Women in Blues and Jazz: Lil Hardin Armstrong, Gladys Bentley, Sweet Emma Barrett

I have listened to many wonderful piano players over the years, both male and female. Because of strict social norms, many women frequently ended up being piano players. This was long the practice in many societies. The piano in the house was where music was made. In the days before electricity and radio, it might have been the only place. It was the custom to teach girls to play piano, as women were the ones who kept the family together and provided an entertainment center for the home. Boys could play horns and drums, but girls were only encouraged to play piano. Consequently, many of the best jazz and blues piano players were women in the early days, 100 years ago. I have heard many older male musicians imply that it was even considered effeminate for a man to play piano. It is laughable in this day and age, when women like Marcia Ball, Katie Webster, Jeannie Cheatham, Hazel Scott, and many others can be heard live or on recordings. I don’t think Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Art Tatum, or Ray Charles were accused of being effeminate. Sometimes, women have been called other derogatory names if they play what is considered “men’s” instruments. Fortunately, things have changed a lot, allowing people to express their true inclinations, whether musically or in other ways. This month’s Spotlight focuses on three pioneers, all piano players, from three different regions of the country, mostly starting during the Harlem Renaissance era in the 1920s and 1930s.

LIL HARDIN ARMSTRONG 1898-1971

Lil Hardin Armstrong

Lillian Hardin Armstrong is not just a name, she’s a legend who reshaped jazz history. She was born in Memphis to a family of strong women. Her grandmother, Priscilla Martin, who had been formerly enslaved, moved her family to Memphis—in a mule drawn wagon—to escape a violent husband. This occurred before Lil was born. Lil was a precocious and obviously talented girl and her mother saw to it that she went to Fisk University in Nashville, probably partly to shield her from the evils of the notorious Beale Street music scene. Here she learned how to read music. In 1917, the family moved to Chicago, seeking more employment. This was great for Lil’s music career. Her ability to read music got her a job at Jones Music Store, playing the sheet music they were trying to sell. Sometimes, it was sort of a hangout for musicians, and she was lucky enough to meet and hear Jellyroll Morton, better known as the self-proclaimed Father of Jazz. His playing inspired her to improve and continue her jazz and swing chops.

The King Oliver Creole Jazz Band was one of the most renowned at that time. Popular in New Orleans, Oliver—and many of the jazz musicians there—moved up to Chicago, following the demise of the Red Light District, called Storyville. Eventually, Oliver asked Lil to join his band. Here she met Oliver’s protege, Louis Armstrong, who was playing second trumpet to Oliver. This was a momentous meeting. She thought he was a country bumpkin, but they became friends, and eventually married. She helped him improve his image and become more stylish. She also realized his potential as a brilliant improvisor and was able to notate his musical ideas. She encouraged him to branch out on his own. Together, they formed the iconic Hot Five Band, that propelled jazz into perpetuity.

Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five, ca. 1924: Johnny St. Cyr, Kid Ory, Louis Armstrong, Johnny Dodds, Lil Hardin-Armstrong.

She maintained her relationship with him, even after they divorced, and often steered him out of trouble. She actually rode in the family car at his funeral after he died, with his last wife Lucille. Lucille said if she hadn’t invited her, she would have been haunted by Louis forever.

Following her divorce, Lil returned to Chicago to rebuild her own music career. Fed up with men, she formed two all-female bands, including The Harlem Harlicans, featuring Leora Mieux (bandleader Fletcher Henderson’s wife) on trombone and Alma Scott (Hazel Scott’s mother) on sax and clarinet. She continued to play and lead several other bands, but in 1938, she decided to try some other professions, including opening her own soul food restaurant and entering the fashion design business. She styled several fancy tuxedos for Louis.

Lil Hardin Armstrong later in life.

Although she never remarried, they obviously cared about each other. They were co-inventors of a jazz idiom in the ’20s, which morphed into swing and even vintage R&B for her. Her theme song was “Brown Gal,” which she wrote as an anthem to Black Pride. She wrote more than 150 songs, including “Struttin’ with Some Barbecue,” (the Hot Five’s first recording in 1927, “Just for a Thrill” (re-recorded by Ray Charles in 1959), “Clipjoint” (recorded by Sue Palmer & her Motel Swing Orchestra in 2009), and “Booty Swing,” put to an electro-swing style in Pavlov Stelar’s album, The Parisian Boxset in 2012. She became the Decca label’s house pianist in the late ’30s and continued playing after her restaurant and fashion design business ended.

Not only was Lil Hardin Armstrong a composer, jazz piano player and vocalist, arranger, and band leader, she was a delightful performer, who remains an icon for musicians even today. She died onstage, in a tribute to Louis Armstrong, not long after he died, in 1971. She was playing “St. Louis Blues.” Although best known for her four years of recordings with Louis, she had a long and fantastic career of her own.

GLADYS BENTLEY 1907-1960

Gladys Bentley

Harlem in the early twentieth century was the center of a cultural revolution. It was, according to poet and playwright Langston Hughes, “a great magnet, pulling from around the country artists and intellectuals determined to give voice to the truth and beauty of black life.” Few voices rang out louder than that of Gladys Bentley, the 250-pound cross dresser, “bulldagger” lesbian, who took Harlem by storm with her pounding piano and raunchy lyrics. Bentley’s refusal to hide her gender-bending ways made her, according to Hughes, “something worth discovering.”

Gladys Bentley was born in Philadelphia, the eldest of four children. She spent most of her early life arguing with her parents about her already apparent denouncement of gender normative apparel. She did not match the early 20^th-century beauty ideal of being slender and boyish, but preferred wearing her brother’s suits, rather than dresses. She ran away from home when she was 16 years old, to New York City, and began performing in speakeasies and at rent parties, perfecting her cross-dressing mannish persona. Eventually she became very popular in the most prestigious Harlem nightclubs, such as the Cotton Club, the Apollo, and the Ubangi Club.

