Speaker 1: With everything she does, there's a kind of generosity. She
Speaker 1: gives herself to it fully. She's always finding new ways
Speaker 1: to change alter. We do a song that her fans
Speaker 1: may have heard for years. She gives pleasure so acutely.
Speaker 1: That is Pulitzer Prize winning critic Margot Jefferson talking about
Speaker 1: jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, the Immortal first Lady of Song.
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald is one of Jefferson's idols. We're going to hear
Speaker 1: how Fitzgerald inspired Jefferson and helped make her the woman
Speaker 1: she is today. I'm a land Revere and this is
Speaker 1: Seneca's one Women to Hear. We are bringing you one
Speaker 1: hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women
Speaker 1: you need to hear. If Margot Jefferson's voice sounds familiar,
Speaker 1: it's because she frequently appears in documentaries about the history
Speaker 1: of music, among them Ken Burns Mini series Jazz and
Speaker 1: the documentary Ella Fitzgerald just one of those things. She's
Speaker 1: probably best known for her career with The New York Times,
Speaker 1: where she was a book reviewer, theater critic, and critic
Speaker 1: at large. Jefferson's second memoir, Constructing a Nervous System recently
Speaker 1: came out. In it, she traces the cultural forces that
Speaker 1: shaped her, including, of course, the artistry of Ella Fitzgerald.
Speaker 1: Listen and learn why Ella Fitzgerald and Margot Jefferson are
Speaker 1: amongst Seneca's One Women to Hear. I'm speaking today with
Speaker 1: Margo Jefferson, Award winning author, professor, and jazz enthusiast. Welcome, Margot.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you with us. Oh, it's
Speaker 1: a pleasure and an honor to be here. Well, Margot,
Speaker 1: I know that you're also an extraordinary authority. And Ella Fitzgerald,
Speaker 1: whom you greatly admire, that first lady of song about
Speaker 1: whom you've written. Could we talk some about her because
Speaker 1: she's such an iconic figure in American music? Yes, first,
Speaker 1: the first lady of almost any kind of song. Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: what made her so legendary and why should she be remembered? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, with a musical artist, first of all, there's
Speaker 1: you know, there, there's the instrument. There is that lovely, um, clean, clear,
Speaker 1: beautifully pitched voice. There is a combination of virtuosity um.
Speaker 1: She can give you long lines, she can scatch, she
Speaker 1: can you know, jump and give you lots of percussive.
Speaker 1: So you've got the virtuosity, but there with everything she is,
Speaker 1: there's a kind of generosity she gives herself to it fully.
Speaker 1: She she thinks of new ways. I I set in
Speaker 1: my piece on her that her mind is her music laboratory,
Speaker 1: her mind in her ear. She's always finding new ways
Speaker 1: to change alter redo a song that her fans may
Speaker 1: have heard for years. So there's also that kind of
Speaker 1: kind of constant curiosity within herself, but a kind of
Speaker 1: respect for the audience too. She gives pleasure so acutely,
Speaker 1: and she doesn't intimidate when she gives pleasure. Does she
Speaker 1: just fascinating to hear you talk about her already? I
Speaker 1: wonder is there an aspect of her life or career
Speaker 1: that more people should know about? I think so. And
Speaker 1: I discovered this after she died in I think it
Speaker 1: was and I was asked uh the New York Times
Speaker 1: to write a piece about her, and I started thinking
Speaker 1: more and researching more. How we we, meaning her fans
Speaker 1: and listeners, have taken that what appears to be this
Speaker 1: kind of even temperament um and this lack of telling
Speaker 1: stories and ten stories about her life that's made us
Speaker 1: take her a little bit. For granted, she's often been
Speaker 1: compared to Billy Holliday, who was also a great artist,
Speaker 1: but to Ella's detriment, it was often all you know,
Speaker 1: lady Lady Dave puts everything into her songs, her heart,
Speaker 1: her suffering, and and Ella she just doesn't have that
Speaker 1: emotional reach. And maybe she didn't have that experience. While
Speaker 1: she had a very hard early life. She was orphaned,
Speaker 1: she was abused by a stepfather. She ran away from home.
Speaker 1: She got sent to UM a facility let us call
Speaker 1: it for girls in upstate New York, where she was
Speaker 1: again um abused. She ran away. She was a professional,
Speaker 1: and she was determined to be a singer. She ran away.
Speaker 1: She came back to New York. She you know, stood
Speaker 1: outside of you know, every ballroom and jazz club around.
Speaker 1: She listened to record successively, She trained her voice, and
Speaker 1: she was a working musician by the precocious age of sixteen.
