Ellie Dattani is the singer and band leader of the Birmingham-based all-women jazz band ‘Calypso Moon’. Calypso Moon plays traditional jazz and swing music, with a particular focus on The Great American Songbook. Ellie takes her inspiration from Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Doris Day as well as the great all-women jazz bands of the 1920s, 30s and 40s such as The International Sweethearts of Rhythm and The Andrews Sisters. Ellie lives in Stirchley, Birmingham with her husband and her son.
UK Jazz News: What is the best advice you received about balancing/ juggling motherhood and career?
Ellie Dattani: I’m not sure what the best advice I have had is. However I would say that playing jazz is such a wonderful contrast to parenting (as much as I love my son and treasure the time we spend together). We play with our children but then when we go to play jazz, it’s our time to play! It is such a gift to have the opportunity to feed our souls in that way. Being a jazz musician absolutely makes me a better parent, because I have a space where I can be myself and share my gift with others. So that makes me feel happy and inspired, which makes me a better mum. I am very lucky that I live in Birmingham in the UK and there is a great jazz scene here so I have plenty of amazing jazz musicians to play with and obviously, in Calypso Moon, playing with women musicians, you get the best musicians! Often women have had to work twice as hard to get where they are, so the standard of their playing is extremely high.
UKJN: What information or advice do you wish you’d received but didn’t (and had to learn through trial and error or on the go)?
ED: I think that the advice I wish I had had was that your journey is your own – it is completely unique to you. Don’t worry about whatever anyone else is doing. You have nothing to prove. Remember why you make music and treasure the gift that music is and protect it. Don’t let anyone destroy that gift.
There are no rules! You can make your own rules, so that your career in music can suit you and your family! Your life in music is your own to discover and to live, no-one else’s. You need to define what success looks like to you, giving yourself realistic goals along your journey, while being open to what God/fate/the universe has planned for you as well.
I have learnt that you will have to set your own boundaries. For example, what is your ideal fee and what is your minimum fee? How far are you willing to travel? How many gigs do you want to do per month? How late at night are you willing to work?
If you need to do other work, as well as music, to sustain you financially then that’s absolutely fine and doesn’t make you any ‘less’ of a musician! 99% of musicians don’t make money solely through playing music! And other types of work can be very enriching and a nice contrast, giving life variety. For me personally, in addition to my work with the band, I run two children’s choirs, a choir for people with dementia, and a singing group for mums and babies. I also run a playgroup and youth club for teenagers. And I love this work and it gives me a fixed monthly income alongside the money I make from gigging which is essential.
Support from loved ones is extremely important when you have a career in music. I am very lucky that I have a wonderfully supportive husband, who is also a professional musician. So we both understand what it’s like and we support each other, gigging on different nights of the week so the other one can be with our son, as well as making sure that we still make time for each other. It’s also great to be able to talk with him about music, share ideas, experiences and advice. We always encourage each other and build each other up, which is vital!
UKJN: Your top tip(s) for other mothers in jazz:
ED: Everyone’s needs will be so different but I would say that building community is really important and having people that support and encourage you in what you are doing, particularly other women in music and other mothers in music who understand what it’s like. I started to truly experience the power of this when I co-founded a group for women in music in Birmingham. There are around seventy of us in the group, many are mothers, and the idea is that we all encourage each other’s endeavours. This has been a great way to share work opportunities, support each other on social media, as well as promoting and attending each other’s gigs. There are a range of people in the group – musicians, sound engineers, songwriters, promoters, music charities, community musicians etc. So that has been a great resource! I have found that music has great power to connect us to one another, and women love to support each other!
UKJN Baby/child gear tips for travel/touring/gigging:
ED: I don’t tend to take my son to gigs now that he is a bit older, and I didn’t gig when he was a baby because crippling postnatal depression, sleep deprivation and breastfeeding didn’t work so well with gigging (I could barely get dressed and string a sentence together never mind play a gig) and then there was the pandemic, so there were no gigs to play! So I took a couple of years off. However, fellow mothers in my band have taken their toddlers along to our gigs before and absolutely smashed it! Although it can look and even sound a bit different to other gigs (e.g. drumming with a toddler on your knee) there is such beauty in it, the audience love to see the children involved and it helps the audience to connect to us as people.
