Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1997)
BOOK REVIEWS:
The Crooked Stovepipe
K. Linda Kivi. Canadian Women Making Music. Toronto: Green Dragon Press. 1992. 134 pgs. $32.00 paperback. ISBN 0-969-19558-3
Canadian Women Making Music is a wide-ranging social history of women in Canada involved in a variety of musical activities. It is divided into two sections: "Looking Back" traces the history of women musicians in Canada from Confederation to the present; Part Two, "Voices Clear and Strong" is a series of interviews with various musicians.
There are three main strengths of the first section. It is not limited to a particular genre or approach, but discusses women's experiences as performers and composers of many styles of music from jazz to folk to art music. This section mentions the names of hundreds of Canadian women musicians, pointing to models in many areas, especially in popular, folk and jazz idioms, that people could research further if they wished. The social history considers the importance to women's experiences of not only gender but also such other factors as race, ethnicity, disability and social class.
The second section's interviews focus mainly on singer-songwriters, albeit from many geographical areas and. genres: Salome Bey (Toronto jazz-blues singer-songwriter); Heather Bishop, Karen Howe and Kris Purdy (Prairie-based women's music); Pauline Julien (Québec chanteuse); Marie-Lynn Hammond (Québec folk and radio performer); Lauri .Conger, Julie Masi and Lorraine Segato (members of the Parachute Club, based in Toronto at the time of the interview); Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki nation, singer-songwriter); Arlene Mantle (Toronto-based trade-unionist singer-songwriter); Marie-Claire Seguin (Québec singer-songwriter). There are also several performers: Connie Kadota and Eileen Kage (members of Katari Taiko, Japanese traditional and contemporary Japanese-Canadian drumming); Mar-garet MacPhee (Cape Breton traditional pianist); Pamela Morgan (singer, guitarist, and pianist based in Newfoundland). As well, on.e art music composer, Ann Southam, is included.
The book has two main drawbacks: of organization and content. As there is neither a table of contents nor index, it is difficult to access the book's principal emphases. This makes it somewhat awkward as a research tool. Also, there is no musical analysis or discussion of particular musical works or styles—understandable, as the author states early on (p. 3) she is not a musician . However, this lack limits the volume's usefulness for musicologists in general.
Otherwise, Kivi's work is worthwhile for scholars in this field. I especially enjoyed the book's scope as a social history of women making music in Canada. 'It discusses Canadian women's musical activities since Confederation, through the life experiences of dozens of musicians from popular and traditional music, as well as jazz and concert music, juxtaposing these diverse backgrounds and high-lighting their common threads.
Andra McCartney
© Canadian Journal for Traditional Music