Hear This

Despite more than a century of activism for gender equality, master musicians of the "fair sex" continue to be ghettoized. Even in jazz, arguably the most egalitarian of genres, female players tend to get props en masse rather than as individuals. Case in point: the San Francisco Jazz Festival's "Jazz Women" series.

Andrew Pothecary

Marilyn Crispell.

Details

Thursday, March 21, at 8 p.m.

Tickets are $22-28

776-1999

www.sfjazz.org

Kali Z. Fasteau performs on Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22, at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand Gallery, 21 Grand (between Broadway and Webster), Oakland. Tickets are $15; call (510) 444-7263 or go to www.bayimproviser.com.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 701 Mission (at Third Street), S.F.

Related Content

• Saturday: Two Gallants Make a Poignant Homecoming at the Independent
  September 26, 2011
• Cecil Taylor and Marilyn Crispell: the Key Players
  October 22, 2008
• SFJAZZ Drops Names for Its 26th Annual S.F. Jazz Festival
  June 24, 2008
• Anthony Braxton
  November 5, 2008
• Yoshi’s steps up its game with free-jazz fest
  June 17, 2009

More About

• Marilyn Crispell
• Cecil Taylor
• Kali Fasteau
• Anthony Braxton
• Music Festivals

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

The first live show in the weeklong fling features one of jazz's most powerful and lyrical improviser/composers, Marilyn Crispell. None other than avant-garde pioneer Anthony Braxton, who collaborated with Crispell in his legendary quartet of the '80s, has said, "After Cecil Taylor, she's the strongest pianist that I know of."

A fine batch of recent albums by Crispell supports Braxton's position. Released last year, Selected Works 1983-1986 highlights Crispell's virtuosity in solo, duo, and quartet settings. Indebted to Taylor's fist-over-fist locomotion, Crispell's early performances are fierce in their improvisational energy, while also being elegant in harmonic development and melodic clarity. Since then, Crispell has spotlighted her radiant introspective side with the critically acclaimed trio effort Amaryllis and the beauty and breadth of her solo work with the three-CD Complicité. The latter, which also includes full discs by Taylor and pianist Paul Plimley, erases any notion of gender-based shortcoming.

Another world-class improviser who also happens to be a woman, Kali Z. Fasteau appears sans genderized fanfare at this year's Glenn Spearman Music Festival, a grass-roots effort to honor the late Oakland saxophonist. A globe-trotting multi-instrumentalist -- on soprano saxophone, nai (a Moroccan reed flute), sheng (a Chinese mouth organ), and other winds -- Fasteau performs with an acute ear for nuance and a tuneful feel for color. Since Fasteau began as a free-jazz groundbreaker in the late '60s, her work has evolved into an inclusive type of improvised world-music that knows no bounds of race, creed, or gender. The S.F. Jazz Festival -- and other high-profile events -- would be wise to take note.