Is it still baffling to most that a woman would want to play the drums? Women have come a long way in todays society in terms of taking on predominantly male roles, across all professions, we still get surprised looks, and the whole, “Not bad for a girl!” comments. Also, can I just say that the image of a drummer is Never a beautiful woman with an afro or dreadlocks? And nobody expects a girly-girl to WANT to play a power instrument such as the drums. As a female drummer myself, I can relate to the critical examination and observations that one can go through while playing and building a music career. A woman who holds down the backbeat naturally draws a sort of centre of attention of the entire band, and if not, she is still heavily judged on skills, but more so on the way that she looks. Supremely superficial.
Why do people acknowledge women in music by isolating them by sexuality and how beautiful they are? It is so annoying! I'm a Leo so I can thrive in the environment, but in my maturity, I don't use music as a way to spotlight on anything other than music. Here is a fact: Being that music and entertainment is a male dominant industry, women have always been under-appreciated and underrepresented in the history of music. And you want to know something? Sex-stereotyping is rarely addressed. And then what happens is, female drummers get praised for being tough.Tough??? Ok maybe I can accept that perception. After all, we’re talking about drumming, and drummers are tough. But take a great performing drummer who happens to be a woman, It then becomes all about sex appeal! For some reason, that is the majority of what is respected, and women continually accept these different levels of misogyny when it is subtle.
It is so easy for a lot of potential female drummers to get discouraged because you’re constantly striving against being compared to men, how sexy you portray yourself to be amongst the towers of criticisms, sexisms, harassment. Oh I have experienced it all! I imagine that a lot of women do give up. For the women who didn’t give up, women like Sheila E. and Cindy Blackman, these type of women learned to get used to the rude and sexist comments. Even they have to deal with reflections on gender. Sheila E played on Prince’s Sign O’ the Times tour and film, in which he follows a very dope drum solo with the sly comment, “Not bad - for a girl.” Blackman once opened for James Brown, who wrote on one of her cymbals: “To the female king: you’re to awesome to be queen.” I mean, sheesh!
During the successful and early stages of their careers, Cindy and Sheila quickly encountered prejudices of race, gender and prejudices against their musical options.
Check this out. I love Cindy Blackman-Santana! She Represents! Since Cindy Blackman was an African American, wore an Afro and locs, and was a woman who played jazz drums good and hard in a music scene that was dominated by men, she faced issues of misogyny, stereotypes and discrimination throughout her career, but she felt that if it didn’t pay her bills, then it hardly mattered at all. I respect the hell out of that and her!
I feel that Cindy had to have loved playing drums so much, that she ignored all these negative things, stayed true to her style, refrained from selling sex on stage, and concerned herself with improving her technique and skills in drumming. However, if we took a good look into what works for the music business, you would see that part of the recipe is a quite casual misogyny. It’s not only men who objectify women to sell their music. Women also know that there is a “sex sells’ type of system that works in their favor, am I right? Although born into music royalty, Sheila became the 80’s ultimate sex symbol. She was known for her sex appeal on stage- all stilettos and hairspray. While performing at the rock ’n’ roll clubs, it was always about sex appeal and because of that, she would constantly be degraded, being told that she was only there because she was sexy and not because she was a good drummer. She would always get propositions for sex. Although Sheila was very attractive and showed a bit of sexuality in her image while performing, she never wanted to be the type of person to have sex to get anywhere in her career. It was because of her parents that she had strong morale. They taught her to always believe in herself and to be the woman that she was, to be strong and to do the right thing. Sheila didn’t feel that she had to prove anything to those male chauvinist that she ran into throughout her career.
Let me give flowers to the Queen Cindy Blackman-Santana. American composer, bandleader, jazz and rock drummer, started playing drums at the age of seven. SEVEN YEARS OLD. I love Cindy's style. Her style of art in drumming can be characterized by exploration, experimentation and improvisation. Cindy did everything that she could to understand the technique of drumming. Although her most notable seven year professional touring gig with Lenny Kravitz made her recognizable as a rock drummer, Cindy has a deep love and appreciation for classical music, and jazz improvisation, which she truly prefers to play (My favorite album of hers is Music For The New Millennium). Her sticking, grip and drumming techniques are observed as she has played with her own band, The Cindy Blackman Group, and several other jazz artists and groups that she has played with throughout her years of jazz drumming, such as bass player, Jaco Pastorius, Herbie Hancock, and free jazz saxophonist, Pharaoh Sanders, just to name a few. Heres a bit of familial background: Both Cindy’s mother and grandmother were classical musicians and as she fell in love with music at an early age, she continued on to studying it seriously throughout her years of formal education. Although Cindy was a formally trained musician who attended Berkley, her career has never followed any traditions.
