Movie Review: 'The Girls in the Band'

Directed by Judy Chalkin

“Seems that a lot of girls had to go back to the kitchen,” says a nearly 100-year-old Viola Smith partway through “The Girls in the Band.” Smith may be far past her ‘30s and ‘40s heyday as a jazz drummer, but she still vividly remembers when World War II ended, and the ample paying gigs that female jazz musicians had been receiving for the past few years suddenly vanished as men returned from combat.

Smith’s account is one of many in Judy Chaikin’s comprehensive documentary. The film is about female jazz musicians’ decades-long struggle to gain equal work and recognition with their male counterparts. “The Girls in the Band” is a music documentary, but it’s about much more than that. The film’s best achievement is in making its somewhat obscure subject stand as a proxy for the history of the women’s movement in the United States.

The film describes how, as jazz became extremely popular in the early 20th century, talented women musicians managed to find some work and success, but were also often disrespected and shut out of paying gigs due to institutional sexism. The interview subjects, many of them now in their 80s and 90s, vividly describe trying to make it in the field, and their words incite strong emotions. One can’t help but feel infuriated when saxophonist Peggy Gilbert describes being drummed out of a band by male counterparts. With a woman around, they complained, “we can’t talk the way want to talk, and we can’t do things we want to do, and…besides, [women musicians] can’t play very well.”

The film is girded by an astonishingly detailed history of jazz in the U.S., with much credit there undoubtedly going to executive producer/producer Michael Greene, who served as CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences from 1988 to 2002. Yet while the amount of information and the number of interviews is impressive, the sheer breadth of the project at times works against it. “The Girls in the Band” can be too diffuse, with too many people talking about too many things too rapidly. During those stretches, it can be tough to find any individual stories to engage with. The film is at its best when it cuts through the clutter to focus on specific individuals and narratives. One of the most fascinating stretches comes when saxophonist Roz Cron and others describe traveling the Jim Crow South in the early ‘40s with The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the first integrated female jazz band in the U.S. White members of the band were threatened with arrest for associating with their black bandmates, and at one point Cron even considered artificially darkening her skin.

Ms. Chaikin has fielded an impressive array of interview subjects and information, and the documentary strongly evokes the time periods it dives into. An immense amount of credit also goes to editor Edward Osei-Gyimah, who seamlessly weaves in era-appropriate stock footage and shots of the musicians themselves. And the film’s sound department, consisting of Roger Phenix (sound), Michael Jones (sound-recordist), Derek Alan Jones (sound re-recording mixer), and Victoria Rose Sampson (supervising sound editor) further brings the era to life with a lively jazz score interspersed throughout.

The last segment of “The Girls In the Band” turns to modern jazz musicians, and the debt they owe to the women musicians who fought for equality before them. It’s an appropriate final act for a film with a keen sense of the social stakes not only for old-time female jazz musicians, but also for old-time feminists in general. What is possible for women now, the film says, is possible only because of what women did then. It’s an old idea, but one made lively and original through unique subject matter. When the documentary uses its more focused stories to explore these themes, they’re brought to life in an especially informative and emotionally affecting way.

Read the review at Indiewood/Hollywoodn't


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