March 11, 2013

Welcome!!

March 11, 2013/ Elaine Hayes

Welcome to Lady Be Bop, a blog on women in music and popular culture. All music is fair game here, but I’ll spend most of my time discussing jazz, in particular jazz vocalists. I love the great ladies of song: Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Anita O’Day, Nina Simone, and more recently the likes of Dee Dee Bridgewater and Dianne Reeves. And I’m fascinated by the music they created, the lives they lead, and the challenges they encountered along the way.

Elaine M. Hayes

I am a Seattle-based jazz historian, writer, and editor. As long as I can remember, I have loved everything musical – be it the music itself, the amazing composers and performers who create it, or the stories behind the scenes. In addition to writing and blogging about jazz and classical music, I have taught music history classes and spoken internationally about big band “girl singers” and women in jazz, including one of my favorite musicians, Sarah Vaughan. This extraordinary vocalist is the subject of my biography Sarah Vaughan: To Bebop or To Be Pop.

Hi, I’m Elaine Hayes, a historian and recovering academic, who has been studying women in jazz for almost twenty years. I write about music and popular culture, teach music history, and speak internationally on jazz vocalists, especially my favorite singer, Sarah Vaughan. She’s the subject of my first book: Queen of Bebop: The Musical Lives of Sarah Vaughan, published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, in 2017. When I’m not immersed in all things musical, I’m a freelance editor. I live in Seattle with my husband and son.

If you have questions about me and my work, or you just want to say “hi,” I’d love to hear from you. You can fill out this form or email me at elaine@elainemhayes.com.