Blackman had classical percussion training throughout college at the University of Hartford. She uses the traditional grip technique as she plays creatively, adding her own flavor. This freedom allows her to play with her own energy and passion. Blackman has several of her own jazz albums recorded under her own name. Cindy Blackman-Santana, has her own instructional videos on drumming and also involves herself in drum clinics around the world. The Instructional video that she is known most for, is the one she recorded in 1997 called “Multiplicity”. Blackman believes that, jazz is the highest form of music that one can play because of the creative requirements. What makes me favor Cindy most is something that I personally share to my core: One of her strongest beliefs in what drumming should be is that every drummer should have a lot of impact and a great sound, without being limited to any conventional role in the band. She feels that drums should speak just as freely as anybody.
I read. Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but I'm always reading. During college, I wrote an essay similar to this blog. I went through a spiral of researching my favorite drummers and their inspirations. In doing so, I read that Cindy Blackman-Santana was mainly influenced by Tony Williams and the way that he played. The reason she was so drawn to him was because of the impact that his drum beats left on her whenever he played. When Cindy met him at a drum clinic when she was 16, he left a powerful impression on her and her career. To me, this is what it is all about. This is what my whole dynamic is as a music instructor! Anyway... After she graduated from high school, Cindy moved to Boston to study at Berklee College of Music, but after three semesters she felt confined the college classrooms, and that is when she picked up her sticks and moved to New York City in 1982.
The first few years of living in New York, Cindy played everywhere she could. She performed at late night jams at different clubs around town, specifically at the 55 Grand Club, where she would sit in with Jaco Pastorius’ band, the Word of Mouth Group. She continued on to several after hour jazz clubs, played with trios, jazz pianist and did several festivals for contributions with jazz ensembles for two consecutive summers in a row. During these years in New York, she gained a lot of great experience and exposure in jazz performance and begin promoting herself as an acclaimed jazz drummer, composer and bandleader. Through recording with the Blue Note record label, Cindy met another inspiration, friend and mentor, Art Blakey. I imagine that this connection was magical! Art Blakey? TOP TIER. He taught her a lot about the recording industry and showed her the ropes. The jazz giant, Blakey became a father figure to Cindy. He always looked out for her, encouraged her, motivated her and helped her with things such as artist development, professionalism and jazz improvisation techniques. Art Blakey’s death in 1990 was a very emotional time for Cindy. So much so, that she dedicated an entire album, “Code Red" to his memory.
In 1993 Cindy Blackman took a turn away from her career of being a jazz drummer a while after being introduced to rock singer Lenny Kravits, who happened to be looking for a drummer to tour with his band. Kravitz heard her play drums over the phone and quickly flew her out to audition for the job. Cindy spent the next year and a half playing on music videos and tours with Lenny, where she established herself in the genre of rock ’n’ roll. Cindy’s work with Kravitz had her name ringing and put her in a new place of recognition and fame, which also helped her in her own new albums release, Telepathy, in 1994. Touring with Kravitz opened up Cindy’s mind a lot more and helped her understand and know what she wanted while creating her own sound and playing with different musicians and groups. She feels better playing with musicians who know each other and are headed in the same direction, and have the same goals.
Through expanding and exploring, Blackman grew an opinion that playing rock and jazz definitely requires two different mindsets. She felt that in rock, you’re playing parts, not a groove, vs jazz where you are more free to do as you see fit. Overall, continued to push the limits of her musical career, talent and composition. She sees drums as a wide spectrum of potential. Drums can be romantic and pretty and moody, but can also be something bombastic. An instrument that can be used to really shake things up, and that is one of the things that initially attracted her to playing drums. Cindy Blackman Santana is all about exploring this very wide range of drumming. This is seen in her playing exponentially, especially with how hard she hits. Phenomenal at both genre’s with the chops to prove it, whether its jazz or rock, Cindy always plays dynamically powerful. She is a great leader, her timing is impeccable, you can really hear all the years of percussion training through the choices of rudiments, accent placement and melodic choices that she makes around the kit. In any performance, Cindy Blackman Santana’s musical presence never goes unnoticed.
