Women in Jazz Organization

Women In Jazz Organization is a collective of over 500 professional Jazz Musicians and Composers who identify as Women or Gender Non-Binary. Largely a New York City-based organization, with connections to other individuals and groups nationally and internationally. WIJO is run by Founder/President Roxy Coss, Vice-President Tahira Clayton, Secretary Allegra Levy, and Team Member Faith Quashie.

Women In Jazz Organization intends to help level the playing field in Jazz, so that women and non-binary people have equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to Jazz, leading to an improved and more rich, diverse, and successful art form. WIJO is committed to honoring Black Americans as the creators of Jazz.

WIJO aims to improve the experience of women and non-binary people in jazz through focusing on three main goals:
- To empower individuals in the organization
- To foster inclusivity, solidarity, and strengthen the intersectional community of women and non-binary people in Jazz
- To address inequalities in Jazz culture and on the Jazz scene through activism

WIJO current and past work includes the WIJO Mentors program, concerts, jam sessions, curating playlists for streaming platforms, hosting WKCR radio shows featuring music from our members, regular community meetings, panel discussions, clinics, protests, job recommendations and placements, participation in festivals and conferences, offering low-cost therapy to members, organizing local hangs, drafting protest letters to jazz institutions, leading an activism reading group, collecting resources such as reading and listening suggestion lists, drafting codes of conduct, partnerships with similar-minded organizations, and visits to jazz programs around the world.