“Oftentimes I don’t get the respect,” Emma Simpson told us. She’s a 5’4”, 17-year-old upright bass player, with small hands. She’s into progressive rock-jazz fusion. “For example, I might ask a simple question: At bar 49, are we still playing the G? And these boys’ll look at me like that's the stupidest thing they’ve ever heard… .”
“So probably my biggest obstacle is gender role, but then it’s always been difficult for females to break that stereotype in jazz, especially when you’re not a singer.”
Simpson has been breaking it since 5th grade when she was 7. She’s now a senior at Rio Americano High School in Carmichael, California and earlier this week performed with other all-star Jazz musicians at the Mondavi Center in Davis. This was a rehearsal for a concert this coming Saturday at 2 p.m. at the SF Jazz center, featuring the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars Combo along with the Mondavi Center High School All-Stars. The concert has already sold out.
On the day we spoke to her she’d just been accepted at the New School For Jazz and Contemporary Music, part of The New School in lower Manhattan. She will receive a Provost Scholarship worth 50 percent of the $42,000 tuition.
She started out playing the electric bass and then, in middle school, switched to upright. She also switched schools and went to “Rio” after she heard that graduates of their music program had gone on to such as schools as the Berklee College of Music. Rio also has one the great young jazz bands in the country. They also often travel abroad
“Summer after next they’re going to Italy; I’ll be going with them,” Emma told us.
Her big band group includes two guitars, two piano players (they rotate), two drummers, four trumpets, three trombones, and seven saxophones.
As for the future, her goal is to merge jazz and rock in to more complex music that’s enjoyable. She’s inspired by Robert Glasper and Kaimbra, among others.
But it was during a trip to Santa Cruz when she was 9 that she first became attracted to the idea of playing the bass.
“We went to the Catalyst bar. Adrian Belew from King Crimson was playing with a young bass, a girl, and I thought I want to be like that.…”
She practices at least three hours a day during the week, sometimes as much as six hours on weekends. She would like to make it a career. Her parents have been unwaveringly supportive.
“When I get in the zone, it’s better than anything. It’s so freeing when you’re all grooving together. It’s almost as if the chord changes don’t matter. They’re in your mind but you don’t have to think about them. We often play very hard songs but by the time I’ve practiced and we get out on stage, that’s the time when you can just be in the music, just do it.”