DIVAs will jazz it up in Spokane

Sherrie Maricle, leader of the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, admits that she had a moment’s pause when she was first approached in 1992 about the idea of starting an all-woman jazz band.

“The history of all-woman bands was something that didn’t focus on the music, but on the clothes and the hair and the makeup,” drummer Maricle said by phone from the road in Seattle.

Think: Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators in the movie “Some Like It Hot.”

However, Maricle was soon won over because of the person who came up with the idea: Stanley Kay, Buddy Rich’s manager for 30 years.

“Knowing Stanley, and knowing his reputation in music, I knew it wouldn’t be that way,” she said.

Now, 14 years later, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra has put the old stereotypes to rest. Based in New York, it is a respected and thoroughly professional jazz band made up of 15 top women players.

They’ll demonstrate their jazz chops in a concert Saturday night at the Opera House, accompanied by the Spokane Symphony under the baton of associate conductor Morihiko Nakahara.

DIVA will take the stage for the second half of the concert, playing original pieces and standards with arrangements commissioned especially for them.

“We’ll do a big tribute to Benny Goodman,” said Maricle. “In my humble opinion, we have one of the world’s great jazz clarinetists, Anat Cohen.”

They will also do a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald, in which several band members will show off their vocal, as well as instrumental, skills. That tribute was arranged specially for them by Tommy Newsom of “Tonight Show” fame. (DIVA’s latest CD is titled “TNT: Tommy Newsom Tribute.”)

Their big opening number will feature a familiar tune: “Ding, Dong The Witch is Dead.” They’ll be backed by the symphony on most numbers, and will invite several symphony players up front to show off their considerable jazz skills.

Only two of the original DIVA members remain from 1992, yet the lineup has plenty of longevity. Most have been with the band for 10 years, and the newest for five years.

Most of the band members do plenty of freelance and Broadway work. Yet the DIVA Jazz Orchestra remains busy with gigs around the world – including festivals in Salzburg, Bogota and Berlin.

They have increasingly been branching out into symphony pops concerts, recently playing Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops Orchestra.

As for Maricle, who has a doctorate degree in jazz and composition from New York University, she’s doing exactly what she has wanted to do ever since she was a kid in upstate New York.

“All I ever wanted to do was play drums and jazz,” she said.