DESCRIPTION:
On March 22, 2014 over 25 protesters marched in front of the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco to draw attention to the fact that Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, which was beginning a four night sold out run for SFJAZZ, was in violation of several laws mandating equal access for women to employment at New York's Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis, the Musical Director of the Orchestra, has been running the hiring process like an exclusive club for male jazz musicians for over 26 years, during which time there has never been a permanent woman member of the band.

Jazz trumpeter/educator/bandleader and Founder of The Montclair Women's Big Band, Ellen Seeling, organized this protest to advocate for blind auditions going forward for new hires at the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. The blind audition process, where candidates are unknown and audition behind a curtain for a committee, has been the music industry standard since the 1970s. Seeling and the participants tried to engage Marsalis in a face to face conversation about his adoption of this standard for the purpose of providing women equal opportunity for employment, and requested the SFJazz Artist Liaison ask Wynton to meet with them before the performance. Although the Liaison reported back to the group that he had delivered the message and that "Wynton would be happy to meet with" them, Wynton did not show up or send any other message offering an alternate time or place to meet or talk. The group then asked that a letter outlining the requests of the group to facilitate blind auditions be delivered by the Liaison to Marsalis, which the Liaison agreed to do. No response from Marsalis was forthcoming.

Randal Kline, the Founder and Executive/Artistic Director of SFJAZZ came outside to speak with the protesters before the performance, but nothing came of the exchange. No acknowledgment of SFJAZZ being in support of Marsalis' and Jazz at Lincoln Center's discriminatory hiring policies by employing the Orchestra was conceded by Kline, who suggested SFJAZZ had nothing to do with the issue which was "strictly between Seeling and Marsalis." Kline suggested the group speak directly with Marsalis. "We tried that," Seeling replied.

The effectiveness of blind auditions as a tool for gender integration in music is well documented in a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research in a study named "Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of "Blind" Auditions on Female Musicians," authored by Claudia Goldin and Cecilia Rouse. This is a summary of their findings:
"Discrimination against women has been alleged in hiring practices for many occupations, but it is extremely difficult to demonstrate sex-biased hiring. A change in the way symphony orchestras recruit musicians provides an unusual way to test for sex-biased hiring. To overcome possible biases in hiring, most orchestras revised their audition policies in the 1970s and 1980s. A major change involved the use of blind' auditions with a screen' to conceal the identity of the candidate from the jury. Female musicians in the top five symphony orchestras in the United States were less than 5% of all players in 1970 but are 25% today. We ask whether women were more likely to be advanced and/or hired with the use of blind' auditions. Using data from actual auditions in an individual fixed-effects framework, we find that the screen increases by 50% the probability a woman will be advanced out of certain preliminary rounds. The screen also enhances, by severalfold, the likelihood a female contestant will be the winner in the final round. Using data on orchestra personnel, the switch to blind' auditions can explain between 30% and 55% of the increase in the proportion female among new hires and between 25% and 46% of the increase in the percentage female in the orchestras since 1970.

Here are some stats on what happened with women getting hired when major symphonies mandated blind auditions in the '70s and '80s: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5903

Jazz at Lincoln Center (J@LC) has never had a permanent woman member since its founding in 1988. Here's an article from the village voice written in 2000 on the subject of Wynton's refusal to audition women, and the situation has not changed: http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-11-07/news/dig-boy-dig/.

Article in East Bay Express w/ interview on Ellen Seeling titled,
'Are Jazz Festivals Excluding Women?' by Sam Levin

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/are-jazz-festivals-excluding-women/Content?oid=3939468
You can visit my blog to send an email expressing an interest in becoming involved in this jazz activist movement:
http://behindthecurtainproductions.blogspot.com
check also: http://thegirlsintheband.com
Pls help filmmaker Carol Nash w/ her doc on Mary Lou Williams:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/mary-lou-williams-the-lady-who-swings-the-band