Thirty years later, trumpeter Seeling said professional women musicians — in particular those who play horns or brass — still battle stereotypes that render a female musician more of a novelty than a respected colleague.

So Seeling, 55, and Barbara Price, manager of the Montclair Women's Club and former concert and music producer, decided to do something about it. In 1998, they put out the word and gathered a top-notch group of women musicians in the Bay Area to form the Montclair Women's Big Band, which will play Sunday at the Jazzschool in Berkeley in honor of International Women's Day.

"My goals are largely political," she said. "I wanted to provide some visibility for the excellent women jazz players who live in the Bay Area and who are invisible."

The band also has been a great way for female musicians to make money, gain performance experience and buildconfidence and support, not to mention a network that will help them through doors in the future.

That said, Seeling only half jokes that a famous saxophone-playing TV cartoon character is doing more than she ever could to get young girls interested in jazz.

"Lisa Simpson has done more for women in jazz than anything else," she said.

There were several all-women big bands during that era's "rock-star" heyday of the 1930s and'40s, but most disbanded after World War II.

The 14-member band features three saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, electric bass and drums. They draw from such luminaries as Glenn Miller and Harry James, but they also perform more contemporary and original music. The group will celebrate its first CD release Sunday.

The musicians are talented professionals with decades of experience among them performing, recording, composing and teaching. Both Seeling and her musical collaborator and ISIS alumni, saxophonist Jean Fineberg, teach at the Jazzschool.

"Pretty much with the exception of one or two people, everyone is making their living as a musician," Seeling said. "The reality is most musicians have to do that sort of thing — teach, play, whatever — but it's music, so we're not complaining."

Seeling's father played trumpet, and she remembers growing up listening to his old 78 rpm records of Dizzy Gillespie and Louie Armstrong.

Horn wasn't her first choice. She wanted to play the drums, but her parents nixed that as too loud. When she told her music teacher in rural Wisconsin she wanted to try the trumpet, he told her mother it wasn't a good choice.

"The school band leader said trumpet is not really appropriate because it will deform your lips later in life," Seeling recalled. "To her credit, my mom said, 'Let her play.'"

Seeling, the big band's musical director, was the first woman to graduate with a degree in jazz studies from Indiana University. She launched her professional career touring and recording with Laura Nyro, and played and recorded with many famous bands, including salsa bands Machito and Latin Fever, and disco legends Sister Sledge and Chic before forming the award-winning jazz fusion duo Deuce with Fineberg.

Despite the successes, it's not unusual to see only one or maybe two female members in large bands, or none at all, Seeling said.

Even at the recent Grammy Foundation program that honored trailblazing female musicians and featured film highlights of all-women big bands of the 1940s, there was not one female on the high school all-star band who played the night before.

"It's still a big struggle to break through," she said. "It's an old-boy thing. I don't think it's a conspiracy to keep us out, but they hire their friends."

The Montclair Women's Big Band will perform at the Jazzschool on Sunday with special guest vocalist and Tonight Show conga player Vicki Randle and drummer Allison Miller. The show starts at 4:30 p.m., 2087 Addison St., Berkeley, $20.

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