Jazz has long been a world where women’s voices had to fight to be heard. And yet, they’re the ones who changed it most profoundly, without asking anyone’s permission.
At Jazz in the Park, the stage has always been a place where genres, cultures and generations collide in unexpected ways. Over 13 editions, some of the most memorable of those collisions had women at the center, artists who brought sounds we hadn’t heard before. From classic jazz and soul to afrobeat, electronic and world music, each of them turned the park into a more alive place, if only for a few hours.
For the 8th of March, we did a small exercise in memory: we put together a playlist of some of the female voices who’ve performed at Jazz in the Park across all 13 editions.
Listen to the playlist: Women of Jazz in the Park
Among them: Melanie Pain, Hindi Zahra, Hania Rani, Fatoumata Diawara, Susana Baca, Judith Hill, Kinga Głyk, Sona Jobarteh, Camilla George, Nani Noam Vazana, Nouvelle Vague, Anna Hauss, Kokoroko, Nneka, Sandra Sangiao, Lisa Simone, Yilian Cañizares.
Alongside them, the Romanian artists who have built, year after year, a local scene full of its own identity: Teodora Enache, Maria Răducanu, Luiza Zan, Elena Mîndru, Ada Milea, Iulia Merca, Moonlight Breakfast, Mădălina Pavăl, Andra Botez, and many others whose names deserve to be said just as loudly.
Jazz feeds on diversity. On people who bring different influences, different rhythms, different ways of telling the truth through music. Women who didn’t wait to be invited to the center of the stage, they built it themselves.
We’re grateful that many of these stories were written on our stage too. And this year, our stage will belong to Lisa Simone, daughter of a legend who made jazz an act of resistance, and Yilian Cañizares, the Cuban violinist who has convinced the world that the violin and jazz still have secrets to share.
Happy International Women’s Day to every woman who creates, inspires and changes the world through music. You make it more beautiful.
