Pianist for the Hear and Now : Jazz: Cecilia Coleman, who plays tonight at El Matador, says that listening to her pieces soon after their creation encourages her growth as a composer.

By keeping his orchestra on salary year-round, Duke Ellington placed himself in the unique position of being able to hear what he’d composed almost immediately, often within hours after he’d composed it.

Jazz pianist-composer Cecilia Coleman is in a similarly enviable situation.

As a four-year member of saxophonist Benn Clatworthy’s quartet, Coleman--who has been composing since she was a child-- has the luxury at the band’s weekly rehearsals of hearing almost at once what she’s written.

The airing of her works is essential to her growth as a composer, she says.

“I can experiment with different things because I had the opportunity of hearing it back right away,” said the 28-year-old Long Beach native during a recent interview. Coleman performs with bassist Art Davis’ trio tonightat El Matador in Huntington Beach.

These run-throughs speed up the process of deciding what to keep, and what to throw away.

“A lot of times I’ll write something that maybe has things I like, but I don’t like the whole piece, and later those parts will show up in something else that I will like as a whole,” said Coleman, who graduated in 1986 from Cal State Long Beach with a bachelor’s degree in music with an emphasis in commercial piano performance.

Coleman, who estimates that 20 of her works are currently being performed by either Clatworthy’s quartet (and recently organized quintet) or her trio, has written in a variety of modes, from funky shuffle tunes to mellifluous, haunting compositions.

Whatever the style, melody comes first, said Coleman, who notes that her main influences are trumpeter Woody Shaw and the pianists Mulgrew Miller, Bill Evans and Red Garland.

“But I’m trying to expand, find new things rhythmically, harmonically, trying to go off in different directions,” she said.

Toward that end, she’s developing a piece that includes African elements--inspired on by a record given to her by Clatworthy’s drummer, Kendall Kay, a native of South Africa.

Among her past efforts are “Alma,” a lilting, evocative work recorded on Clatworthy’s Discovery label debut, “Thanks Horace”; “Words of Wisdom,” a dynamic, propulsive tune with diverse rhythmic patterns; and “Nanjamee,” an engaging tune with a backbeat that resembles Wayne Shorter’s catchy “One by One.”

The artist said that composing is helping her discover her own voice--both as a writer and a pianist.

“My playing grows because I write,” she said. “My writing comes easier, it’s more natural. I have to work hard to play. So I sit down and write something and I’ll try to extend what I have done in the past, try new things, and when I play them, then I’m growing, playing-wise.”

Asked to assess her own playing, Coleman said: “I came to the decision that you have to be accepting of yourself all the time.

“One of the hardest things to do is to accept where you are at this moment. You spend a day practicing, listening to the greats, and then you go to work and, all of a sudden, you don’t hear Mulgrew or Bill Evans--you hear you. So I think it’s important to say, ‘OK, I play like me. I’m going to do the best I can at this moment.’ ”

Things can be tough in the jazz world, but Coleman is gradually becoming known as a composer--mainly through her appearances with Clatworthy and with her trio--and as a performer.

Does she feel getting exposure has been more difficult because she’s a woman?

“It could be, but I don’t let it,” she said. “Musically, I don’t think there’s a difference, but business-wise, there probably is.”

Coleman said that a woman might have a tougher time getting known as a player and maybe wouldn’t get called for work as quickly as a man with the same credentials.

Coleman’s name, and star, have been on the rise since last September when she received the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s 1990 Shelly Manne Memorial New Talent Award, which has been given to a young, outstanding new Los Angeles-area artist for more than five years.

“I heard Cecilia play on Benn Clatworthy’s album, and I was impressed,” said jazz society president Teri Merrill-Aarons. “I thought she was terrific. I wanted to expose her talents to the Los Angeles jazz community, and we’ve been hiring her for gigs ever since.”

Among the events sponsored by the jazz society that Coleman has worked have been two parties at the Musicians’ Union auditorium in Hollywood, a Sunday brunch at the Holiday Inn in Hollywood and a three-night stand at the Hyatt Hotel in Hollywood. In September, Coleman will join saxophonist Herman Riley, trumpeter Al Aarons, trombonist Thurman Green and drummer Jack LeCompte as art of the society’s Jazz Caravan, which plays free concerts in the Southland.

Coleman said that Clatworthy--whom she met when she was studying improvisation with vibist Charlie Shoemake in 1987--has been a key cog in the wheel of her career as a jazz musician.

“When I met Benn, I saw how I wanted to be, or how I am--into jazz 110%,” she said, laughing. “Sometimes you need someone like that to relate to.

“I think we feed off each other,” she said. “Playing this kind of of music--straight-ahead jazz--in this town doesn’t come easy. You don’t always have an outlet to play, so if you aren’t performing, you need to always be (practicing), learning tunes, rehearsing, getting people together. When you find other people like that, you tend to keep them around you.”

Said Clatworthy: “Cecilia and I, I think, have similar musical ambitions, which are to be honest and accomplished in jazz music, so that’s very helpful. It’s hard to find people who think the same way you do, so we’re lucky. We’re playing in the same musical wind, not to be flashy but to make the music good.”

Added Coleman, who has worked with saxophonists Clatworthy and Cece Worrall, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland and bandleaders Bob Keane and Walt Wilder: “There are days when things aren’t 100% the way you’d want them, but you just have to keep striving.”

The Art Davis Trio, including pianist Cecilia Coleman, will play tonight at 8 and 10:15 p.m. at El Matador, 16903 Algonquin St., Huntington Beach. Admission: free. Information: (714) 846-5337.