
• sociology of music

Introduction

Despite its importance to jazz’s origins, jazz singing has been seen as secondary to the “higher” art of instrumental music largely dominated by male musicians (Pellegrinelli). Previous feminist literature in jazz studies has focused more on the underrepresentation of female musicians in jazz and provides empowering accounts of the often-ignored female jazz instrumentalists in history and their current struggles (see Tucker, Swing; Caudwell; Provost; Van Vleet). The relative neglect of vocalists in jazz studies despite the existence of a large number of female vocalists in jazz history and in the contemporary scene could reinforce the assumption that singing is “artless.” Because the low proportion of female instrumentalists in the jazz world threatens to confirm the stereotype that women cannot play jazz, defenders may feel compelled to prove there are neglected women musicians in history, rather than celebrating the high proportion of female vocalists. Yet the desire to prove women can play instruments like men, without questioning the institutional and educational inequalities at work, risks unconsciously conforming to the patriarchal value system that leads to the diminishment of jazz singing in the first place.

The experience of women’s participation in jazz is often shaped by their dominant occupation of the vocalist role, which is primarily subjected to criticism for their perceived lack of musicianship, resulting in their exclusion from the male instrumentalist-dominated jazz scene. While the most successful female jazz vocalists are celebrated by both academics and practitioners, the supposedly “meritocratic” critique of singers on their lack of musicianship is common within local jazz scenes. However, there is limited research exploring the reasons behind the perception that singers lack musical knowledge or skills.

This article seeks to contribute to a growing understanding of women’s struggles in the music industry by theorizing how the discrimination experienced by female vocalists in the Chinese jazz scene is a result of the fact that both their gender and their status as vocalists are marginalized in the educational and institutional structure of the jazz field. Using interviews and ethnographic data from Shanghai’s jazz scene, I show how the institutionalization of jazz programs that exclude vocal training pathways has enlarged gender inequality in the Chinese jazz field. In the highly institutionalized and professionalized jazz scene in China, the disadvantages of female vocalists are augmented by the lack of institutionalized support for gaining a form of music knowledge that is often seen as masculine. As a result, female vocalists are excluded from the community, and perceived as a threat to artistic autonomy due to the commercial association of the required performance of sexuality. The study of female vocalists is crucial for understanding why different forms of gender inequality are so persistent in the music industry. This importance arises not only from the fact that women occupy a significant number of positions as vocalists but also because the hierarchical structure in the jazz domain, where vocalists are often considered subordinate to instrumentalists, to some extent mirrors the broader position of women in the music industry.

Context: The Highly Institutionalized and Professionalized Jazz Scene in China

Jazz was brought to China around the year 1920 by colonists as a Western import. It reached its peak in the 1930s and 1940s, and disappeared around 1954 when it was banned by the government until a rejuvenation in the 1980s. Academic work in English concerning jazz before the Post-Mao era mostly focuses on Old Shanghai jazz and its association with modernity (see Field; Jones). While most studies about contemporary Chinese jazz focus on the jazz scene in Beijing (see Portugali; Li), a few studies provide some comparison between Beijing and Shanghai, where the two biggest jazz scenes in China are located (see Hsieh; Marlow). Due to the limited literature on jazz development in Shanghai, in this section I provide some brief background.

When China opened up in 1978, the market economy was introduced along with the free import of foreign culture. This brought the reintroduction of jazz in China, and the majority of Shanghai jazz musicians since 1978 can be classified in three generations. The first generation are mostly classical musicians who were first self-taught in jazz, with some of them later going abroad for jazz education. They also established the institutionalized jazz program at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in the early 2000s. With some exceptions, the second generation were born in the 1990s, benefited from attending this jazz program, and went to America to study for a master’s degree in jazz. Some participants of this generation are expanding jazz education in China by incorporating jazz training into popular music programs in several conservatories and universities in China. The third generation are still mostly students who are newcomers to the scene, attending Shanghai Conservatory, popular music programs at other conservatories, or training at one of the new private jazz education providers. From the development of the jazz scene in China, a noticeable institutionalization process can be seen in the different educational opportunities of these three generations. Due to the highly hierarchical and administrative-focused academic discipline development in China (Lei et al.), jazz programs are not officially recognized as within their own discipline but are integrated into the study of either contemporary music or popular music in tertiary education. This institutionalization of jazz education has furthered the idea of jazz as an advanced form of musical knowledge within the contexts of contemporary and popular music in the wider Chinese music industry, leading to a pursuit of professionalism in the field. This professionalism emphasizes conservatory training, an understanding of music theories and, notably, a mastery of musical instruments.

It is worth mentioning that China’s emphasis on academic training in jazz is not an isolated case, although not all the global and local jazz scenes follow this approach. While there are still criticisms regarding the academic approach to jazz education (see Jackson; Prouty), it is undeniable that academic jazz training has become increasingly significant in many countries with institutions dedicated to the discipline. As a result, an increasingly important pathway to becoming a serious jazz player often involves studying at prestigious conservatories with well-designed jazz instruction by established jazz masters, compared to the more traditional way of training that relies on performance-based learning or apprenticeship within a jazz community (O’Meally et al.). In comparison to the United States, which has a more comprehensive jazz education system, including jazz education and ensembles at secondary schools and in higher education, and the apprenticeship model where students take private lessons from masters and learn within a community, the way of knowing jazz in China is rather homogenous. It is challenging for individuals to receive high-quality and accredited jazz training outside of academic jazz programs that provide the same level of career opportunities and credentials. However, in such a context where an academic jazz degree is highly valued as the dominant way of knowing jazz, there are no jazz vocal training pathways in the conservatory jazz programs. The exclusion of vocal training in jazz programs in China further solidifies the idea of singing being “artless,” while the ideology of meritocracy behind professionalization leads to common discrimination against vocalists in the scene for their perceived lack of professional training.

