Pianist and Composer Is Young, Award-Winning and ‘Into Jazz 110%’

By keeping his orchestra on salary year-round, Duke Ellington placed himself in the unusual position of being able to hear what he’d composed hours after he’d finished it.

Jazz pianist/composer Cecilia Coleman, who leads her trio Monday night at Jax in Glendale, is in a similarly enviable situation.

As a four-year member of saxophonist Benn Clatworthy’s quartet--Thursday she also appears with him at Jax--Coleman, 28, who has been composing since she was a child, has the luxury of hearing what she has written at the band’s weekly rehearsals.

The playing of her works is essential to her growth as a composer, she says. “I can experiment with different things because I had the opportunity of hearing it back right away.”

These play-throughs speed up the process of deciding what to keep and what to throw away. “A lot of times I’ll write something that maybe has things I like, but I don’t like the whole piece, and later those parts will show up in something else that I will like as a whole,” Coleman says.

She was born in Long Beach; graduated in 1986 from Cal State Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in music, with an emphasis in commercial piano performance, and still lives in Long Beach.

The musician, who estimates that 20 of her works are being performed by either Clatworthy’s quartet (and his recently organized quintet) or her trio, has written everything from funky shuffle tunes to mellifluous, haunting compositions.

Whatever the style, melody comes first, says Coleman, whose chief influences are trumpeter Woody Shaw and pianists Mulgrew Miller, Bill Evans and Red Garland. “But I’m trying to expand, find new things rhythmically, harmonically, trying to go off in different directions,” she says.

She’s developing a piece that includes African elements--inspired by a record given to her by Clatworthy’s drummer, Kendall Kay, a native of South Africa.

Among her past efforts are “Alma,” a lilting, evocative work recorded on Clatworthy’s Discovery label debut, “Thanks Horace”; “Words of Wisdom,” a dynamic, propulsive tune with diverse rhythmic patterns, and “Nanjamee,” an engaging tune with a backbeat that resembles Wayne Shorter’s catchy “One by One,” which was recorded by Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

The artist says composition is helping her discover her own voice--both as a writer and a pianist.

“My playing grows because I write,” she says. “My writing comes easier; it’s more natural. I have to work hard to play. So I sit down and write something and I’ll try to extend what I have done in the past, try new things. And when I play them, then I’m growing playing-wise.”

Asked how she feels about her playing, Coleman is philosophical. “I came to the decision that you have to be accepting of yourself all the time. One of the hardest things to do is to accept where you are at this moment. You spend a day practicing, listening to the greats, and then you go to work and, all of a sudden, you don’t hear Mulgrew or Bill Evans, you hear you. So I think it’s important to say, ‘OK, I play like me. I’m going to do the best I can at this moment.’ ”

Does she feel exposure has been more difficult to come by because she’s a woman?

“Musically, I don’t think there’s a difference, but business-wise, there probably is.” Coleman adds that a woman might have a tougher time becoming known as a player.

Coleman’s name, and star, have been on the rise since September, when she received the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s 1990 Shelly Manne Memorial New Talent Award, which has been given to a young, outstanding Los Angeles-area artist for more than five years.

“I heard Cecilia play on Benn Clatworthy’s album, and I was impressed,” said Teri Merrill-Aarons, president of the jazz society. “I thought she was terrific.”

Among the events sponsored by the jazz society that Coleman has worked were two parties at the Musicians Union auditorium in Hollywood, a Sunday brunch at the Holiday Inn in Hollywood and a three-night stand at the Hyatt Hotel in Hollywood. In September, Coleman will join saxophonist Herman Riley, trumpeter Al Aarons, trombonist Thurman Green and drummer Jack LeCompte as part of the society’s Jazz Caravan, which plays free concerts in Southern California.

Coleman avers that Clatworthy--whom she met when studying improvisation with vibraphonist Charlie Shoemake in 1987--has been crucial to her career as a jazz musician.

“When I met Benn, I saw how I wanted to be--or how I am--into jazz 110%,” she says, laughing. “Sometimes you need someone like that to relate to.

“I think we feed off each other,” she continues. “Playing this kind of music--straight-ahead jazz--in this town doesn’t come easy. You don’t always have an outlet to play, so if you aren’t performing, you need to always be . . . learning tunes, rehearsing, getting people together. When you find other people like that, you tend to keep them around you.”

“Cecilia and I, I think, have similar musical ambitions, which are to be honest and accomplished in jazz music, so that’s very helpful,” Clatworthy said. “It’s hard to find people who think the same way you do, so we’re lucky.

Coleman--who has worked with saxophonists Clatworthy and Cece Worrall, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland and bandleaders Bob Keane and Walt Wilder--is upbeat about her career. “There are days when things aren’t 100% the way you’d want them, but you just have to keep striving,” she says. “I just hope I’m growing as an artist.”

Cecilia Coleman plays with her trio at 9 p.m. Monday, and with Benn Clatworthy’s quartet at 9 p.m. Thursday at Jax, 339 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. No cover. (818) 500-1604.