Camille Thurman – Breaking the glass ceiling

Published August 23, 2024

Camille Thurman – Breaking the glass ceiling

“Imagine if Sarah Vaughan played saxophone like Dexter Gordon. That’s approximately the effect when singer and tenor saxophonist Camille Thurman performs.”
—Downbeat Magazine

“You’re hard-pressed to find rising talents more exciting than Camille Thurman.”
—The New York Times

Filer image element — *Camille Thurman (Photo Credit: Daryon Haylock)*

Gifted saxophonist and vocalist Camille Thurman takes the stage with the 17-piece Reno Jazz Orchestra (RJO) August 25^th at UNR’s Nightingale Hall and August 26^th at Sand Harbor’s Warren Edward Trepp stage. Thurman is a unique interpreter of the jazz idiom with a distinct musical approach to classic and original repertoire. She has received numerous honors such as the NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Jazz Album, Downbeat Magazine’s Critics Poll Nominee for Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist and Vocalist and Rising New Artist (2023, 2022, 2021 & 2020), two-time winner of the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composers Award, and a recipient of the Fulbright Scholars Cultural Ambassador Grant. She has five full-length recordings as a leader to her credit. Her most recent project, “Confluence: Vol 1,” is a collaboration with master drummer Darrell Green and his quartet.

Thurman made history, becoming the first woman in thirty years to tour, record, and perform full-time internationally with the world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra as a saxophonist/woodwind doubler (2018-2020 season). A respected bandleader, she has headlined numerous notable concert venues and jazz festivals worldwide, including the Kennedy Center, The Library of Congress, and the Rose Theater. It is a pleasure and honor to have her join the RJO for these two concerts.

She grew up in a family of educators in St. Albans New York and started singing at the age of four. She remembers her mother typing away on her dissertation, a study of the history of jazz and how stories are told through music. “My earliest memories are of mom playing Ella (Fitzgerald) and Louis (Armstrong) on the stereo while she typed out research papers.” She chose to study the saxophone and committed 100% in her sax studies. It was her colleagues at a Jazz in July program who heard her singing in the shower that gathered around to find out who was singing. They persuaded her to add voice studies to her curriculum.

Women have been playing jazz since its inception. Pianist Lil Hardin shaped Louis Armstrong’s career. She played in King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band which Armstrong joined in 1922. They began a romance and got married and it was Hardin who encouraged Armstrong to begin a solo career. There have been notable women jazz musicians through the decades, from Mary Lou Williams to Marian McPartland to composer/arranger Maria Schneider. However, to this day, it is predominantly a male institution, most glaringly among jazz orchestras. The RJO has received several comments/questions asking why there are no women in the orchestra. In fact, I heard the same comment at a big band concert I was attending in San Francisco, one of the most diverse cities in the country. I have been a performing musician for over fifty years and have not witnessed discrimination in the many groups/orchestras I have performed with. Having said that, it is a challenge all of jazz needs to address. Following is a Camille Thurman interview excerpt from Downbeat magazine illustrating her challenges in the jazz culture.

When you attended New York’s LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, I understand you encountered some sexism in the jazz band.

When I first got there, I had an incredible teacher, Bob Stewart, who made all the students want to learn about jazz. Everybody was there to play. When he left, though, in my junior year, things got a little interesting. This was sexism, and waaaay before “Me-Too.” It wasn’t sexual harassment; it was sexual discrimination. … Then, if there was improvisation, some of the guys would laugh at us if we were trying to figure out the changes and making mistakes. It would be like, “Oh, she’s terrible. Oh, she sucks.” It was hard. We weren’t learning because of it. … I graduated not wanting to have anything to do with playing music. It discouraged me, broke my spirit. … She attended Hunter College for a year, then transferred to SUNY Binghamton, from which she eventually graduated with a degree in geology. It was a jazz band leader at Binghamton who encouraged her to get back into jazz.

You broke a significant glass ceiling when you joined the JLCO. What did it mean to you as a woman and as a musician to be invited to join?

It meant so much to me. At my first concert with them, I couldn’t help but think about all the great women — The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, Vi Burnside, Vi Redd — who came before me, who were doing this and were left out of the history books. Then I felt like it was not just a celebration for me, but for them, too. But what was really humbling was hearing from young women, educators, from older women — and from men, too — that just seeing a woman up there spoke so profoundly to them. Especially for the young girls. For them it was, like, “Wow — I could see myself up there — that’s a possibility.”

The RJO is committed to fostering the love of jazz in everyone. We have a robust jazz education program for middle and high school students with more and more girls participating. The Reno Youth Jazz Orchestra includes several girls on their roster. The RJO education director, Nichole Heglund, has instituted a local all women jazz orchestra, “Sapphire” which the RJO supports by providing a free rehearsal space.

Attend one of our concerts featuring Camille Thurman and experience her talents as they “break the glass ceiling”.

Chuck Reider is the the President of the Reno Jazz Orchestra

Visit the RJO website www.renojazzorchestra.org to purchase tickets and learn more about Camille Thurman.

Camille Thurman with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra “Lady Be Good”
https://youtu.be/51uxcErItUM?si=94Ic2S28yTCIKp5q

Camille Thurman “The Nearness of You”
https://youtu.be/IwtXcSqWEzE?si=Os0I0UuAcvxruVJ5