08 March 2022

International Women’s Day – Phantom Dancer 8 March 2022

Greg Poppleton's Phantom Dancer swing jazz radio show

Women jazz and swing musicians, radio announcers and singers from live 1930s-50s radio are this week’s Phantom Dancer feature artists. 8 March is International Women’s Day.

The Phantom Dancer is your weekly non-stop mix of swing and jazz from live 1920s-60s radio and TV every week.

LISTEN to this week’s International Women’s Day Phantom Dancer mix (online after 2pm AEST, Tuesday 8 March) and two years of Phantom Dancer mixes online at, at https://2ser.com/phantom-dancer/

Below, some potted biographies of some of the women, famous and obscure, you’ll enjoy on this weeks International Women’s Day Phantom Dancer.

Here’s Ina Ray Hutton, her all woman orchestra, on her own 1958 network TV show…

WOMEN INSTRUMENTALISTS

Marjorie Hyams: Jazz vibraphonist, pianist and arranger. She played in Woody Herman’s Orchestra (1944 – 1945), the Hip Chicks (1945), Mary Lou Williams (1946), Charlie Ventura (1946), George Shearing (1949 – 1950), and led her own groups.

Melba Liston: Jazz trombonist, musical arranger and composer. She was the first woman trombonist to play in big bands. She was a star writer and arranger.

Adele Girard: Swing harpist, the first woman to bring the concert harp to prominence in jazz, with only Casper Reardon preceding her. As a musician she is known by her birth name Adele Girard, but she became Adele Girard Marsala after marrying clarinetist Joe Marsala.

Betty Glamann: Glamann learned to play harp at the age of ten. She attended a conservatory and was the harpist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for three years. She played with Spike Jones in 1948, founded the Smith-Glamann Quintet in 1955, played with Duke Ellington and Marian McPartland around 1955 and then with Oscar Pettiford during 1957–58. With Kenny Dorham’s band she recorded the album Jazz Contrasts in 1957. In 1958, she was involved in a Michel Legrand recording session with John Coltrane and Miles Davis; she played with Eddie Costa in 1958 and with the Modern Jazz Quartet in 1960.

WOMEN RADIO ANNOUNCERS

Billie Hurt: Sydney radio announcer. Announcer for ‘Army on Parade’ a radio series produced at 2CH in Sydney and aired across Australia on the AWA Network.

Martha Wilkerson: known as GI Jill, was an American disc jockey and host of GI Jive, a music program on the Armed Forces Radio Service during World War II. She was notable for her positive effect of her personality and music selections on American troops’ morale and for being “universally credited with being the No. 1 overseas attraction” on AFRS. By the end of January 1945 she had made 870 broadcasts.

Here’s DJ GI Jill…

WOMEN BAND LEADERS

International Sweethearts of Rhythm: was the first integrated all-women’s band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day.  Read more in this Radio Lounge blog post

The Ingenues: a vaudeville all-girl jazz band based in the US Mid West, which toured the United States and other countries, including Australia, from 1925 to 1937.

Ina Ray Hutton: born Odessa Cowan, was an American singer, bandleader, and the half-sister of June Hutton. She led one of the first all-female big bands.

Here’s two all-women vaudeville jazz bands…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ACtACBX0gM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84AYcPyf7X8

WOMEN SWING ERA SINGERS

Rose Murphy: known as “the chee chee girl” because of her habit of singing “chee chee” in many of her numbers. Also known as “the girl with the pale pink voice”, Murphy began her musical career in the late 1930s, playing intermission piano for such performers as Count Basie.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: singer and guitarist. She attained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. Read more in this Radio Lounge post.

Felicia Sanders: was a singer, and the most successful song she ever recorded was a theme song from a movie of the same title, A Song From Moulin Rouge (Where Is Your Heart) in which she was recruited by Percy Faith to sing, and was only paid scale. However, it catapulted her singing career, and the song become a hit for Percy Faith and His Orchestra in 1952-3

Libby Holman: American socialite, actress, singer, and activist. Holman was known for her bold personality. She was the frequent subject of contemporary gossip columns,[15] and became known in the press as “the dark purple menace”. Although friends observed her to be a “ball breaker” with men, she was tender and intimate in her same-sex relationships.

Here’s a  collection of 1940s Soundies from the all woman International Sweethearts of Rhythm for International Women’s Day…

8 MARCH International Women’s Day PLAY LIST