Lectures in Music Studies: Tammy L. Kernodle, Miami University

Tammy L. Kernodle, University Distinguished Professor of Music, Miami University (Ohio), recent recipient of The Ohio State University School of Music Alumni Award, and author of Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams. presents "I've Got a Story to Tell: Black Women, Autobiography, and the Reimagining of Jazz History.” Co-sponsored by the Ohio State Humanities Institute.

This lecture is free and open to the public. No ticket required. The speaker writes:

Autobiography has served as a means through which Black women have challenged exclusionary historical narratives surrounding the progression of Black life and Black cultural expression in America. Since the 1930s, when the first iterations of jazz's history emerged, the framing of that history has been strongly tied to an evolving canon of repertory and narratives extracted from the testimonials of members of jazz cliques and communities. Those testimonials have largely consisted of men talking to other men about other men. 

During the last three decades of the 20th century, the narrative history of jazz was codified through textbooks, public oral history projects, and the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz (1973). This lecture is not about examining the merits of the historical framing that results from these entities, but more so a discussion of how Black women musicians viewed autobiography as a method to intervene in the promotion of these exclusionary narratives. This lecture will explore how published and unpublished autobiographies of Mary Lou Williams, Hazel Scott, and others outline their proximity to specific jazz communities that have been essentialized as part of the general understanding of genre’s progression, illuminate their direct contributions to the evolution of jazz’s sound, and challenge the notion that jazz’s sonic progression through the advancement of alternative canonical repertories. 

Tammy L. Kernodle is the Park Creative Arts Endowed Professor and University Distinguished Professor of Music at Miami University (Ohio) and the 2025 recipient of The Ohio State University School of Music Distinguished Alumnus Award. She is a recognized musician and scholar whose research focuses on African American music, gender studies, and race in American popular culture. She has contributed to various journals, edited volumes, and documentaries, and is the author of the biography Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, a comprehensive examination of the pianist/arranger’s six-decade career. Kernodle’s public-facing work has afforded opportunities to write for and consult with the American Jazz Museum, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Folkways, NPR, and the BBC, among others. Kernodle is the past president of the Society for American Music, and is currently curating the I Dream a World Festival, an initiative with New World Symphony that celebrates the legacy of Black composers.

Dr. Tammy L. Kernodle | Park Creative Arts Endowed Professor | University Distinguished Professor of Music | 2024–2025 Frank M. Updike Memorial Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa