Dottie Dodgion was a drummer who worked with jazz icons including Benny Goodman (1909–1986) and Marian McPartland (1918–2013).Dodgion began her musical career as a singer, but by the early 1950s, she had learned drums.
One of the few women playing drums at that time, she sometimes met with pushback from men who didn’t expect a female drummer – including from her second husband, jazz bassist Monty Budwig, whom she soon divorced.
With her third husband, jazz saxophonist Jerry Dodgion, she was invited to play in Goodman’s band. Dogion told the story in her autobiography of the day when she was playing with Goodman and the audience gave her a bigger round of applause than him – and she was fired that night.
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