Ginger Smock

Narratives of Perpetual Discovery, Jazz Historiography, and the “Swinging Lady of the Violin

Bibliographic Data

ID8049508
AuthorsLaura Risk (0009-0006-4571-7242, University of Toronto, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume17
Issue2
Pages151-177
Publication date2023-03-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Society for American Music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1752-1963 • E-ISSN: 1752-1971
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1752196323000032
OpenAlexW4360615863
LanguageEN
References cited30

Ginger Smock (1920–95), an African American jazz and classical violinist, was a popular Los Angeles entertainer and one of the first African American women bandleaders on television. This article traces her career from Los Angeles’ Central Avenue to Las Vegas showroom orchestras, drawing on archival materials from the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Through a close reading of a 1951 DownBeat profile of Smock, I interrogate racialized constructions of gender in that magazine and frame mid-century jazz reporting on women instrumentalists via a “narrative of perpetual discovery” that positions these women as waiting for a career break that never comes. As an antidote to the effacement implicit in such narratives, I propose close documentation of sustained artistic practice: That is, the day-to-day facts of a working musician's life. This article reads Smock's professional trajectory through an intersectional lens to offer a critical perspective on the ways in which social identities, especially race and gender, may shape both musical careers and our historicization of those careers

Historiography · Jazz · Music History and Culture · Race, History, and American Society · Theater, Performance, and Music History

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