Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc.

Women in Jazz South Florida fulfills its mission to promote women musicians, globally, with the publication of Musicwoman Magazine. After COVID, we failed to obtain sufficient advertising dollars to pay our graphic designer, editor, and contributors. The printing costs alone are prohibitive. Although we publish the magazines digitally, people love the physical publications and learn a lot about women musicians by reading the articles. Each year, we held an event to release the magazine, but COVID made that impossible. This grant would enable us to publish the 5th annual publications.

Our market is global because our 420 members include 267 women musicians from 17 countries and 26 states. The magazines are distributed to our members in good standing and to schools, students, and members of the community. Businesses advertise in the publications, at a low cost. The magazines feature talented women and men in music who may or may not be known, nationally and internationally. They are historical documents of the lives and stories of composers and performers. Women, in particular, are featured, giving them promotion and exposure to a wide audience of music lovers and cultural curators.

With this grant, we could establish a relationship with distributors. It would enable us to tell the stories and shed light on the careers of women in music. Musicman Magazine highlights the careers of men in music. Both publications have been well-received in a variety of social settings. The online digital versions are available at http://issuu.com/joancartwright

https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicwoman_2022_1-30-2022 and

https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicman_2022_2-2-2022

For 30+ years, I toured 5 continents and several countries performing as a Jazz/Blues vocalist and composer. When I returned to the USA in 1996, I realized that I had only performed with six women musicians. I began the Jazzwomen Directory to catalog the lives of women in music, particularly, in jazz and blues. By 1998, my online directory was available to the public. To date, there are 100 women listed. In 2007, I decided to incorporation our nonprofit to promote women musicians, globally. In 2017, I published my doctoral dissertation Women in Jazz: Music Publishing and Marketing with six keys for success for women musicians. In 2019, we published the first edition of Musicwoman Magazine, an annual publication with the stories of several women musicians.

Through a grant from Conquest Graphics printing company, we published this magazine in March 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. However, the grant ended, and we are struggling to pay our writers, photographers, graphic designer, and printer. In 2020, we published the first edition of Musicman Magazine, and subsequent editions in 2021 and 2022.

These publications featured many talented women and men in the music business who are obscure, despite their lifetime commitment to creating beautiful music. They are not signed with record companies and need promotion and a publicist, which most cannot afford. It is our goal to publish MusicTeen Magazine, once we are funded.

For each of these publication years, we employed a graphic designer, writers, photographers, and distributors in key cities like Miami, New York, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. However, printing prices soared after the pandemic, causing us to halt publications that are available online at https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicwoman_2022_1-30-2022 and https://issuu.com/joancartwright/docs/musicman_2022_2-2-2022

Our organization has been promoting women musicians, globally, since 2007, through our website, monthly newsletters, videos, compilation CDs with 75 songs from 58 women composers, and our publications.

Our members collaborate on various projects across the nation and the world. Before COVID, we planned events in the local community and supported other organizations that promote women musicians. Musicwoman Magazine featured women musicians from the U.S.A., Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Canada, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, England, South Africa, and Australia. Our members are from Florida, New York, California, Texas, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Alabama, Illinois, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Delaware.

The annual publication exposes the talents of women musicians to students, teachers, entrepreneurs, promoters, producers, filmmakers, and event planners who may not know about these women composers and performers. It is imperative that women's music be heard because the messages bring peace and harmony to the world that is wracked with pain and violence. This grant would enable us to publish our annual publication in 2023.

When people understand the inequity of income earned by women musicians and how they can change that, the voices of women in music will be heard far more often. Women compose music but rarely have their music featured on classical, jazz, rock, or reggae performance or multi-media programs.

Women are marginalized, drastically, in large concert venues and festivals at Coachella, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and in funding opportunities from city, county, state, and federal agencies. This is gender discrimination and women pay taxes to be discriminated against, while benefitting the least from public funding of the arts. The statistics are startling!