“The drawing card of the Ubangi Club is the buxom, mannishly dressed Gladys Bentley, who has been a fixture there for years, and still draws a crowd with her double-edged ditties, which have made her one of the most notorious entertainers in all of Manhattan.” Quote from the Afro-American, February 8, 1936, review of the Ubangi Club.

She was apparently very entertaining, playing great piano, singing popular tunes, and changing the normal sweet lyrics to what was considered raunchy then, by the end of the song. She quickly became the toast of the cosmopolitan set.

Gladys

The consequences of the Great Migration of African Americans escaping the Jim Crow South, World War I, and prohibition, led to a special mix of people. Black men who had served in Europe—and especially France—experienced a racial freedom they had never known in the U.S. Many writers, artists, and musicians moved to Paris, in the late ’20s and ’30s. Black artists from the French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, moved to Harlem. So, there was a wonderful influx of ideas and freedom amidst these interchanges. Manhattan in general became a Bohemian haven and lots of social mores were in flux, including gender bending and gay life styles. Gladys Bentley was amazingly open about her sexual preference at the time and enjoyed the notoriety. Many popular artists of the ’20s and ’30s were lesbian or bisexual but did not flaunt their differences like she did (i.e., Alberta Hunter, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Bricktop, comedienne Jackie Mabley). This was also around the time that England’s Radcliffe Hall published the highly controversial Well of Loneliness, which was about an upper-class woman experiencing similar cross-dressing angst. She, too, wore a top hat and tails, which came out in 1928, when Gladys was beginning her performance career. There was definite proof she was aware of this book, as she had a song called “In My Well of Loneliness,” which she performed in the musical revue Brevities in Bronze, in 1937. She has recently been rediscovered and given her due by gay activists and musicians, including Vahn Black’s 2025 album, Walk in the Rain. The song “Too Soon” celebrates Gladys, as does hip hop artist Shirlette Ammons’ 2016 video and song, “Twilight  for Gladys Bentley.”

Her unique appearance and expert musicianship attracted celebrities and artists alike, who were drawn to her blend of blues and scandalous banter. Langston Hughes called her “a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm.” In 1930, she had her own weekly radio show, performing jazz and blues standards, and, by 1933, her star was still rising. She began playing nightclubs and legitimate theatres and headlining a series of musical revues, with a large cast of dancing drag queens. Her name became synonymous with the Ubangi Club, Harlem’s reigning nightspot in the ’30s. She continued to annoy some critics who found her act offensive but was extremely popular with audiences, both black and white, gay and straight, and with the mob, who owned many of the night spots in Harlem.

Harlem began to lose much of its vibrancy as the depression dragged on, and her popularity dwindled. She moved to Los Angeles, living with her mother there, but was never as popular as she had been in Harlem, where she had been a full-on celebrity. With the ’50s came the McCarthy era, and tolerance for a mannish butch lesbian was nowhere to be found. She did what she could to survive, sporting dresses, getting married, and changing her image. The only video that exists of her playing was an appearance on the popular Groucho Marx Show, in 1958, competing with a Nigerian man. She wears pearls and a dress, but her playing and singing are great. She died of the Asian flu in 1960, at the age of 52.

Times changed again and, in the ’60s and ’70s, there was a renewed interest in blues and folk songs. Careers of performers her age were revived in the U.S. and in Europe (i.e., Sippie Wallace, Alberta Hunter, Bricktop, Victoria Spivey). She would have greatly benefitted, but she will always be a hero to those who consider her the ultimate symbol of defiance against the prevailing images of femininity and heterosexuality.

SWEET EMMA BARRETT 1897-1983

Sweet Emma Barrett

While not as well-known as Lil Armstrong or Gladys Bentley, Sweet Emma Barrett was a fixture in the New Orleans early jazz scene, which is still alive and well today. She started playing professionally at the age of 12 and weathered the condescension directed at her by her male counterparts, with tenacity and good humor. One of the true New Orleans originals, Barrett was a distinctive figure throughout her 70-year career. A self-taught pianist and singer, her eccentricities threatened to overshadow her considerable talent. With her trademark red beanie hat and garters adorned with bells, she was known as the “Bell Gal” at home and abroad. In 1923, she began playing with the Original Tuxedo Orchestra, under the direction of Papa Celestin, and, later, William Ridgely. She played with most of the early jazz pioneers in New Orleans during the ’30s, including Louis Armstrong on a riverboat and Alphonse Picou at Preservation Hall. After semi-retirement, she returned to the stage, in 1947, at a club called Happy Landing on Lake Pontchartrain, a major scene in New Orleans music. She went on to be a band leader herself and began recording in 1960. The early ’60s stand as the most successful of Barrett’s career, due to her 25-year association with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Barrett became the focal point of the band, lending the ensemble a colorful splash of personality that audiences enjoyed, both at home and abroad, including a trip to Disneyland. Another highlight of her career was an appearance in the movie The Cincinnati Kid with her band.

She was a pioneer, who helped remove barriers for female musicians in a male-dominated field, and a beloved ambassador for New Orleans music, who traveled the world with the most accomplished musicians of her day.

“She was probably the foremost example of what a band piano player is,” said Allan Jaffe, a tuba player, who is the owner of Preservation Hall. “If I didn’t know something, she’d call out the chords to me.” From the New York Times, January 30, 1983: “Emma Barrett is dead at 85; Preservation Hall Piano Star.”