Although the two drummers can be compared in several ways, Cindy Blackman and Sheila E have very different musical backgrounds, careers, drumming styles and influences. E is an American singer, bandleader, drummer and percussionist and pop star, who is known for collaborating with artist such as Lionell Richie, Billy Cobham, Ringo Starr, Gloria Estephan, George Duke, Jennifer Lopez, Kanye West, Beyonce, and most notably know for playing, singing, recording and touring with American music Icon who is most recently deceased, former lover, Prince Nelson Rogers.
Growing up in a famously musical family, it was always like a jam session when everyone got together at the Escavedo’s. It was like there was a party at their house everyday.
Sheila Escavedo gained popularity during her teenage years, playing with her father and legendary percussionist, Pete Escavedo. She first performed on stage with her dad when she was just five years old. Her dad taught her how to play the congas, so she played left handed so that she may mirror his moves. When she was a teenager, she filled in for the conga player in her dads band Azteca, and was so good that she took over the job. Although this goes mostly unrecognized, her father was probably one of Sheila’s greatest influences.
Most people know Sheila E as a pop star from the hit records that she made with Prince. Personally, when I speak to people, they speak on or talk about Sheila and very little is brought up about her own work! The go to conversation is the fame that she gained while working with and being influenced by Prince. It's as if nobody knows that she made her debut album at the age of 19 working with her dad, called Solo Two, as a latin style timbalero player, or that she played percussion on Micheal Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough”. This and so many other details of her rich musical life came to light for me in her new memoir called The Beat of My Own Drum, released in June of 2015.
Because Sheila was a successful musician with her own fully developed sound, it’s not really fair that she is pinned as a Prince protégée. Prince definitely had an influence on Sheila, but having had listened to pre- Prince Sheila E and then listening to Prince’s music post Sheila, I think it was a two-way street because I audibly noticed how much he got from her (from Purple Rain on) as an artist. And Prince isn’t the only musician who had influenced Sheila E. How about some of the music icons She played with in the ‘70s? From Billy Cobham, to George Duke, Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis. It must have been an honor and a great influence to not only list and play with them, but to also know them and learn from them.
When Sheila was 21, she made a debut on “Yesterday’s Dream” with jazz bassist Alphonso Johnson in 1976. Two Years after that, she met Prince at a concert, at a performance with her dad. After that performance, Prince vowed to Sheila that she would someday join his band. Prince had Sheila sing on “Erotic City”, which was the B-side of his number one 1984 single, “Let’s Go Crazy”. After Prince helped her secure a record contract with Warner Brothers, she released her debut solo artist album, “Sheila E. In The Glamorous Life” in ’84. Prince wrote the track and it hit the Top Ten in the U.S. Sheila E. continued to release albums, but it didn’t have as much commercial success as “Sheila E. In The Glamorous Life” and “Sheila E. In Romance 1600”. The song which I will transcribe is the live performance version of her hit song titled Love Bizarre, originally on the 1985 album, Romance 1600. This song was Sheila E.'s last major hit and her second biggest behind her debut single "The Glamorous Life". The song was performed in the film Krush Groove which Sheila E. also had a major supporting role in. The song was a major hit and reached #1 in Urban radio airplay & Dance/Club play, #2 on the U.S. R&B charts and #11 on the Billboard Hot 100 & Pop radio airplay.
Much like Cindy Blackman-Santana and Sheila E., I want to have an impact on young women. I can be a wildflower, but one thing I do is dream and flow. I think every young female drummer wants another female drummer that they can learn from and look up to. Those drummers for me where Cindy and Sheila. They both have very strong careers in performance, and have built a very strong reputation for themselves professionally, through relationships that they’ve built with the highly acclaimed artists and musicians that they’ve worked with. Cindy and Sheila are truly queens to the throne of rhythm, not only because they are great drummers, but also for the artists that they blossomed to be despite of the sexism, adversity, and criticism. Long live the queens!