The WIJSF membership gives women musicians a platform in our newsletter, social media groups, BlogTalkRadio podcasts, and magazines. When our members receive the magazines, they reach out to each other and collaborate on musical projects. Another benefit of the publications is that local, national, and international companies can advertise to our members and readers at an affordable cost. We are building our advertising base to support the publications for years to come. Our competitors like JazzTimes, Billboard, or Musician do not feature most of the musicians we featured in our magazines because they are not mainstream, and earn far less than musicians signed with a record label. So, they get little promotion and our publication honors their creativity.

A grant of $10,000 would enable us to pay our editor, graphic designer, writers, photographers, printer, and distributors. Also, the postage is expensive to send to our 400+ members. We could hire a sales team to place the magazines in strategic locations and to solicit advertisers for the next editions.

Each year, we release a compilation of music by women composers. There is a submission fee. However, a portion of this grant could be used for manufacturing the CDs for sale to raise funds for our nonprofit. See http://wijsf.org/compcds.htm

These statistics may help us get the attention of an angel: some Sponsors and Partners for the Musicwomen Archive and Cultural Center. According to the National Endowment for the Arts 2008 Artists in the Workforce report:

Female artists make 65 cents to the male artist's dollar. There is no reference in the report to transgender or gender non-conforming artists (65:100). That means the gender-based wage gap in the arts is worse than in the larger workforce, where women make 77-81 percent of what men make with lower percentages for women of color, including Latina women.

Only five percent (5%) of the art on display in most U.S. museums is by women

Only nine percent (9%) of film directors are women

Only 17-20% of plays produced in the U.S. are by women.

Those numbers scratch the surface - almost none indicate statistics for transwomen or lesbians. Finding accurate statistics about the representation of artists of color across artistic genres is difficult but, from the stats available for specific communities within niches of the arts, the percentage of opportunities they receive, along with other under-represented groups, is small.

Add to that the results from the 2010 survey conducted by the group WAGE (Working Artists and the Greater Economy), which shows that the bulk of philanthropy in the arts goes to only two percent of the nation's arts institutions. Studies like these led me to understand that women jazz musicians are not receiving the remuneration or recognition they deserve.

In 2007, I founded Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. to gather talented women musicians together and get their music heard by multitudes. To date, we have 420 members with 267 musicians and 72 men who support our mission to promote women musicians, globally.

We have published Musicwoman and Musicman Magazines, annually, since 2019. In 2023, we can use this grant to publish both magazines, which entails paying writers, photographers, an editor, graphic designer, printer, and distribution costs. Also, we can pay the fees for our online digital publications and for our website.

It takes months to gather the stories and photographs, and organize the print layout to be print-ready. Each of our members-in-good-standing receive a physical copy of the magazines. Each writer and featured artist receives up to 3 publications, while advertisers receive 10 copies of each magazine that they advertise in.

The cost to print and mail the magazines is expensive. It doubled during COVID. This grant would enable us to continue the work of our publications that shine a light on highly-talented musicians, who may be obscure and can benefit, greatly, from being featured in the printed and digital publications.

It is an honor to tell the stories of talented women musicians. Our first magazine in 2019, featured Aretha Franklin's drummer Gayelynn McKinney. The second edition featured Jeannie Cheatham, 94, who is still alive in San Diego. She has performed all over the world. It was a privilege to feature this legend who was recently inducted into the San Diego Music Hall of Fame with her late husband Jimmy Cheatham, who performed with Duke Ellington.

Our publications are filled with stories of women and men who rarely got the recognition they deserved, although they performed, worldwide. Younger musicians like Jasmin Ghent were featured among veteran stars, giving them more credibility in the music industry.

Join us in making a difference! We are raising money to enable Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. to build the Musicwoman Archive. Any donation makes an impact. Thanks, in advance, for your contribution to fulfill our mission. Women in Jazz South Florida, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, 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. Visit our websites http://musicwomanarchive.com and http://wijsf.org