Speaker 1: She chose never to to talk, to make these painful
Speaker 1: experiences into a kind of legend or a tragedy, which
Speaker 1: I think took a certain amount of pride um and
Speaker 1: and that kind of self respect. But I think I
Speaker 1: think we need to remember that and we need to
Speaker 1: remember that every human being, particularly every artist UM. They
Speaker 1: they used their own particular style and temperament to UM
Speaker 1: to convey what went on in their life. Ella could
Speaker 1: be very melancholy, she could do it UM very sweetly,
Speaker 1: sad versions of songs, but she wasn't going to give
Speaker 1: you intense confessions. And there's always a little bit of
Speaker 1: reserve there, not coldness, I would say, but reserves well.
Speaker 1: In your latest memoir, Creating a Nervous System, you tell
Speaker 1: your story through the musicians and creators who shaped you.
Speaker 1: How did Ella Fitzgerald help shape the person you are, Margo? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, first in my early years when I was
Speaker 1: listening to her as a pre ADOLESCENTUM she brought out
Speaker 1: and that did shape me certain insecurities, and it had
Speaker 1: very much to do with being a young girl in
Speaker 1: the nineties fifties with all these rigid constructs and rules
Speaker 1: and definitions of what made women interesting and Worthwhile I
Speaker 1: knew she was wonderfully talented, the record were in my house,
Speaker 1: but I was, like so many young girls, I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with um, with clamor with desirability. And Ella she
Speaker 1: was It's nice looking, she dressed nicely. But she was
Speaker 1: sport ly. Um. She was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
Speaker 1: um and in that way not glamorous. And she never
Speaker 1: exuded um sexuality. That's you know again, if you were
Speaker 1: listening to a record, to a recording of a song,
Speaker 1: you could hear it, but never in her performances. So
Speaker 1: I was torn between feeling um, oh my goodness, it's
Speaker 1: like you know, the librarian um and being embarrassed up.
Speaker 1: And I think that really was intensified by my being
Speaker 1: a young black woman at a time that there were
Speaker 1: you you know, um images, desirable, exciting, um compelling in
Speaker 1: ages up. So her weight there was, you know, think
Speaker 1: of Aunt Jemima, the stereotype of the large, large black woman.
Speaker 1: So her weight embarrassed me, even though she couldn't have
Speaker 1: been less like Aunt Jemima in the manner. Also, and
Speaker 1: this had to do with her the work she put
Speaker 1: into her artistry. Whenever she was really singing hard let's
Speaker 1: you know, say, like a swinging jazz song and improvising
Speaker 1: and scatting on television, she would use a white hand
Speaker 1: fishes because she was sweating. Now they're women were not
Speaker 1: supposed to sweat on television. Lewis armstrong sweated um men
Speaker 1: could but this was, if you may remember this very
Speaker 1: distasteful word on lady light. Yes. Uh, and that rattled
Speaker 1: me too because I also, being black, associated a black
Speaker 1: woman sweating with a stereotypes of your on your knees,
Speaker 1: scrubbing your you know, you're somebody's made or domestic. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting to me is she when you look at
Speaker 1: her now and think about her, you know, nothing about
Speaker 1: her was close to those stereotypes, really, but they were
Speaker 1: so alive in the culture and they, you know, we
Speaker 1: girls were so profoundly shaped by all these you know,
Speaker 1: forbidden ways to look or or act. So it I
Speaker 1: it took me, being an adult and being a feminist,
Speaker 1: to integrate all of these parts of her, her extraordinary
Speaker 1: talent and her resolute um refusal to um, you know,
Speaker 1: to play at being wildly glamorous. That was not what
Speaker 1: she was about. She was about being um, a serious
Speaker 1: and winning in her manner, but never ingratiating um and
Speaker 1: never you know, kind of aggressively flirtatious. She was about
Speaker 1: being a musician. You know, there's a lesson and all
Speaker 1: of that, isn't there about judgmental and appearances and and
Speaker 1: the reality that you came to know so deeply, Yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: and also how susceptible, Um, we are too to the stereotypes,
Speaker 1: um that surround us, and the and the verbotens and
Speaker 1: the and the injunctions. Um, this is what this is
Speaker 1: what you know an attractive interesting woman is. We also
Speaker 1: we knew she was major, as we knew Billie Holiday,
Speaker 1: Sarah Vaughan, um, other singers were major. But you know
Speaker 1: they as singers, as women singers, they weren't always treated
Speaker 1: as seriously for their musicianship as male and a mentalists.
Speaker 1: So you know, I had I had to, and I
Speaker 1: chose to really as I again got older and realized this,
Speaker 1: this legacy in all forms of popular music of pioneering
Speaker 1: and great um women singers, this has to be explored
Speaker 1: and given its full do well. And women in various
Speaker 1: professions still are on the receiving end of some of that,
Speaker 1: aren't they absolutely, um take being taken for granted, being
Speaker 1: somewhat condescended to. It's been decades and every woman I
Speaker 1: know who's ever been in a in a formal business meeting,
Speaker 1: you know whatever the profession um can tell a story
Speaker 1: about making a perfectly intelligent point and either having it
Speaker 1: taken over and co opted by another man in the meeting,
Speaker 1: or having it ignored exactly exactly, yes, yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: Senecas one hundred women to hear, will be back after
Speaker 1: the short break. So she was just that great first
Speaker 1: lady of songs, or was she say, first lady of everything?
