Tammy L. Kernodle
Acting
Biography
Tammy L. Kernodle is an American musicologist and a former president of the Society for American Music (2019–21). Her academic writing and public intellectual work has highlighted Black women musicians like Mary Lou Williams, Meshell Ndegeocello, Alice Coltrane, and Melba Liston and has considered African-American women's role in contemporary gospel music and jazz. Kernodle holds a BM in choral music education and piano from Virginia State University, and an MA and PhD in music history from Ohio State University. Kernodle has been professor of musicology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, since 1997. In 2018, she was awarded the Benjamin Harrison Medallion in recognition of "Outstanding Contribution to the Education of the Nation", and in 2021 she was awarded the title of University Distinguished Professor. Kernodle served as the President of the Society for American Music from 2019 to 2021. In 2021, with Lisa Barg, Dianthe Spencer, and Sherrie Tucker, Kernodle formed the Melba Liston Research Collective whose members work toward "the inclusion of women musicians and analyses of gender in the emerging jazz historiographical directions of 'new' jazz studies" Her book, Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Williams, has been reviewed by Sherrie Tucker for Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, Chris J. Walker for JazzTimes, and Edward M. Komara for the Music Library Association's quarterly Notes. Kernodle has contributed to NPR's "Turning the Tables" series (2019) and to the Walker Art Center's digital exhibit "Creative Black Music". She has appeared in several documentaries about the history of jazz, including The Girls in the Band (2011), Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band (2015), and Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (2019). She has been quoted or interviewed as an expert for The New York Times, NPR's All Things Considered, and Marketplace.
Known For
An immersive look at the eventful life and brilliant artistic career of visionary American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis (1926-1991).
Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool
Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But for a Black woman in the early 1900s, life as a star did not come easy.
Mary Lou Williams: The Lady Who Swings the Band
This documentary film tells the dramatic story of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple living in Virginia in the 1950s, and their landmark Supreme Court Case, Loving v. Virginia, that changed history.
The Loving Story
The Disappearance of Miss Scott chronicles Hazel Scott’s meteoric rise as a jazz talent and major Hollywood star before being blacklisted during the Red Scare.
The Disappearance of Miss Scott
THE GIRLS IN THE BAND tells the poignant, untold stories of female jazz and big band instrumentalists and their fascinating, groundbreaking journeys from the late 1930s to the present day.