Yesterday I posted about the hard-kicking all-female big band Francis Carroll and Her Coquettes. Today we take a look at ‘The International Sweethearts of Rhythm’, who were believed to be the first racially-integrated all-female big band in the United States. Though they’ve been more or less lost to history–and that’s a criminal shame–they were highly thought of in their day, once being labeled “the most prominent and probably best female aggregation of the era.” After a performance in Chicago in 1943, the ‘Chicago Defender’ announced the band was “one of the hottest stage shows that ever raised the roof of the theater!” During the feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s in America, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm became popular with feminist writers and musicologists who wanted to highlight previously-overlooked contributions from female musicians.

The band belongs firmly in the cross-over from swing to be-bop big band—a kind of early Billy Eckstein/Dizzy Gillespie big-band sound, with tough-ass arrangements, hard-hitting tempos, hot solos and excellent early-Sarah Vaughn style vocals. Here’s their detailed Wikipedia page which makes fascinating reading. Enjoy these monster jazz cats, who just so happen to be women. They could go up against any all-male aggregation and frankly could best many of the big bands of this period.