International Sweethearts of Rhythm - Legacy

Legacy

Despite the impact of the International Sweethearts of Rhythm being repeatedly ignored in popular histories of jazz, the band enjoyed a resurgence in popularity among feminists in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the band was among the first marketed as women's music. Several feminist writers, musicologists, and others have taken on the task of elevating women's contributions to and integral participation in the making of jazz history. For example, Sherrie Tucker, author of several articles on the subject matter as well as the book "Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s," states the importance of bringing women into the male-dominated construction of jazz history:

hrough serious study of jazzwomen's oral histories, scholars might learn new narrative strategies for imagining and telling jazz histories in which women and men are both present. Because women who played instruments other than piano were seldom the 'favored artists' of the 'superior genres,' and because they were hardly ever recorded, they have had little access to the deceptive 'coherence' of mainstream histories. Therefore, they are uniquely positioned to suggest new frameworks for telling and interpreting jazz history.

With this said, perhaps one of the greatest outcomes of the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s, for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm and their devoted fans at least, is the record contribution of the producer Rosetta Reitz, who has shared with the world a small but quintessential piece of aural history. Her biographical liner notes for the International Sweethearts of Rhythm record, as well as top quality recordings, have been made available worldwide through her company, Rosetta Records, whose focus is primarily to feature female and black jazz and blues musicians who are not usually recognized for their tremendous talents. International Sweethearts of Rhythm has been a record compilation simultaneously produced with Greta Schiller's and Andrea Weiss's production of the Sweethearts' documentary film, created in 1986 "at the onset of the third-wave feminist movement."

There has also been considerable scholarship conducted regarding the "International" aspect of their name and the effect it had on the band's acceptance among African Americans and whites in the South. According to one authority the band consisted of "Willie Mae Wong, the band's Chinese saxophonist; Alma Cortez; Mexican clarinet player; Nina de La Cruz, Indian saxophonist, and; Nova Lee McGee, Hawaiian trumpet player." The first white musicians joined in 1943.

There were also several lesbians in the band, including Tiny Davis, whose independent music career and partnership with Ruby Lucas were later the subject of Schiller and Weiss' documentary Tiny and Ruby: Hell Divin' Women.

In 1986 the documentary International Sweethearts of Rhythm by Greta Schiller and Andrea Weiss premiered in the New York Film Festival.

In 2004 the Kit McClure Band released The Sweethearts Project on Redhot Records. It is a tribute album recorded entirely with an all-female band using only songs the Sweethearts recorded.