New Standards

Edited by Terri Lyne Carrington, founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, this Berklee Guide gathers jazz pieces written by women. The selections run from little-known tunes to widely played ones, from older material to present-day writing, and across styles that include blues, bebop and more. The collection is meant to give musicians repertoire that supplements, and in some cases stands in for, the tunes that students, teachers and working professionals have long learned as the core of the jazz songbook.

The book contains 101 compositions spanning close to a century. Its range reaches from a 1922 piece by Lil Hardin Armstrong to songs from 2021 by emerging artists, including recent graduates of the Institute. Contributors include Mary Lou Williams, Alice Coltrane, esperanza spalding, Geri Allen, Maria Schneider, Cecile McLorin Salvant, Cassandra Wilson, Dianne Reeves, Dorothy Ashby, Nubya Garcia, Nicole Mitchell and many others.

The guide also looks beyond one country's jazz scene, featuring work by Chilean tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana, Japanese American pianist Toshiko Akiyoshi and other composers from around the world.