Avenger of the Week | Dolly Jones, First Recorded Woman Trumpeter

Jazz musician Dolly Jones was the first recorded woman trumpet player in 1926, and her amazing talent and confident style changed the image of women in jazz culture, where they were usually vocalists or dancers, often sexualized, and an adjunct to male musicians, not as lead solos.

Once, when Jones was waiting, trumpet in hand, to perform in a club, jazz trumpet great Roy Eldridge asked her if her boyfriend was the trumpeter. As he told it, she coolly looked him in the eye and answered “I am the trumpeter”. They became friends, and he was a lifelong fan of her talent.

Jones made that historic first recording as a woman trumpeter on a record with Albert Wynn’s Gut Bucket Five. She appeared in the movie Swing in 1938 playing “I May Be Wrong” solo.

Along with her public appearances, her performance in this film was considered to be a turning point for other women jazz musicians to be bold about sharing their talent for its own sake.

Born in Chicago in 1902 to musician parents, Jones mother taught her how to play the trumpet and her father taught her the saxophone. She was a standout on the trumpet and traveled with the family’s Jones Family Band, which included tours with the legendary singer and dancer Josephine Baker. She founded the jazz women instrumentalist trio Three Classy Misses, which was unusual for the time. She was part of a 15-member multiracial jazz band in New York called the Disciples of Swing. She also toured with Ma Rainey and appeared with the Harlem Harlicans at the Apollo and Lafayette Theaters in New York and the Regal Theater in Chicago. She continued to play the trumpet until her death in 1975.

For her brilliant talent playing jazz trumpet and the self-confidence that propelled her to break barriers for women in jazz, we salute Dolly Jones as our Avenger of the Week.

The @GenderAvenger #AvengerOfTheWeek is the first woman trumpeter recorded on a record and one with confidence enough to break barriers for women in jazz, Dolly Jones. #GenderAvenger https://www.genderavenger.com/blog/avenger-of-the-week-dolly-jones