Gendered Musical Roles and the Patriarchy in Jazz

The gendered social closure continues to shape contemporary society, as can be seen in many male-dominated areas where gender stereotypes are further reinforced and maintained against disadvantaged groups (Ibáñez and García‐Mingo). The music industry is such an area where the historical construction of gendered technology has hindered women’s advancement. Cross-culturally, males dominate the performance of musical instruments and women are more encouraged to fit into the role of vocalists or dancers (Doubleday). Approaching from the perspective of the human-instrument relationship, Doubleday explains male dominance in owning instruments as a way of owning the power to make sounds and statements, as well as male manipulation of public space, which can be seen in rituals and performances across cultures. Within this context, men are often seen as technical/instrumental experts, and women are often assumed to be “natural” and “artless” singers (Frith 155). In her iconic work Music, Gender, Education, Lucy Green explains that there is a musical patriarchy that excludes women from participating in music-making, while also encouraging women to perform certain music roles that affirm femininity, such as being a vocalist. In Masculine Domination, Bourdieu argues that this kind of suppression from a ruling group (in this case, male) upon a dominated social group (female) is maintained through symbolic violence that appears to be legitimate and unconsciously accepted and practiced by both genders. Specifically, the production and reproduction of gendered musical meaning have served as important tools for managing women’s participation in music throughout history (Green).

Singers in certain musical genres, especially popular music, are often de facto the face of the band, the star, which is contrasted to the often-overlooked musicians in the background from the audiences’ perspective. However, the association between beauty and song in the feminine imagination often requires this “face” to be attractive (Dunbar), fulfilling certain expectations of femininity, and in some genres, such as jazz, not to “take over” too much. As Butler points out, gender associations are constituted and maintained through gender performance based on cultural norms in everyday life. The performances of female vocalists on stage often reflect a hyper-sexualized and young femininity that is not only based on cultural norms but also an intensified feminine character oriented toward the male gaze both through their look and their sound (Dunbar).

Despite some improvements in gender equality and increasing female participation in the music industry, jazz remains very much a hypermasculine place. Many studies have explained jazz as a male-dominated field (Tucker, “Big”), regulated by masculine discourse (Annfelt; Caudwell), heteronormative standards (Teichman), and patriarchal power structures (Oliveros; Tucker, Feminist). Jazz also has associations with race: jazz culture is deeply rooted in the expectation and performance of Black masculinity. For example, Rustin-Paschal argues that Charles Mingus’s “angry black man” identity reflects both a stereotype of the emotionality of Black jazzmen and a genuine emotional resistance to inequality and racism. The competitive and meritocratic aspects of this culture, as can be seen in often intense jam sessions, also express “Black middle-class patriarchal norms of respectability,” which “construct a black identity grounded in achievement, artistic innovation, and intellectual complexity” (Vargas 46). This expression manifests in the performance of jazz through a culture of “paying dues,” which emphasizes personal effort and shared struggles (Vargas 40–41). Within this meritocratic masculine context, as Willis notes, “singers are not ‘real’ musicians, women are largely ignored, and men are portrayed according to how well they can play” (294). As Wahl and Ellingson point out, this meritocracy ideology in jazz appears to be inclusive and pursues equality regardless of race and class; however, its concomitant exclusive culture, deeply rooted in gender essentialism, mostly hinders women’s entry into the jazz world.

As jazz is “thought of and historicized as a ‘man’s world,’ sometimes decorated by ‘girl singers’” (Tucker, “Jazz” 256), previous literature on gender and jazz has focused more on the underrepresentation of female musicians in jazz history. These studies provide empowering accounts of the often-ignored female jazz instrumentalists in history (Tucker, Swing; Caudwell; Provost; Van Vleet). However, Tucker argues that the feminist criticism of the classic jazz historical narrative needs to go beyond the mere inclusion of women musicians, as this narrative itself is structured by various social constructions, such as gender and race (“Big”). Acknowledging women’s limited participation in jazz, many studies investigate the reason behind the difficulties for women to become jazz instrumentalists, and find women experience discouragement throughout the whole process (see Wehr). The beginning of instrument choice can be off-putting for women, as jazz instruments are often associated with masculinity (McKeage). The learning process, the lack of role models (Healey; Johansen), and the anxiety of improvisation within a male-dominated place (Wehr-Flowers; de Bruin), lead to a high attrition rate of women’s participation in jazz. Even after overcoming these challenges and becoming jazz musicians, women often experience rejection and social exclusion (Healey), are required to perform their sexuality in performance (Van Vleet), and are shown to have lower recording participation than men (McAndrew and Widdop). Overall, MacDonald and Wilson found that the identity of being a jazz musician is given greater importance than other aspects such as gender. Some female musicians also downplay their gender roles and align themselves with the meritocracy narrative, believing that discrimination is often an individual issue. Apart from aligning with this meritocratic narrative, another common way for women to strategically negotiate these gender norms and expectations is to “conform to gendered roles” and “occupy a subordinate and less desirable position in the music world” (Wahl and Ellingson 450).

