Jane Sager
{{Short description|American jazz musician (1914 – 2012)}}
Jane Sager (1914–2012) was an American big band trumpeter and bandleader.{{cite journal |last1=Petersen |first1=Norma |title=Jane Sager (Life Member. 1914 – 2012) |journal=The Overture |date=May 2012 |page=13 |publisher=AFM47}} Throughout her career, she played in the bands of Rita Rio, Ada Leonard, Katherine Dunham, Charlie Barnet, and Johnny Richards.
Biography
=Early life=
Sager was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on June 5, 1914.{{cite book |last1=Larkin |first1=Colin |title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music |date=1 January 2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-531373-4 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195313734.001.0001/acref-9780195313734-e-72780 |access-date=12 December 2022 |language=en |chapter=Sager Jane}} She began playing violin at the age of six, and by the age of 14, she began performing in local venues.{{cite web |title=Pioneer Award |url=https://myiwbc.org/awards/ |website=International Women's Brass Conference |access-date=11 December 2022 |date=5 May 2021}}{{cite news |last1=Radlauer |first1=David |title=Ada Leonard and the All-American Girl Orchestra, Part One 1940-43|url=https://syncopatedtimes.com/ada-leonard-and-the-all-american-girl-orchestra-part-one-1940-43/ |access-date=11 December 2022 |work=The Syncopated Times |date=30 April 2022}} She attended college for violin, and continued her studies at the American Conservatory of Music. She switched to playing trumpet after a car ran over her hand.
=Orchestral career=
In the 1930s, Sager began touring with all-female bands, such as the Traveling All-Woman Band led by One-Arm Miller. At this time, she also performed with the Chicago Women's Symphony. In 1940, Sager was a founding member of the All-American Girl Orchestra led by Ada Leonard. Advertisements claimed the band featured the “World’s Greatest Girl Trumpeter Jane Sager”.{{cite book |last1=Tucker |first1=Sherrie |title=Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s |date=6 June 2000 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-8090-0 |url=https://ia800908.us.archive.org/15/items/Biblio-2000-USA-Sherrie-Tucker-Swing-Shift/Biblio-2000-USA-Sherrie-Tucker-Swing-Shift.pdf |access-date=11 December 2022 |language=en}} During World War II, the United Service Organizations contracted the orchestra to perform for enlisted troops.
In 1942, Sager left the All-American Girl Orchestra and earned a spot in a band led by Johnny Richards. She left before they began touring and decided to remain in Los Angeles. She then joined The Victory Belles, a band led by Peggy Gilbert on a radio show geared toward servicemen. She was also briefly in the International Sweethearts Of Rhythm. In 1950, Sager joined the all-female band of Ina Ray Hutton that performed on The Ina Ray Hutton Show.
While with the All-American Girl Orchestra, Sager met Mary Sawyer. Sager and Sawyer partnered to open a trumpet studio in Hollywood, California in the 1950s. The two also organized the Frivolous Five, a musical comedy troupe which Sager led until the late 60s.{{cite news |first1=Allen|last1=Garvin|title=Senior Swingers |url=https://virginiachronicle.com/?a=d&d=SNH19670219.1.16&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------- |access-date=12 December 2022 |work=Suffolk News-Herald|volume=45|issue=43 |date=19 February 1967}}
=Later life=
Later in her life, Sager primarily worked as a teacher in her studio. Her students included Roger Tillison, Chet Baker, and Herb Alpert.{{cite news |last1=Cordtz |first1=Kay |title=Roger Tillison, Oklahoma Jukebox Poet : 1941-2013 |url=http://www.rollmagazine.com/roger-tillison-oklahoma-jukebox-poet-1941-2013-2/ |access-date=11 December 2022 |work=Roll Magazine |language=en}} Flea, another student of Sager, posited in his memoir Acid for the Children that "if Jane had been a man she'd be acclaimed as a great trumpeter, but sexism is a bitch, and she lived in that little apartment on Selma teaching the likes of me..."{{cite book |author1=Flea |title=Acid for the Children: A Memoir |date=20 September 2022 |publisher=Grand Central Publishing |isbn=978-1-4555-3054-0 |page=117 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q1hgzQEACAAJ |access-date=11 December 2022 |language=en}}
In 1997, Sager was granted the Pioneer Award by the International Women's Brass Conference. In 2002, she was given a Lil Hardin Armstrong Jazz Heritage Award by the International Association for Jazz Education.The Overture. AFM47: 24. February 2002.
She spent her final years in Morro Bay, California. Sager died in 2012.
References
{{reflist}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sager, Jane}}