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PAN PIPES • WINTER 2018 • sai-national.org 12 WOMEN IN JAZZ modal conceptions of John Coltrane and others like him. She ended up marrying John Coltrane in 1965 and became his pianist. Both she and John were drawn to exploring their spiritual life, and the universal spirituality they came to espouse influenced the evolution of their compositional style. Aer John's premature death from liver cancer in 1967, Alice went through a long period of deep reflection and mourning. She traveled to India and, subsequently, expanded her conception of what sounds made up jazz. She continued using techniques such as free rhythm, changing modality, and flexible structures. She called upon a variety of styles and traditions, including African American spiritual traditions, as well as unusual combinations of instruments. She also pursued harp performance, and used it to create music influenced by a mixture of Eastern and Western sounds, blending the music she had grown up with and the music connected to her new spirituality. In the 1980s, Alice Coltrane stopped performing music professionally and focused, instead, on her spiritual life. She founded the Vedantic Center in Agoura, California, where she composed and arranged bhajans (Hindu devotional hymns) that are still used in worship there. She did go on to release another studio album before her death, Translinear Light, featuring her own jazz compositions. Maria Schneider (1960- ) grew up in Minnesota, where she was introduced to jazz, piano, and composition when she was still young. While she was attending the University of Minnesota, she had the opportunity to hear a concert given by the Toshiko Akiyoshi Jazz Orchestra, and was impressed and inspired by someone who conducted her own group, playing music she had written. Later on, she became a student of jazz pianist and orchestrator Gil Evans, and worked as his assistant and copyist. Currently, Schneider is known for her works for big-band ensemble, and she conducts the Maria Schneider Orchestra, which focuses on performing her own compositions. Like the music of Carla Bley, Schneider's music is difficult to put into categories. In addition to jazz, she uses elements of other genres. She writes for the specific players in her ensemble, and although each work is "composed," improvisation is an important element. She likes to provide structures for her improvising musicians as they perform her work, and their interpretations in turn affect what she writes. She finds inspiration in and is influenced by flying, motion, and dance. Oen, during the act of composing, she records what she writes, then plays it back as she dances in order to see how successfully it comes together and conveys the impression she is aiming for. Schneider is constantly exploring new sounds. For example, a trip to Brazil had a profound influence on her style, relaxing it and leading to a sound less-focused on vertical harmonies. In addition, she has enriched the typical big-band instrumentation by consistently using the accordion in her music. To make it easier to record and market her music, Maria Schneider co-founded an innovative website, ArtistShare, a forum through which individuals can commission and support the work of a particular artist. In exchange for monetary support, patrons are allowed to see the creative process from the beginning, witnessing rehearsals through streaming video and getting regular updates. e five composers briefly discussed above are just a small sampling of the many women who have created jazz since the early decades of the twentieth century. Space limitations have necessitated the omission of many talented composers who have made an impact on the jazz world. From Lil Hardin Armstrong, Melba Liston, and JoAnne Brackeen to contemporary composers like Terri Lyne Carrington and Norah Jones, the jazz world always has and always will be rich with the diversity and creativity of women who compose. BIBLIOGRAPHY Beal, Amy C. Carla Bley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2011. Berkman, Franya J. Monument Eternal: the Music of Alice Coltrane. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010. Dahl, Linda. Morning Glory: a Biography of Mary Lou Williams. New York, Pantheon Books, 1999. Franklin, Alyssa. "A Faith in Music: a Profile of Alice Coltrane." The American Harp Journal 21, no. 3 (Summer 2008): 34-36. Griffin, Farah Jasmine. Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics during World War II. New York: BasicCivitas, 2013. Kelly, Jennifer. In Her Own Words: Conversations with Composers in the United States. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2013. Koplewitz, Laura. "Toshiko Akiyoshi: Jazz Composer, Arranger, Pianist, and Conductor." In The Musical Woman: an International Perspective, vol. II, 1984-1985, edited by Judith Lang Zaimont, 256-279. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. McManus, Jill. "Women Jazz Composers and Arrangers." In The Musical Woman: an International Perspective, 1983, edited by Judith Lang Zaimont, 197-209. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. "No Boundaries: Maria Schneider's Classical Jazz." The Economist, March 8, 2014. Ratliff, Ben. The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music. NY: Times Books, 2008. Kathi Bower Peterson, an SAI Philanthropies coordinator, is a graduate of Indiana University, where she majored in music history and was a member of Iota Epsilon chapter. She has an MM in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She has been the librarian at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in La Jolla, CA for 20 years and currently serves as the treasurer of the San Diego County Alumnae Chapter. Schneider

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