Based on these difficulties, the vocalist, a more feminine musical role, seems to be a more welcoming way for women to participate in jazz but is never a “full entrance ticket.” Despite having a significant role in the development of jazz, jazz singing has historically been viewed as inferior to the “higher” art of instrumental music, which is usually dominated by male performers (Pellegrinelli). To perform as a female vocalist, this feminized musical role often requires a performance of sexualized femininity that can be seen throughout jazz history (see Dahl) and the contemporary scene (Istvandity; Jichova).

Most jazz studies regarding vocalists focus on established Black female vocalists in history and their experience as racialized women. Griffin explains that discussions surrounding Black women in jazz, particularly as vocalists, often tend to downplay the description of their genius compared to male instrumentalists, or emphasize singing as a natural gift without disciplined hard work. In reaction to this gendered and racial historical narrative, there has been a growing focus on highlighting the intellectual aspects of Black women in jazz history, aiming to establish the often-overlooked intellectual contributions of these women (Rustin). For example, the reexamination of Billie Holiday’s legacy has shed light on her intellectual and political engagements, her hard-working efforts and originality as an artist, her experience of navigating her personal life and career as a woman, and her status as a role model for later Black jazzwomen, such as Abbey Lincoln (see Griffin; E. Porter).

Following Tucker’s advocacy to go beyond the mere inclusion of women in jazz, it is clear that the seemingly prevalent representation of female vocalists in jazz history is not enough for us to understand their experiences within jazz. First, this representation of female vocalists reflects musical roles that are embedded with feminine connotations and encouraged within musical patriarchy (Green), while ignoring the sacrifice and struggles caused by the male gaze. This means when we think of the role of vocalists as “easier” for women, we risk overlooking the price of this “welcoming entrance” and missing an essential part of understanding women’s experience in the music industry. Second, famous and successful female jazz vocalists who are often noticed for their exceptional achievements within the music industry rarely represent everyday jazz practice in local scenes, which often reflect discrimination and exclusions toward vocalists. For example, Istvandity’s study documents how female vocalists are often discriminated against in the Brisbane jazz scene for their perceived lack of musicianship. The critique of singers based on meritocracy appears to be quite common within the local jazz scene, yet there is limited research exploring the educational and institutional reasons behind the perception that singers lack musical knowledge or skills.

In places dominated by the ideology of meritocracy, there is often an ignorance of structural inequality. In a diasporic jazz context, the inheritance of this meritocratic Black masculine culture in music can lead to different translations. For example, in the highly institutionalized and professionalized Chinese jazz scene, where the majority of participants come from middle-class backgrounds, the absence of struggle combined with a similar insistence on meritocracy may easily result in further overlooking of structural inequalities, both in terms of gender inequality and the instrumentalist-vocalist hierarchy in the jazz field.

Methodology

This study is based on ten months of fieldwork involving 54 semi-structured life history interviews mainly with jazz musicians in Shanghai from December 2020 to October 2021. (I also conducted one week of fieldwork in Beijing and interviewed seven Beijing musicians for comparison.) The data collection was initially designed for studying the development of the jazz field in China after the 1980s. Using Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the development of an art form and its participation (see Rules), I explored who the “players” of the field are, what the “game rule” of the field is, and what kinds of social agents are advantageously positioned in the field. This study was also guided by the scene perspective (see Straw; Bennett and Peterson) to explore jazz musicians’ place-based music-making in Shanghai. To locate different agents, understand their relative positions in the field, and map their musicking in different venues, I selected both fieldwork sites and interviewees for breadth, while also limiting my focus to jazz activities and jazz musicians. This means I generally didn’t consider other jazz-related genres such as R&B and funk unless they were performed by recognized jazz musicians or in the recognized jazz venues in the scene.

I conducted participant observation at different events in Shanghai, through attending gigs in various jazz clubs as an audience member, volunteering at jazz festivals and at a jazz competition, working and observing at the private jazz education for three months, and occasionally participating in after-gig hanging out with musicians if I had the chance. I disclosed my research identity when first approaching participants, and all the data has been anonymized upon agreement. In the following analysis section, pseudonyms are used and I removed any key information that can potentially identify participants. After spending three months in the scene and getting to know most venues and jazz musicians there, I started conducting semi-structured interviews in March 2021. I conducted life history interviews, applying Bourdieu’s theory for its advantage of analyzing social trajectories by looking at life experiences of similar groups of people (Barrett). Although the life history interview is often used to let interviewees spontaneously narrate their life stories, some guides were used to address the focus on jazz. The semi-structured interview was divided into three parts that addressed the participants’ social background, their story with jazz from how the participant came to know jazz to their current position in the field, and lastly their experiences and opinions about the current jazz scene in Shanghai. These interviews lasted from one hour to two hours, providing rich data for understanding how certain groups have different access to jazz and become jazz musicians.

During data analysis, many musicians recounted a strong reluctance to work with vocalists, a notable trend in a scene where most instrumentalists are male and most vocalists are female. To further understand the gender dynamics at play, I conducted another round of coding that focused on gender and vocalists’ struggles. Combined with my previous coding of professionalism in the field, I identified the lack of institutional training as the key reason for the dichotomy between instrumentalists and vocalists.

