From the Editor -in Chief Dr. Joan Cartwright

The messages in women’s music MUST be heard! Whether they are vintage, fledgling, curvy, fluffy, obscure, or famous, we must consciously include women musicians and their compositions in all programming, particularly, those funded by public taxes.

When I published my dissertation, Women in Jazz: Music Publishing and Marketing (2017), the copyright value was $21bn. In seven years, it grew to over $40bn. According to the 2021 report on global music, in one year, copyright value grew 18% to $39.6bn [https://musically. com/2022/11/03/global-music-copyright-2021].

Historically, however, women earn less than 20% of those earnings for a plethora of reasons that have to do with two issues, 1) gender discrimination in corporate control, public funding, and the music marketplace; and 2) the lack of business acumen among women musicians.

The study funded by Spotify examined the artists, songwriters, and producers credited on songs that appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 Year-End Chart since 2012. According to their count, less than a quarter of the artists on the chart in 2021 were women. Over the past ten years, that number has been stagnant at 21%. Over the past decade, women only make up 12.7% of songwriters. The study also counted producers of select years, and found that women made up a paltry 2.8% (Limbong, 2022, p. 1).

Just 5% of the $40bn, that is $2,000,000,000, or $2bn, would help women musicians, immensely! Those funds could come from corporations, public funding agencies and institutions, and private donors, if they focused their funding on women musicians and organizations that promote them, consciously, declaratively, and forcefully.

Just 5%, or $2bn would set a trend for hiring, featuring, and paying women who play instruments and compose music. This would raise the percentage earned by women in music to 25%. The ration of 75:25 is still unequitable and, quite honestly, criminal when it pertains to public taxes used to fund musical presentations of any kind. That is a good place to start to demand equity.

Women’s music is featured less at festivals, in streaming media, and in platforms like TV, films, and radio. Also, fewer funding opportunities are applied for by women musicians. The major reason is the lack of nurturing by families and schools of girls to become musicians. The lack of business acumen forestalls women from applying for grants. Our organizations have joined hands to show the world that girls can be taught and nurtured to become world-class musicians.

Although I’m extinct as a jazz vocalist, rest assured that I touched many hearts with my music and with Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc., Inc. that has the mission of promoting women musicians, globally. This publication is an archive of our accomplishments and the beacon of things to come.

Dr Joan Cartwright, publisher

Limbong, A. (2022). Music news: Women are still missing in the music industry, especially behind the scenes. (Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/31/1089901763/women-music-industry)

Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, educational organization that promotes women musicians, globally, through events, concerts, performances, clinics, lectures, workshops, articles, interviews, newsletters, courses, contacts, research, history, archives, websites, film, audio, and video recording, and recognition.

Gathering great women musicians together and getting their music heard by multitudes!