Rediscoveries Of Women In Jazz

Rediscoveries of Women in Jazz
Babe Egan, Valerie Capers, and more

​Jeannie Gayle Pool, Valerie Capers, Bonnie Janofsky, Janet Klein, Jeff Kellem (Host)

Jazz Historian, Musicologist Jeannie Gayle Pool will share stories about Babe Egan and other women in jazz of the 1920s and 1930s. Valerie Capers will join us, along with Bonnie Janofsky, Janet Klein, and possibly others.

Read about Babe Egan and the Hollywood Redheads (2022) by Jeannie Gayle Pool. “The story of Babe Egan’s life provides provocative insights into the history of vaudeville, jazz, radio, the recording industry, and film production. It reveals how these branches of the early entertainment industry intertwined and formed the basis of our present-day global mass media.”

“Violinist and bandleader Babe Egan was a vaudeville superstar. In 1929, she was one of the highest paid women in vaudeville, earning $50,000 that year (equivalent to $880,000 today). She performed for tens of millions of theatergoers in the US, coast-to-coast, in Canada, and in Europe, and her band was regularly featured on radio. The Hollywood Redheads appeared in the first German talking picture, as well as on its soundtrack. They were booked solid from 1924 until 1933, doing two, three, or four shows a day.”

Hosted by Jeff Kellem.

March 18, 2023