Participants interviewed include a large number of local and international male instrumentalists from different generations, as well as five female Chinese vocalists and musicians. Given that the study was not initially designed for understanding gender dynamics in the jazz scene, and due to the relatively low proportion of established male vocalists in the Shanghai jazz scene during my fieldwork, I only interviewed one male vocalist. Thus, while recognizing that the intersectionality of being male and a vocalist would bring different struggles, this is beyond the focus of this article. Considering very few studies have explored vocalists’ experiences in the local jazz scene, and most gender studies in jazz rely on the autoethnography method (Canham et al.), the several cases I discuss here offer a significant contribution to our growing understanding of women’s struggles in music-making, and in particular their knowledge formation in a highly institutionalized field where alternative ways of knowing are not accredited.

Apart from the research design, my positionality as an “outsider” also influenced my focus and interpretation. Jazz studies often praise the positionality of an insider as a necessary epistemological standpoint for understanding jazz and producing “real” knowledge about jazz (L. Porter; Tucker, “Big”). As an early-career female scholar who is not a jazz musician, nor a sophisticated jazz fan, I am clearly aware of my “outsider” position in both my fieldwork and in the discipline of jazz studies. This positionality endows me with a degree of empathy toward female vocalists in the scene who are often seen as unprofessional and as outsiders. In this way, the study offers a celebration of feminist and “outsider” standpoints for producing and expanding popular music knowledge.

Findings: The Institutional Denial of Education Opportunities

As mentioned earlier, compared to the United States, where jazz has a certain level of popularity and integral jazz education is found in secondary schools, opportunities to access jazz and jazz education resources in China are relatively scarce. Within this context, unless born into a musical family or having connections to jazz musicians, it is extremely difficult for individuals to have jazz-related knowledge and skills without education from institutionalized jazz programs. While instrumentalists who studied in the conservatory often had four years of systematic training in their specific instrument, music theory, and improvisation, as well as experience in collaborating with their peers in jazz ensembles, vocalists suffer from the institutional denial of accessing this knowledge and skills. Thus, many vocalists join the scene as amateurs with a passion for jazz and need to find alternative educational resources. Lacking institutional support, this journey often relies on self-exploration, self-dedication, and requires a certain level of financial security, and even then, vocalists do not acquire the same level of knowledge or achieve the same result as professionally trained instrumentalists.

Always interested in singing, Zhao (female vocalist) found her passion in jazz during her undergraduate study, but didn’t know where to start:

I asked a conservatory teacher, who was a music production major or a composer, “How can I learn jazz?” Then he recommended me to a bassist who actually didn’t play jazz specifically. He told me to go home and buy a keyboard. … Because learning the keyboard helps you learn music theory. He himself also plays the keyboard, but furthermore about jazz, he doesn’t know. Later he recommended me to a jazz pianist he learnt from. Then after ten months, I went to JZ School to study for two semesters.

Compared to jazz instrumentalists in the scene, who often had a music background or were directly introduced into a jazz program, vocalists without the right personal connections, often struggled to find the jazz education for them. The establishment of JZ School, a private jazz education provider in Shanghai, offers a valuable but limited and less formal systematic training opportunity for vocalists, without any entry requirements. However, this training also comes with difficulties. As a one-year full-time program integrating a typical undergraduate jazz curriculum in the United States, this intensive training can be overwhelming for beginners and requires a high level of dedication. As mentioned before, this kind of training does not provide the same credentials as a conservatory degree, and it is sometimes looked down upon by professionally trained musicians, which I will further discuss in the next section.

Self-learning is another common way for vocalists to study jazz. Mostly self-taught, Qian (female vocalist) recalls the first time she saw and was amazed by a scat solo by a vocalist:

At the end of 2017, when the Lincoln Center in Shanghai opened, they invited some great bands from New York. The first vocalist I saw was Veronica Swift, I was shocked by how she can solo so articulately at the speed of 350 bpm. I had never seen that before, so I recorded their performance, went back, and practiced myself. Since then, I went to the Lincoln Center two or three times a week, recording the performance of great bands and vocalists I like. I listen to them repetitively and practice; that’s how I gradually improve.

As can be seen from Qian’s story, without professional training in jazz, vocalists’ growth largely depends on themselves. Unlike how certain techniques are systematically introduced in an academic jazz program or by an experienced teacher in apprenticeship, self-taught vocalists’ encounters with specific types of jazz knowledge often appear to be serendipitous. Without guidance or a collective learning environment, their way of mastering the skill and acquiring knowledge is therefore unsupported and often relies on their self-dedication. This DIY feature easily leads to accusations of being amateurs, which I will explore in the next section.

Due to the relative lack of vocal training opportunities in China, Qian and Sun chose to take private lessons from established jazz vocalists in New York for further improvement.

