Awarded the Golden FIPA prize at the Biarritz Festival, in January 2000, Women in Jazz was filmed in New York during April and May 1999 to mark the "Women in Jazz Month in New-York" which was put on by the drummer Susie Ibarra in the Tonic Bar. This gave Gilles Corre the opportunity to portray some 20 women musicians, some well known, others less so, who set out to brave the New York jungle and make a name for themselves in the Jazz Hall of Fame. All manners of convictions underlie what they do : from whose who adopt full-on feminist stances to those who, by contrast, just play without paying and heed to sexist attitudes. Apart from the superb soundtrack played lively by this excellent line-up of musicians, "Women in Jazz", provides a overwhelming testimony to the sheer numbers of professional female musicians, their talent and creative spirit as well their historical importance in the development of jazz. To paraphrase the historian Rosetta Reitz, Jazz is no longer the men's club that it might seem to be.

£4/£3