UNT Professor and Fellow Musician Start a Venture to Protect Women Paving the Way in Big Band Jazz

The Brava Jazz publishing house opened on International Women’s Day for a reason. The one-of-a-kind store aims to promote and widely disseminate the work of female composers and arrangers in the big band jazz genre.

“If you’re only programming music by men, you’re missing out,” said University of North Texas One O’Clock Lab band director Alan Baylock.

When Baylock wanted to diversify his programming, he had a hard time finding big band compositions written by women.

“Because of the discrimination against women in the history of jazz, there have been fewer women in the field over the last 100 years,” Baylock said. “However, the level of talent is certainly at the level of all the people in the history books.”

This sparked the idea to start Brava Jazz Publishing with fellow musician Annie Booth.

“We know there are great women who make great music,” Booth said. “We decided to create this platform to bring awareness to these women and make sure their work is available.”

Brava Jazz Publishing currently lists about 15 composers and arrangers, with music for levels ranging from high school students to professionals.

Booth has said that she played in a band throughout her high school career, never playing a single piece of big band music composed or arranged by a woman. Booth and Baylock want to change that for future students.

“I imagine how suddenly they will put a piece of music in front of them that has a woman’s name written on it,” Booth said. “It shows them that their passion for this music has a real viable path for them in the future.”

The goal is to have variety not only in the ensembles of the group, but also on the page.

“It makes the music better,” Baylock said.