Through the learning process, I took private lessons from Li (male vocalist) in the early stages. I took some courses at JZ School but didn’t find further classes that particularly suited me. Later I just went to New York myself, stayed there for a month. During that visit, I went to see lots of gigs and took private lessons with a famous vocalist. (Sun, female vocalist)

Qian and Sun believe that their study experiences in New York have been tremendously beneficial to them, both in terms of musical understanding and technical skills. However, there are significant challenges behind the approach. Firstly, this approach is not affordable for most people due to the financial and language requirement, and the lack of institutional support means that this type of learning relies on strong financial backing and personal connection from individuals or their families. The same can be said for a few vocalists in the scene who seek institutionalized academic training in jazz abroad. While they tend to be more accepted by instrumentalists, this remains a rather privileged choice and does not represent the prevalent struggles of female vocalists in the scene. Secondly, this approach, although sometimes seen as a form of advanced study, does not constitute a standard developmental pathway for vocalists, and their learning pathway remains ambiguous.

In her ethnographic study of grass-roots music-making activities in a local context, Ruth Finnegan shows how different music genres—in practice—form different musical worlds with their own conventions and structures. These conventions guide their diverse musical practices in terms of the proper way of learning music, performances, and composition, forming a normative pathway while leaving places for flexibility and individual diversity. In the Chinese jazz scene, this pathway within jazz is largely defined by instrumentalists and highly emphasizes institutional training. Thus, instrumentalists often have a clearer pathway to learn jazz and advance themselves in the jazz scene, which often includes an undergraduate jazz degree, a master’s degree in jazz studies abroad, and proving themselves in the scene by leading their own project. However, as we can see from the quotations above, the educational and career pathway for singers is often ambiguous. While the institutionally trained pathway taken by most instrumentalists remains the dominant way of learning music in the scene, vocalists are expected to exhibit the same level of knowledge without the infrastructure to provide them with the equivalent training. Similarly, in the classic essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Nochlin argues that institutional denial of women’s access to nude models, which serves as one fundamental element in classical artistic training, largely blocked women’s access to key skills and further advancement in their careers. Lacking institutional support and a clear pathway for their music socialization, female vocalists rely primarily on personal exploration, self-dedication, and financial support.

While the emphasis on academic jazz training and the absence of a vocal training pathway in China shape the inequality of knowledge access and achievement, discrimination against vocalists in jazz is more of a global issue. Professionally trained female vocalists face similar discrimination in local jazz scenes around the world. For example, Istvandity’s study documents how professionally trained female vocalists are still seen as lacking musicianship and are discriminated against in the Brisbane jazz scene. In the United States, despite the inclusion of some successful vocal jazz education in university settings, vocal programs have been controversial and less developed pedagogically than instrumental programs (see Spradling). A common accusation of vocalists is their perceived lag in improvisation achievement. Hargreaves argues that instrumentalists and vocalists have fundamental differences in five main aspects: motor feedback, verbal capability, embodiment, music learning experience, and expected roles. However, jazz education often ignores these differences and instructs vocalists in the same way as educating instrumentalists, asking vocalists to imitate instrumentalists in their improvisation, which doesn’t produce the same level of achievement. As Tucker notes, “playing good enough meant playing like men” (“Big”). Under this evaluation system, to what extent does imitating instrumentalists indicate performing masculinity? Imitation puts the focus back on gendered music roles, as the male-dominated instrumental profession is often considered to contain more power and be superior to more female-friendly vocal roles (Doubleday; Koskoff). Thus, vocalists are not properly trained in the highly institutionalized male musician-dominated system, but are constantly being assessed by this system, where the knowledge of understanding and mastering an instrument using music theory’s often abstracts ideas from a larger male-dominated intellectual complex (Kartomi).

Findings: Exclusion from the Community

Nochlin argues that in the art field, rather than individual genius, it is often educational and institutional inequality that shapes the entrance and achievement of certain social groups. Within the jazz tradition, despite the increasing importance of academic jazz training, informal education that happens in performance venues and within the communities often serves as another indispensable educational resource (Berliner). Apart from the performance experience and skills learned from playing with senior musicians, jam sessions and generally “hanging out” after hours serve as informal education for newcomers to learn musical knowledge, the embodied cultural capital, and the lifestyle from senior musicians (DeVeaux; Sutopo). Within this context, vocalists seem to have a large number of opportunities to learn from professionally trained musicians for their relatively abundant gigs due to market demand. However, vocalists’ perceived lack of professional training situates them in an unbalanced power dynamic with professionally trained instrumentalists. For female vocalists, the stress of socializing and social exclusion in a highly competitive homosocial scene further hinders their informal educational opportunities. The high demand for female vocalists in the market also results in instrumentalists’ perception of vocal performance as not serious art, which I will discuss more in the next section. As a result, there appears to be an instrumentalist/vocalist dichotomy in the jazz scene that blocks further communication and knowledge exchange opportunities.

They sing too badly. All the vocalists here are terrible. Might be a bit exaggerating, but I hate all of them. Sometimes I hope I can hide under the floor. Shameful, how could I perform with someone like that. After this kind of show, I feel embarrassed. (Zhou, male pianist)

As this quotation demonstrates, instrumentalists often express a strong frustration recalling performances with vocalists. Due to vocalists’ lack of training, musicians often complain that they are not “on the same page,” resulting in a mentality that encourages an adversarial dichotomy between vocalists and instrumentalists. Some musicians believe this dichotomy is unsolvable and playing with vocalists often requires the sacrifice of instrumentalists.