Speaker 1: In some ways? You know, even at her very in
Speaker 1: her very last years, she was joking. But you know
Speaker 1: she wore were the thiet glasses. She had great a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble seeing her voice was wavering a bit,
Speaker 1: but she was still performing. But she said in one interview,
Speaker 1: well she said, you know, um, what I may next
Speaker 1: do is see what I can make of this um
Speaker 1: rapping and this hip hop. And I thought, and then
Speaker 1: she just laughed. You know, she wasn't even trying to
Speaker 1: be ingratiating. She was actually saying, very sweetly, don't think
Speaker 1: there's anything I can't do. I will, I will find
Speaker 1: my way to this. So she was a gutsy lady too,
Speaker 1: she absolutely was. She made her way really alone for
Speaker 1: many years. So do you have favorite Ella Fitzgerald performance?
Speaker 1: That's it's difficult, um that I have many loved ones,
Speaker 1: but One of the great ones is a nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: live in Berlin performance she does of a song called Hi,
Speaker 1: How High the Moon that was first written you know
Speaker 1: as a as a sweet, more valid sort of song.
Speaker 1: That Ella has her jazz musicians behind her, and she
Speaker 1: not only no swings into it, you know, so it's
Speaker 1: it's as if you know, it's with the vigor of
Speaker 1: of an astronaut. How High the Moon? She quotes from
Speaker 1: forty four according to One Yes critic Um, dis pouncing
Speaker 1: us to be right by by according to my County.
Speaker 1: She quotes, in the process of singing various verses of
Speaker 1: this song from forty four other songs Um, including the
Speaker 1: Flight of the Bumblebee Night in Tunisia, thirty Growth, a
Speaker 1: old old blues and ragtime songs. Up, she scats, she
Speaker 1: stretches out her lines. She can. She keeps inventing new
Speaker 1: songs with each chorus. And at the very end, and
Speaker 1: that's remember just keep in mind how we were talking
Speaker 1: about her sweating. At the very end, she borrows um
Speaker 1: from Jerome current song Smoke gets in your eyes, and
Speaker 1: she says, you know, they asked me how I knew that,
Speaker 1: I of course replied, then Her last line is sweat
Speaker 1: gets in my eyes. But okay try triumph and and
Speaker 1: and witty as well. Well, that's your sounds like one
Speaker 1: amazing performance. All of things that she introduced into it
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. She could also you know, sing a song.
Speaker 1: There are other versions of it that are just you know,
Speaker 1: gentle and lilting. There was never any one way that
Speaker 1: she felt she had to do. Yeah, she's really some
Speaker 1: shots and languorous with the Duke Ellington Zong book, every
Speaker 1: every songbook, every composer, every song gets its own considered,
Speaker 1: get gets taken into the Elephants Gerald Laboratory, musical laboratory. Well,
Speaker 1: I know that jazz has been such an important part
Speaker 1: of your life. What is it about the genre that
Speaker 1: speaks to you so personally? Ah, Well, it's it's the
Speaker 1: range of music of songs that it can draw on.
Speaker 1: It draws on blues, it draws on classical um, it
Speaker 1: draws on you know, very intense um acute, flashy material,
Speaker 1: It draws on ballads, and it constantly encourages and emphasizes
Speaker 1: and flourishes by individuality. Every musician. You know, Yes, you've
Speaker 1: got your technique, You've got a repertory of of material.
Speaker 1: You've got your style, but you're always being encouraged to
Speaker 1: at your best, to take it further, to try something new.
Speaker 1: And that is very moving to me at that sense
Speaker 1: of of tex, of minds and hearts and imaginations, you know,
Speaker 1: in inaction, you know, UM, just listening to you, and
Speaker 1: how much you know about Ella jazz in general, so
Speaker 1: much of that world. But what we also know of
Speaker 1: you that others may not is that you're one of
Speaker 1: the most famous critics to emerge from the New York Times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know it. Well, well, let's let's bear with
Speaker 1: me on this, because I've heard others say that you
Speaker 1: were one of the most extraordinary critics. So what is it?
Speaker 1: What is it about writing criticism? You know, we all
Speaker 1: read it. I think we read these reviews. What sets
Speaker 1: a good critic apart? What when you threw yourself into that?
Speaker 1: What were you aiming to do? I was aiming to
Speaker 1: combine the materials of that my intellect you now produced
Speaker 1: that my senses very acutely produced. And so it's analysis.
