Sherrie Maricle knew when she was 11.

That's when one of her teachers took her to see drummer Buddy Rich near her hometown of Endicott, New York.

"I ran home and told my mother I wanted to be a drummer," Maricle says. "It was all I ever wanted to do and I pursued it diligently."

She doesn't know what it was that got her hooked or kept her so hooked for all these years.

Maybe, she says with a laugh, she had a mental disorder.

"It's like falling in love, you can't explain it," she says.

Well, that mental disorder is working out just fine. Some 35 years after first hearing Buddy Rich, Maricle is an in-demand jazz drummer and the leader of the all-female Diva Jazz Orchestra, which is coming to Franklin & Marshall College's Barshinger Center Friday.

The band, made up of 15 women, has been together for 17 years and has toured throughout the world.

"Our music swings like crazy," says Maricle. "We are very much in the tradition of Woody Herman, Count Basie, Maynard Ferguson — those great touring groups."

Diva got started when Stanley Kay, a drummer himself who was also Buddy Rich's manager, heard Maricle play.

"He liked the way I played the drums and he said, 'Hmm, I wonder if other women play as well as you do?' I said 'Yes, absolutely.' He wanted a serious band of musicians."

And serious they are. In 2006, the Divas were voted one of the best big bands in the world in DownBeat magazine's annual critics/readers poll.

"Our music has an aggressive edge to it," she says. "It's powerful and exciting."

They give the music from the Great American Songbook a real bite.

Being female in the jazz world isn't always easy, Maricle says.

"When I first came to New York, someone told me I could play in their club if I took my shirt off," Maricle remembers. "Some of the comments were so stupid. 'You're a girl, don't your arms get tired?' I totally ignored those things, but then I got more entrenched in the business and it began to drive me crazy.

"My playing could have been great or horrible, and all that mattered was how my hair looked," she recalls. "And here I was, deadly serious about my music."

She remembers someone noting "When it comes to women, people listen with their eyes."

But through all of that, Maricle and the Divas just kept working.

"It's much better these days," she says. "There are more women pursuing jazz who are being taken seriously and are successful."

Being in charge of 14 other musicians, Maricle notes with a laugh, can be insanely stressful.

"People get upset if I decide we'll stop at Subway instead of McDonald's, or if I give someone an extra solo or no solo," she says wryly. "I believe in the gold rule, treat people the way I want to be treated."

Maricle knows she's got a group of superior musicians.

"Our music is challenging," she says. "Everyone gets to express themselves. I like everyone to have an opinion and a voice that we all listen to. We're more of a collective organization, not a dictatorship."

Maricle loves touring, she loves meeting people.

"Everywhere we go, we have an amazing audience of people," she says. "We've been blessed to play Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Hollywood Bowl. It's been wonderful."

Sherrie Maricle and the Diva Jazz Orchestra

Friday, 8 p.m.

$10 adults, $1 students and children

The Barshinger Center

 F&M College. 358-4858