In Game of Sax, a Leading Player : Jazz: Saxophonist Sonya Jason says musicians were hesitant at first about her abilities, but she soon won them over. Her quartet appears in Santa Ana tonight.

Any problems Sonya Jason faced as a woman saxophonist pretty much disappeared when she started leading her own groups.

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“In terms of booking myself,” she said, “it’s actually an asset that I’m a woman. Agents and club owners understand the marketing value of that. I have good photos, make a good visual, I’m good with the audience on stage and I can play, so why not?”

But that wasn’t the case when she was a “side musician,” as the 28-year-old Jason prefers to call those who play for other bandleaders. In a phone interview from her home in Burbank, she explained what it took for her to gain acceptance.

“I would walk into a club and want to sit in and there’d be a few raised eyebrows, like, ‘Sure, but can she really play?’ They were hesitant to let me in.”

Hesitant, that is, until they saw her credentials.

Jason studied music at Mills College and the University of California at Berkeley, not to mention the fact that she graduated summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“Berklee was my calling card in those days; it opened doors for me,” she said. “People would say: ‘Oh, well, she must know what’s she’s doing.’ And as soon as I blew, everything was OK, because I could play.”

Evidence that Jason is a player has been heard in any number of Southern California clubs in the last couple of years while the saxophonist unveiled her contemporary-minded style since moving here in 1991 from Phoenix. Further proof comes later this month when Jason’s latest album, “Tigress,” hits the stores. Jason will preview the album tonight when her quartet plays Randell’s in Santa Ana.

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The new disc finds Jason blowing alto saxophone mainly, along with flute and sopranino sax on a program of original funk tunes, sultry ballads and Latin-influenced outings. There’s even a duet between Jason and fluegelhornist Walt Fowler.

A veritable cadre of Los Angeles studio musicians are on the album: drummer Vinnie Colaiuta, former Miles Davis keyboardist John Beasley, Thelonious Monk International Piano competition winner Bill Cunliffe and guitarist Ciro Hurtado. Joining Jason at Randell’s will be keyboardist Al Daniel, drummer Bill Grayson and bassist Keith Jones.

To find her own sound, Jason looked to two disparate saxophonists for inspiration: Phil Woods and David Sanborn.

“I don’t want to be a clone of Sanborn, like so many young saxophonists,” she said. “I wanted to combine Phil’s warmth and sensitivity with Sanborn’s fire and emotion. Now, for the same reasons I’m studying Stan Getz and Randy Brecker--Getz because of his melodic flow and his ability to pick out the right notes, and Brecker because he’s such a virtuoso and because of his way with the contemporary sound.”

Born near Wayne, Neb., Jason began studying piano at age 4 with her mother. “My mother didn’t know anything about jazz. . . . The music we heard was easy listening stuff: Johnny Mathis, Barbra Streisand, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. And classical music.”

When it came time to join the school band, she was drawn to the saxophone. “It was big and shiny and there was just something about it. But dad said, ‘No, we’re going to get you a clarinet’--partly, I think, because it was cheaper to rent and he wanted to find out if I would stick with it.”

But after a few months with the clarinet, Jason still had eyes for the saxophone.

“I really wanted to play sax and begged my mom to get one,” Jason said. “So she found a way for me to be able to play saxophone by borrowing one from a friend.

“My mom has always been real supportive, telling me I can do anything I want, it doesn’t matter who I am,” she said. “And that foundation has gotten me through the times when other people have doubted I could do it because I’m a woman. Her support has been very valuable.”

Jason studied at UC Berkeley and Mills College in the early ‘80s, but didn’t feel the education was preparing her for a career.

“The great thing about Mills was the artistic background I got, the foundation in music history, classical music and music analysis. But I wasn’t learning how to make a living in the business. I didn’t have a clue as to how to survive as a musician.”

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On the strength of a single audition tape, she won a Phil Woods scholarship to Berklee in 1983, where she studied performance and arranging. After graduating in 1985, she spent a couple of years working in other musicians’ bands before forming her own group to play resorts in and around Phoenix.

“I’ve been fortunate in that ever since I graduated, I’ve made my living as a player,” she said. “A lot of the resorts in Phoenix are willing to pay a band to play in their lounge six or nine months or a year, five or six days a week, and they pay good money. Then I would add concerts and festivals and things on top of that for exposure.”

She finds the Los Angeles scene less lucrative.

“Out here there are so many musicians that a lot of the clubs can get away without paying anything, or paying very little or having the band take a percentage of the door, which isn’t very much. Musicians aren’t treated as professionals, they’re treated like music is something we do for fun, a hobby. That’s been the biggest adjustment I’ve had to make since moving to L.A.”

But with the new album coming out--it is distributed by Warner Bros.--Jason sees big things on the horizon.

“With the album out, I’ll be getting better exposure and hope it means I’ll be doing more session work as people recognize my sound,” she said. “I also hope to tour, go out with a major name as an opening act or as part of their band. And I’ll continue with my own albums.”

She has this advice for other women musicians looking to start a career:

“It’s the old saying that a woman must be three times better to be thought of as half as good. There’s still some of that out there. But the bottom line is how we play.

“If women expect to be accepted as equals and not face the prejudices, we have to make sure that our playing ability is up to the top level. That’s the bottom line.”