Speaker 1: It's it's a kind of description that we captures that
Speaker 1: that renews, that gives the audience. Um, the the on
Speaker 1: site UM sensual description, and I died to UM keep
Speaker 1: questioning myself to to walk an interesting line between you know,
Speaker 1: having a certain authority you have to otherwise why would
Speaker 1: you be a critic and why would you put the
Speaker 1: work at UM having a kind of authority but also
Speaker 1: being open to UM to two new questions being using
Speaker 1: UM maybe ambiguity uncertainty UM too to to help the
Speaker 1: reader UM think about the the range the possibilities of
Speaker 1: art and entertainment, you know, to to to to give
Speaker 1: coherence both to certainties and uncertainties. I also really wanted
Speaker 1: to keep UM testing my knowledge, you know, not to
Speaker 1: only stay and I think that's important when you're a
Speaker 1: bit with the material, with the beat that you know best,
Speaker 1: but to bring your skills and tools UM, you know,
Speaker 1: to new territories. Did you hear a lot from readers
Speaker 1: when you were doing your criticism, either agreeing with you
Speaker 1: or disagreeing with you? Believe me both very much. Not
Speaker 1: to mention you you get letters, but also you know
Speaker 1: there would be people who would use who would leave
Speaker 1: long phone messages, so probably still a little more controllable
Speaker 1: than you know critics getting responses immediately online now but
Speaker 1: but absolutely, Yeah, And you know I was I was
Speaker 1: a black woman critic, so you know, in in some
Speaker 1: borders that was considered exciting and groundbreaking, and in others
Speaker 1: it was considered a little disreputable. So so that affected
Speaker 1: who I heard from and in what way? Yeah, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but you've certainly established yourself as one of the more
Speaker 1: famous critics to emerge from the times. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we've reached that point in our conversation that I always
Speaker 1: hate to reach, and that's we've just about run out
Speaker 1: of time. But let me ask you. You know, there's
Speaker 1: so much in your writings, uh that explores racial and
Speaker 1: socioeconomic identity. With these themes in mind, what makes you
Speaker 1: optimistic about the future, because clearly we have so many
Speaker 1: challenges in these categories. Oh UM, with this in mind, UM, race, gender, UM, staft,
Speaker 1: social economic justice and injustice, and knowing that we are
Speaker 1: all in many ways often very frightened and angry right
Speaker 1: now because there's so much ugliness about I think what
Speaker 1: helps me, UM, gives me some hope is the intensity
Speaker 1: of for example, in UM the abortion crisis, the range
Speaker 1: and the intensity of UM of women being involved. I
Speaker 1: would say the same thing about the attacks on voting rights. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much imagination as well as passion,
Speaker 1: UM going into ways, finding ways to protest to you know,
Speaker 1: literally actively change the laws. UM. And Also there are
Speaker 1: more and this this is heartening. There are more alliances
Speaker 1: being made across UM, across race and ethnicity, across gender divides,
Speaker 1: across class barriers. There are more political um alliances being made.
Speaker 1: And and that is hardening to me because that means, um,
Speaker 1: you know, people are curious about each other and there
Speaker 1: and each other's sufferings and struggles as well as their own.
Speaker 1: Well said, Thank you so much, Margot Jefferson. Thank you
Speaker 1: for sharing your insights with us, for making us so
Speaker 1: much smarter about Ella Fitzgerald and jazz and so much more.
Speaker 1: Thank you all the mess to you. This was a
Speaker 1: pleasure two amazing women, Ella Fitzgerald and Margot Jefferson. Here
Speaker 1: are three things I took from that delightful conversation. First,
Speaker 1: Margo reminds us that great dignity is sometimes the perfect
Speaker 1: antidote to the harsh realities of life. Ella Fitzgerald had
Speaker 1: a rough upbringing, but her singing was smooth, seamless, elegant,
Speaker 1: she never displayed her suffering, and that says Margot took
Speaker 1: pride and self respect. Second Ella shows how the true
Speaker 1: artist is always growing and trying new things. Towards the
Speaker 1: end of her life, she talked about experimenting with rap
Speaker 1: hip hop. Her real message was, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything I can't do. Finally, Margot gives us cause for
Speaker 1: hope amid today's challenges. She takes heart when she sees
Speaker 1: people acting on behalf of their beliefs, when she sees
Speaker 1: alliance as being made across barriers of race, ethnicity, gender,
Speaker 1: and class. As she says, those alliances mean that people
Speaker 1: are curious about each other and each other's struggles as
Speaker 1: well as their own. Tune in next time to hear
Speaker 1: about our next featured woman and discover why she's one
Speaker 1: of Seneca's Women to Hear. Seneca's one hundred Women To
Speaker 1: Hear is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner PNG.
Speaker 1: Have a Great Day,