She’s such a good singer, but what’s that to me? She sings, but it’s very contained. She’s never locked into the rhythm. If I attempt any rhythmic interaction with her, the whole thing breaks because we’re not on the same page. It’s like, we’re coexisting in the wrong, totally different rhythmic planes. And everything I attempt is undermining her singing. So then I’m left with this awful choice. I either submit to it and empty myself and finish the gig, giving nothing or bring myself to the gig, and destroy her gig so that I could feel better about myself, but neither choice is a winning choice. (Tom, international male bassist)

Seeing vocalists as too fundamentally different to communicate musically with instrumentalists, the attitude of some instrumentalists prevents the potential knowledge exchange between them. As discussed in the previous section, discrimination against vocalists appears to be common in various local jazz scenes, even against professionally trained female vocalists. Instrumentalists seem to hold an essentialist view that vocalists lack musicianship, while seldom questioning the structural inequality behind this phenomenon.

Two musicians I interviewed attributed the difference in musicianship to disparate education between instrumentalists and vocalists, while emphasizing it more as a problem of individual effort rather than an institutional disparity.

There are too many vocalists in the jam session now. Most of them learn too fast, but they are not at a good level, just a basic level. For example, they can sing one tune, “All of Me,” or “Fly Me to the Moon,” and then they came to the session. They couldn’t solo, they just sing the melody and it’s done and often they couldn’t keep with the form. And in this situation, we are not happy. We came to the session because we practice so hard and we learned some new tricks. (Wu, male drummer)

I don’t mind performing with vocalists, but I know many musicians don’t like to play with vocalists. There are few vocalists out there who can reach the level of musicians. Now, in Shanghai, basically vocalists learn for one or two years and they dare to perform outside. They probably think this is easy, but it’s actually not. They don’t know how to practice. Of course, if it’s good singers you don’t feel any burden to play with, but there are too few of them. (Zhen, male pianist)

Although mentioning the educational differences, the crash course-educated amateur vocalists are situated as opposed to the hardworking professionally trained instrumentalists, reflecting the broader experience of women in the music industry, who often face being devalued as amateurs in male-dominated areas (Savage). Within music production, the popularization of GarageBand has been celebrated by women for its user-friendly interface and a more private place to experiment with their creativity, while being devalued by audio engineers, who are overwhelmingly male, as “too mass-produced, too consumer-friendly for real recording” (Tavana). A similar dynamic is at work in Chinese jazz scenes, where the role of a singer appears to be more welcoming and “easier” for women but is seldom seen as “real jazz.” This criticism of amateurism often hides behind a meritocracy ideology that links individual achievement to effort and dedication, while overlooking structural inequalities that shape differentiated achievements. As discussed in the previous section, vocalists’ educational resources are limited due to institutional inequality, and they need to find alternative learning pathways. However, this self-learning and “one or two years” of private jazz education are seen by instrumentalists as “learning too fast” and not enough to play with instrumentalists. Alternative learning approaches that are available to vocalists are thus denied in the highly institutionalized scene dominated by male instrumentalists.

The meritocratic narrative overlooks females’ struggles in learning and improving themselves in a homosocial place. Wolfe points out that women’s advancement in male-dominated creative areas, ranging from early female novelists to contemporary female music producers, often requires a non-judgmental private space that allows free exploration of their creativity. This is difficult in jazz practice, as jazz is primarily an ensemble music practice that often relies on an individual’s network, but women often feel socially excluded in male-dominated bands and are refused social activities after gigs (Healey). “Hanging out” is also important in forming mini-networks for musicians to access gig opportunities and events (Jackson). In Shanghai’s jazz scene, this exclusion also extends to working areas, where musicians often don’t want to work with vocalists, and sometimes avoid doing so. On the other side, Hannaford found that trust and support from ensembles are important for female improvisers in their performance. Jazz vocalists need musicians’ support in gigs and hope to learn from them, but the trust on stage and informal education opportunities are blocked by the dichotomy between instrumentalists and vocalists, further hindering their improvement. Thus, female vocalists, seen as both amateurs and women, are doubly excluded from a male instrumentalist community that circulates knowledge and career opportunities among insiders. Several male instrumentalists I interviewed did express that they gain different knowledge when playing with vocalists and are willing to accommodate and support vocalists musically on stage. However, these accounts largely come from instrumentalists who are newcomers to the field, which points to another layer of hierarchy in the jazz scene.

Generally, the patriarchal instrumentalist-defined meritocracy still dominates the jazz scene. Sun (female vocalist) recounted that her humble attitude is one of the reasons why musicians prefer to work with her:

I think currently in China, musicians are actually stronger than singers. First, there are very few good vocalists. And musicians, because they learned more, they can compose, they can perform. In fact, they have the power and have a say in this. So sometimes if a vocalist doesn’t do a good job, or I don’t do well, and they have some views on you, I think it is reasonable. I can accept this kind of thing, and this may make me a bit different.

Within the male instrumentalist-dominated environment, where the academic approach of learning jazz dominates and alternative ways of knowing are denied, female vocalists tend to support the meritocratic standards and think they are “not good enough” for “not knowing enough.” Similarly, Wahl and Ellingson’s analysis of interviews from the Hamilton College Jazz Archive, suggests that even established female vocalists in the United States, such as Nancy Wilson and Jackie Cain, often considered themselves to be “not a true jazz artist” and “just the girl singer,” while only female vocalists who can “sound like one of the horns” were accepted by male musicians (456). Vocalists justify and strengthen the narrative that instrumentalists are more powerful, and that vocalists should be subordinate. What goes unspoken is the gendered divide between instrumentalists and vocalists, and that their capability is measured by musicianship that largely comes from academic training that vocalists are denied access to.

