Youthful jazz virtuosity hasn’t been unheard of in jazz, of course. Think, most recently, of the attention received by pianists such as Eldar and Taylor Eigsti – at the time when they were barely in their teens -- or guitarist Julian Lage, performing with Carlos Santana, Pat Metheny and others before he was in his teens. Grace, at 16, surely deserves the same high praise.
But there’s another aspect to her achievements that makes her considerably more unique: Grace’s gender. Jazz has lagged far behind virtually every other area of American society (other, perhaps, than the entire country’s choice of presidential candidates) in its misogynistic attitudes about female jazz horn players. Again, there are exceptions – reaching from the Diva big band to trumpeters such as the veteran Clora Bryant and more youthful Ingrid Jensen, and saxophonists such as Tineke Postma, Jane Ira Bloom and Anat Cohen (to name only a few) But, nonetheless, there’s probably not a male jazz fan anywhere who hasn’t had that moment of dawning wonder when he hears an all-female big band trumpet section roaring through a Count Basie flag-waver, or a female saxophonist roaring through a set of post-Coltrane choruses. “Wow!,” is the usual response, “Doesn’t she play good for a… “ The last word is mercifully left unnoted. There may be plenty of outstanding women horn players in jazz, but the brass ceiling still hasn’t been completely cracked.
So, the first time I heard Grace, I – like many other male listeners who haven’t completely shaken their foolish vision of jazz as a male art – initially responded to the utterly genderless qualities of her sound, phrasing and improvising. It was at L.A.’s Jazz Bakery, and Grace was romping, with consummate self-confidence, through classics – “I’ll Remember April,” “’Round Midnight,” “Caravan” – as well as her own well-crafted originals.