Roxy Coss is a Musician of New York.

Before Roxy Coss’s jazz quintet won Local 802’s inaugural Emerging Artists Project grant, she was the sixth musician profiled in our Musicians of New York series! Take a look at her long-form profile, and stay tuned for a full feature on Roxy and the quintet in May’s Allegro.

Primarily a jazz musician, Roxy plays gigs across all genres. She has played a variety of venues from the largest concert hall to the smallest jazz club over her ten years in NYC working as a saxophone player, a composer, a bandleader, and a freelancer. Combining her passion for feminism with her experiences in the jazz community, Roxy created an organization for women in jazz, which she hopes will become a learning, networking, mentorship, and empowerment space for fighting sexism and creating real change for equality and social justice in the jazz community. Between working on the organization, writing her blog, “Thoughts of a Female Jazz Musician,” and performing and touring, Roxy is a busy, involved member of the music community.

“Sexism is definitely one of the biggest challenges I face, being a jazz musician. I ended up marrying a jazz saxophonist, so all the things I had a feeling of before were solidified in getting to know him, because we have the same experience to compare side by side through our differing gender lens. Sexism is an issue that needs to be faced in our community, and not enough people are doing something about it. I’ve taken it upon myself to try to change some things. And I think the other big challenge is that the economic crisis in 2008 completely changed the landscape of the economy for musicians. So my generation has had to create a new way of approaching being a professional jazz musician, which is especially challenging in an industry where it’s already hard to make a living.” #MusiciansofNY

View this post on: Instagram and Facebook!

#MusiciansofNY tells the stories of the working union musicians of New York, with posts about a new musician every Wednesday! Find more Musicians of New York stories here.