Finally, the belief in meritocracy and in the instrumentalist/vocalist dichotomy are also embraced by female instrumentalists in the field, as two female instrumentalists recounted that they want to prove their ability regardless of their gender and they don’t want to be seen just as “girl singers.” As a strategy for women to navigate through the gendered jazz scene (Wahl and Ellingson), the view of the female instrumentalists corresponds with several studies that found female musicians tend to refuse the gender binary within jazz and align themselves with a meritocracy narrative (MacDonald and Wilson; Björck and Bergman). However, feminist studies point out that belief in meritocracy has the potential to harm gender equality, because it overlooks the structural barriers for women to overcome, and the meritocratic ideal makes women easier to blame for their lower position compared to men (Kozan et al.). Combined with the hierarchy of gendered musical roles, the refusal to be just “girl singers” could obfuscate the structural inequality underlying the denigration of female vocalists.

Findings: Threat to Artistic Autonomy

Shanghai’s jazz scene is probably the most prosperous jazz scene in China with high commercialization and industrialization (Hsieh). The marketing focus of jazz-related high-class culture that involves capital, luxury decoration, and expensive liquors (Hsieh), and the historical Shanghainese cosmopolitan culture (Lin et al.), together bring the profitability of a jazz scene that not only attracts jazz lovers but also a broader population who enjoy a high-class culture and lively nightlife. Due to the high market demand, jazz clubs and clubs that target this high-class jazz culture in Shanghai tend to feature a female vocalist on Friday and weekend nights. On the one hand, this gives female vocalists relatively abundant job opportunities, which instrumentalists think is unfair considering the perceived poor training of vocalists. On the other hand, musicians tend to associate vocal performance as commercial and crowd-pleasing, and thus not serious art.

For Chinese musicians, we really need to work hard on our content. We need to be able to attract an audience without singers. Now all the commercial gigs require a singer. They think that’s the right way to have a good vibe. (Wang, male saxophonist)

Because of the reality, like what audiences like. Audiences like singers more than only instrumental music, but for musicians, we like more instrumental music. So, I think this is a balance. Now we play one set of instrumental jazz, and two sets of the vocal jazz together on some days. (Lee, international male bassist)

In these accounts, the market’s preference for vocal performance is situated as opposed to musicians’ preference for instrumental jazz. Vocal performance that brings “a good vibe” and requires low barriers of appreciation are for audiences who don’t understand jazz, while the more artistic instrumental jazz is preserved for musicians and jazz lovers. Vocalists become the incarnation of profit-seeking commerce that interferes with the instrumentalist’s artist autonomy. Despite the wider recognition of industrialization and capitalism in popular music production (Toynbee), as well as the technological shift and the increasing importance of self-promotion, the principles of cultural autonomy still persist among popular musicians (Klein et al.). Within jazz, the “art versus commerce” debate is further complicated; as Lopes demonstrates, behind the status ascension of jazz from a “low-brow” culture to an elite culture in America lies a long struggle for jazz musicians and enthusiasts, especially Black musicians, to gain acceptance. In addition to the struggle and ascendance of Black culture in American history, the availability of jazz studies in higher education also represents a move to safeguard this culture from its declining popularity in the United States and, to a certain extent, adopt the high art discourse about autonomy that maintains a certain distance from the market (Wilf). In China, however, jazz enters higher education for a different reason: it is seen as an advanced form of musical knowledge that has potential use in the popular music industry. This produces a professionalist pursuit in the Chinese jazz scene that embraces an ambiguous attitude toward commerce. Paradoxically, working with local vocalists who are perceived as poorly trained is a commercial interference of artist autonomy, while working with pop stars in a highly industrialized popular music industry is seen by many jazz instrumentalists in China as a sign of professional achievement.

Pellegrinelli points out that the dearth of studies on jazz vocalists probably results from their relative mainstream popularity, thus escaping the attention of scholars’ research into the underrepresentation of jazzwomen. However, in the Chinese jazz scene, it’s not mainstream pop singers who are denigrated for their commercial success, but local singers, lacking professional training, who are associated with commercial objectives. There is a nuanced dichotomy here. Professional training is considered an intellectual pursuit, which emphasizes understanding and mastering an instrument using music theories from a larger male-dominated intellectual complex (Kartomi). In comparison, the “artless” feminine singing that lacks institutional training is considered commerce-oriented, and could threaten musicians’ autonomy.

The “crowd-pleasing” impression of jazz vocalists is further reinforced by the marketing and stereotypical expectations that female vocalists often need to perform their femininity on stage. Within jazz, Jichova finds that, in the media portrayal of female vocalists, the performance of femininity is often the focus while their musicianship is generally downplayed. In her study of female vocalists in the Brisbane jazz scene, Istvandity found that the “romanticized and sexualized” expectation of female vocalists often influences how they negotiate their performance of gender (78).