UKJN: Best general travel/gigging/tour-with-child advice:
ED: You will definitely need someone with you, a partner, family member or friend, to look after your baby/child while you are sound-checking, performing, and networking/selling merch after your gig. Generally, I don’t bring my son to gigs as they are mostly in the evening, but sometimes it will be a daytime gig, for example at a jazz club or a festival, in which case my husband might come with me to look after my son when I’m unavailable. However, we have found that this isn’t ideal as funnily enough when Mummy is busy that’s the moment that my son wants all my attention! So it’s better if my husband just takes him out for the day somewhere that he enjoys, like soft play or the playground, and I can focus on the gig and my son won’t get upset at me being too busy for him.
UKJN: What has surprised you about becoming a parent and remaining engaged with your professional activities and ambitions?
ED: I think that the success of the band, how busy we are and how much we are getting booked has surprised me, considering that we only gig in the Midlands. Also, we don’t do a gig if it finishes after 10pm, as I like to be home and in bed by 11pm, because I have to be able to get up at 7am everyday to get my son ready for school! You would have thought that these boundaries would mean that we would get less work but actually we have gotten more! People understand and they want to support us, and if not, we won’t work with them so it’s their loss!
I have actually been surprised by how important my professional activities and ambitions are to me after having a child. I think that there is a myth that when you have children you suddenly won’t care about anything else and everything will be about your child, which isn’t really true. Yes, they are the most important thing in your life and, yes, you would sacrifice anything for them, but you are still you! You still have all your passions and gifts and ctually you need those things even more as they give you energy, strength, identity, creative outlet, therapeutic benefit, community and connection. These things become even more important as a mum – as mums, we give and give and give. And so we need to replenish our reserves, and that is what art and community are for, both of which come together so beautifully in music.
I have actually also been surprised by how age just isn’t a barrier! When I was young I thought that a career in performing music was something you could only have in your twenties or thirties if you were conventionally beautiful, but here I am, nearly forty with laughter lines and a ‘mum-bod’ feeling like I’m only just getting started and incredibly excited for my future in music, which I plan on doing for the rest of my life! I love to see older women killing it at a gig, it’s awesome and super inspiring!
UKJN: What boundaries have you set for yourself as a mother in jazz (could be related to travel/touring, riders, personal parameters, child care decisions, etc.)?
ED: I made the decision to never take a gig further than one hour drive from Birmingham, where I live. I have done touring up and down the country and internationally before and I just knew that that wasn’t what I wanted to do this time. Many musicians do tour with their families but I knew it wasn’t for me. However, instead of limiting the amount of gigs, I have actually found the opposite effect – we are getting so many gigs I can’t keep up with the bookings! And obviously we’re not having to spend much of our fee on travel and nothing on accommodation! And I get to sleep in my own bed every night! It’s been a great opportunity to really seek out local venues, promoters, agencies, jazz clubs and local people putting on live music events. We are lucky in Birmingham, because of how central it is we can get to Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, as well as the wider Birmingham, Sandwell and Black Country area, all within an hour, and we have discovered some absolutely amazing venues and great people putting on live music. The types of gigs we do are very diverse – theatres, jazz clubs, bars, pubs, rural touring in village halls, as well as for private functions. So limiting ourselves to one location has actually really helped us to think creatively, and use our limitations to our advantage!
(*) Parents in Jazz was started (first as ‘Mothers In Jazz’) by vocalist Nicky Schrire in August 2022. The initiative aims to create an online resource for jazz industry professionals with children, those contemplating parenthood, and jazz industry figures who work with and hire musicians who are parents. The insight of the musicians and administrators interviewed for this series provides valuable emotional, philosophical and logistical information and support that is easily accessible to all. “Parents In Jazz” shines a light on the very specific role of being both a parent and a performing jazz musician or jazz arts professional.
