The history of jazz – an art form that has been saddled with the problematic descriptor “America’s Classical Music” for decades – is widely known as the story of cultural collisions, discrimination, oppression, slavery, creativity, resourcefulness, and liberation.
And though the drums played in Congo Square by African slaves in the 1740s led directly to the evolution of uniquely American music – the blues and eventually jazz – the art’s development in the early 20th century included foundational contributions by another persecuted population subjected to white dominance, marginalization, and subjugation – communities that inhabited the North American continent for thousands of years before the arrival of white Europeans.
It would be a mistake to believe that the work of artists of Indigenous background who are writing and performing within the loose category of jazz and related musical forms, including singer and songwriter Martha Redbone, who performs at SFJAZZ in observance of Indigious Peoples Day (10/12), is intended to “bridge musical worlds” or create an unprecedented new fusion from disparate musical traditions. Rather, they are part of a continuum, expanding and building upon a history that their forebears helped pioneer and that extends back more than a millennium to the music’s origins. Let’s take a closer look at several notable artists who helped write the Indigenous history of jazz, beginning with the Swing Era vocalist Mildred Bailey.
Born and raised on the Coeur d’Alene reservation in Idaho, Bailey was widely known as both “Mrs. Swing” and “The Queen of Swing,” and was among the first jazz artists of Indigenous heritage to enjoy widespread popularity, initially finding regional fame on the West Coast in the mid 1920s. Inspired by pioneering singers Ethel Waters and Bessie Smith and a veteran of work with Bing Crosby and the Dorsey Brothers, Bailey gained national exposure in the early 30s through her association with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, with whom she recorded her signature song “Rockin’ Chair,” as well as with the “King of Swing,” clarinetist Benny Goodman, and Bailey’s then-husband, the vibraphonist and bandleader Red Norvo.
Trombonist “Big Chief” Russell Moore was a member of the Pima tribe, born in Arizona on the Gila River Community reservation in 1912. As with many other Native children, Moore was exposed to white culture through government-established schools that were designed to assimilate the Indigenous population into white society. Coming of age in the Swing era, he joined the high-profile band of vibraphonist Lionel Hampton in 1935 and worked steadily through the 1970s with artists including Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Pee Wee Russell, Mezz Mezzrow, and Frank Sinatra. Not one to shy away from his background, Moore embraced the nickname “Big Chief” and was extremely active in the Native American community, encouraging Indigenous youth to take pride in their heritage.
Though Bailey and Moore grew up on reservations, many artists of Indigenous heritage were raised in major cities, as was the case with saxophonist and bebop icon Charlie Parker, a Kansas City native whose mother Addie Bailey was of Choctaw descent. Though he was known as “Yardbird” (later shortened to “Bird”), Parker’s less known nickname was “Indian” early in his career, and he felt a deep connection to the 1938 Ray Noble standard “Cherokee” from his teens, playing it incessantly at performances and recording multiple versions his own tune “Ko Ko” based on the “Cherokee” changes, including a particularly fiery version in November of 1945 that featured his fellow bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, himself of Cheraw lineage. Parker went on to compose and record “Mohawk” – a sinuous blues inspired by his background that was part of his final recording session with Gillespie in 1950.
Oklahoma-born bassist Oscar Pettiford – a masterful instrumentalist of Choctaw and Cherokee lineage – was described by bass master Christian McBride as “probably the most important bass player of that bebop generation,” and other major artists of Cherokee descent included trumpet icon Miles Davis, the legendary Duke Ellington, and Modern Jazz Quartet pianist John Lewis.
Trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Thelonious Monk, drummer Max Roach, bassist Charles Mingus, saxophonist Charles Lloyd, and clarinetist Pee Wee Russell all possessed Native lineage, and Louisiana-born saxophonist Jean Baptiste “Illinois” Jacquet received his famous nickname from his mother, a full-blooded member of the Sioux nation, which was taken from their word “Illiniwek,” meaning “superior man.”
In the late 1960s, Salem, Oregon-born saxophonist Jim Pepper gained recognition for his work in the early jazz-rock fusion band The Free Spirits and worked extensively with drummer Paul Motian’s bands as well as bassist Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and the exploratory pianist Mal Waldron. He had a pop hit with “Witchi Tai To” in 1969 with the band Everything is Everything (a song that boasts the only Native American chant to make the Billboard pop chart), and he was encouraged by trumpeter Don Cherry to bring more of his Native heritage into his own music. His 1971 debut release Pepper’s Pow Wow is an early fusion classic featuring guitarist Larry Coryell, pianist Tom Grant, and drummer Billy Cobham, among others. He released a dozen albums before passing away from lymphoma at the age of 50 and was posthumously granted the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by the non-profit organization First Americans in the Arts in 1999. In 2023, his former Portland, Oregon home was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its significance to Indigenous history.
On the heels of our 2024-25 Season concerts devoted to Indigenous artists, including Delbert Anderson, Julia Keefe, Chhoti Ma, Brad Goode and Ernie Watts, and Mali Obomsawin, we are delighted to welcome Martha Redbone and her sextet this season for a celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on 10/12.
Embodying the folk and mountain blues sounds of her childhood in “Coal country” — Harlan County, Kentucky — with the eclectic grit of her teenage years in pre-gentrified Brooklyn, Redbone inherited her father’s powerful gospel-singing voice and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Southeastern Indigenous and African American culture.
A multidisciplinary creator, Redbone and her collaborator Aaron Whitby won a Drama Desk award for her original score of a new production of Ntozake Shange’s 1976 choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, which premiered on Broadway in 2022.
She’s recorded a series of lauded albums including her Independent Music Award winning 2006 release Skintalk and 2012’s The Garden of Love devoted to the poetry of William Blake. Her latest release was recorded live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
Redbone’s songs and storytelling share her life experience as an Afro-Indigenous woman and mother in an ever-changing world, broadening the boundaries of American Roots music.
Martha Redbone and her sextet perform 10/12. Tickets and more information are available here.