Because people would easily think you are using your gender advantage to achieve something, as it’s a shortcut. So sometimes I don’t even want to wear make-up, and I don’t want to dress up. So I can prove my musical ability, an ability that is not decorated by my appearance. This is certainly harder for women. (Feng, female instrumentalist)

In this account, the performance of femininity is seen as a devaluation of musicianship. While several female instrumentalists attempt to avoid the emphases of femininity in their clothing and demeanor, these gender expectations can still be noticed in terms of female singers’ promotional material and their feminine-inflected outfits on stage. The expectation of a performance of femininity poses another difficulty for female jazz singers. Istvandity notes that female vocalists are often seen as “able to get by as performers without intensive knowledge of jazz theory,” and not needing “to work hard to enhance their musicianship” but mainly using their “bodily presentation to impress audiences” (83). Within the patriarchal structure, where professional training is considered a masculine intellectual pursuit, the vocal performance guided by market expectation is seen as a “shortcut” that has an advantage under the male gaze but lacks “real knowledge” in jazz. Within rock, Cohen’s study of two Liverpool rock bands found that male musicians emphasized the distinction between purity and impurity in their music production, and viewed commerce and women as threats to their artistic creativity. Similarly, female vocalists in the Chinese jazz scene, because of their commercial connotation and presumed gender “advantage,” are seen as a threat to instrumentalists’ autonomy. Vocalists are first denied the opportunity of institutional training, and then the absence of academic vocal training is justified as they are viewed as able to “get by” in the market.

Conclusion

In a patriarchal society, and especially in male-dominated spaces, feminine roles encourage women’s participation with a seemingly welcoming and easier entrance, but the difficulties during the journey to gain acceptance and respect are often overlooked. Within the music industry and music education, as Green argues, the production and reproduction of gendered musical roles continue to serve the patriarchal administration of women’s participation in music.

Using interview and ethnography data, this article focuses on the struggles of women who occupy a more feminine musical role, the vocalist, in Shanghai’s jazz scene. I argue that the discrimination experienced by female vocalists in the Chinese jazz scene is a result of the fact that both their gender and their status as vocalists are marginalized in the structure of the jazz field. Within the highly institutionalized and professionalized Chinese jazz scene, the establishment of jazz programs without the inclusion of vocal training pathways contributes to the subordination of vocalists to instrumentalists by blocking (mostly female) vocalists’ access to a form of knowledge that is seen as masculine and highly valued in the field. The lack of professional training opportunities leads vocalists to find alternative learning pathways, which are ambiguous and often rely on their self-exploration, self-dedication, and a certain level of financial security.

Due to their perceived lack of musicianship, vocalists are often dismissed as unprofessional amateurs in the jazz scene, a common accusation of women participants in the music industry (Savage). This creates an instrumentalist/vocalist dichotomy, leading to social exclusion and influencing working opportunities (Istvandity; Healey). In addition, instrumentalists’ reluctance to work with vocalists, and the social exclusion of vocalists and females from homosocial spaces, block female vocalists’ opportunities for informal, community-based education in the jazz scene. The emphasis on professional training reinforces the belief in meritocracy that can be found in global jazz scenes where the structural inequality of gender and music roles are often overlooked and even affirmed by female participants in the field.

Furthermore, due to high market demand, female vocalists are often featured in commerce-oriented gigs and expected to perform their femininity and sexuality (Istvandity; Jichova). The association of vocalists with commercialism leads to male instrumentalists’ belief that female vocalists act as interference with their artistic autonomy. Female vocalists’ required performance of their femininity on stage is often seen by male instrumentalists as a “shortcut” to participate in jazz, but the female vocalists lack “real knowledge.”

My analysis is not solely a critique of the Chinese jazz scene in comparison to countries with more diverse jazz educational sources. If we trace the origin of the pursuit of professionalism in China and consider why the academic way of learning jazz has become dominant, other power dynamics are at play, including China’s peripheral position within global cultural hegemony. The exclusion of academic jazz vocal training evident in China might not be the case elsewhere in the world, but the discrimination against vocalists for their perceived lack of musicianship is a more universal phenomenon. This study thus offers a generalizable example that reveals institutional inequality and patriarchal structure in gendered music education, and demonstrates how the institutionalization and dominance of a certain way of knowing and denial of alternatives can facilitate the social reproduction of certain social groups while hindering others. In this case, by occupying a more feminine musical role, vocalists do not receive the same level of training as instrumentalists in a male musician-dominated pedagogical system but are then constantly assessed by a meritocratic standard based on the same system and thus seen as lacking musicianship. Greater understanding of gendered music roles and related institutional and educational inequality in local jazz scenes helps to fill knowledge gaps about gender inequality in the jazz world and global music industry more broadly.

Ethics Declaration

This paper is derived from the data gathered during my PhD study in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. The ethics review for this study was approved by my supervisor and the School of Social and Political Science. All the data presented are original and were collected during fieldwork conducted in Shanghai from December 2020 to October 2021, with additional visits of one week in Beijing and three days in Hangzhou. The fieldwork involved participant observation and interviews with 54 adult jazz musicians. The interviews did not cover sensitive topics. Participants were informed of the researcher’s identity prior to engagement. Before each interview, participants were provided with a consent form and an information sheet to review and sign. Interviews were recorded, and data were anonymized with participants’ agreement.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

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蒋玉涵 Jiang Yuhan

Jiang Yuhan (Jade) is a PhD candidate in sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Her forthcoming thesis adapts Bourdieu’s field theory to understand the trajectories of jazz musicians and the development of the jazz field under larger social change, since the 1980s when jazz was reintroduced in China. Her general research interests are in the dynamics between social stratification and cultural tastes, and popular music studies.