The jazz that is not about gender

In September last year, I saw for the first time a photo of the jazz bass player Tine Asmundsen. Never before had I seen a woman holding a double bass or noticed it. A few days later she played with her band Asmundsen & Co at Energimølla. Ironically, from the chair where I sat, I could see the four men in the band, her double bass, but not her, as if chance had tried to remind me that music has no gender.

At the Kongsberg Jazz Festival, the same band was on stage, and I was once again in the audience. This time I was going to try to understand why the female double bass struck me as a strange contrast, and Tine was kind enough to give me an interview.

Tine had no problem with talking about women's place in jazz, but I think she would have preferred it if the interview had been about the band's saxophonist and composer Vidar Johansen. She told me that she was the "first female double bassist at the music conservatory" (Eastland's music conservatory); that she played in the band Girl Talk, "the first Norwegian female jazz band"; and that there have now been many female bass players in both classical and jazz. But she also said with much determination:

  - I have always been very concerned that it is not about gender. It's about being a musician. It has been very important to me that it does not matter that I am a woman. It does not matter. Because it's the music it's about, she concluded.

As an academic used to forcing problems on people that they don't experience, I had to raise my game. So I gave it my all by asking her if her double bass has a gender, if it's a female or a male. But Tine stuck to her position and replied: - No, it's just a double bass!, which, when you think about it a bit, makes sense.

A double bass is an instrument that can appear masculine to the extent that it is large and heavy and therefore requires a certain strength. But one could just as well argue that a double bass is a female instrument to the extent that those who play it are withdrawn, stand in the background, and fulfill a supporting function. Asmundsen explained that this is precisely what she likes about playing double bass:

- I usually say that I'm the glue in the band, right? And that's a role I like to have then. Otherwise, I would probably have chosen something else. If I wanted to be in front, I would probably have played a wind instrument or sung or something, I mean. I really like that I have both a melodic and a rhythmic role. I have that with the bass, right?

Tine's band bears her name. She stands alone in the concert's promotional photo. And when I say that this suggests that she is the "boss" in the band, she admits: - Yes, I'm a bit of a boss then! But Tine is a manager very keen to promote those who play with her: Vidar Johansen, Magnus Aannestad Oseth, Rune Klakegg and Terje Engen. In the concert, the first two formed a duo so magical that they made me wonder if a saxophone is what a trumpet becomes when it gets old.

It is possible that in jazz, as in pop and rock, it is easier for a woman to become a singer than to become an instrumentalist because the voice is easily associated with the body and nature, while the instrument is easily associated with technology understood as a type of object that in a patriarchal culture may be reserved for men. It's also possible that those who write about jazz, like many other writers, tend to think it's okay to call women they don't know by their first names while they call men they don't know by their last names. But I think that it was only after I had switched off my recorder that I asked Asmundsen the question she liked best, namely: - What is the name of the last piece you played? As far as I remember, she answered: - In a dream. And yes, the play was a dream, perhaps the dream you live in when music is not about gender, but only about music.

Text: Nadji Aïssa Khéfif / Photo: Odd Eirik Skjolde