Diva, the all-woman "No Man's Band," played the Pioneer Center Wednesday night. If there's anything wrong with this marvelous 15-piece big-band band it's that the ladies are trying too hard to out-do their male counterparts in emulating the sometimes overused edge-and-growl sounds of jazz.

Fifty years ago instrumental musicians talked about the differences between the male sound and the female sound. No one talks much about such things anymore, partly at least because such talk didn't make much sense then, but mostly because it makes even less sense now. World War II turned the tide for women's mainstream involvement in life from a trickle to a deluge that changed, if not all that, at least much of that. Women went to work and women began making their mark on America's orchestras.

The extensive and well-honed talents of such bands as Diva (Does anyone remember the Hormel All Girl Orchestra?) are an outgrowth of vast changes in attitudes. I love Diva, but somewhere swirling around in the dark resources of memory were the gorgeous sax sounds of concert-saxophonist Sigurd Rascher as opposed to the sometimes too-rough sounds of jazz artists looking for down-and-dirty expressiveness and finding little more than coarse is as coarse does.

Not that everything needs to be "pretty." It's just that it doesn't have to be ugly either, unless gutteral, earthy and ugly are the point - and those are worthwhile points to make.

The point I'm trying to make is that too often some of Diva's soloists play with a harsher sound than necessary; a fabulous technique, but an uncomfortably edgy sound. With the exception of a beautifully shaped "Prelude to a Kiss," too-edgy was most often true of lead alto saxophonist Karoline Strassmayer. Strassmayer's terrific but too tough edged. It was also true of lead trumpeter Liesl Whitaker. Playing a gorgeously arranged "Star Dust," Whittaker put an edge on this classic tune that made it more teeth grinding than lyric.

Without question the inventiveness of Diva, the tightness of its rhythmic integrity, its sure-footed pitch, its marvelous arrangements (an especially brilliant "Ding, Dong the Witch is Dead"), its joy of performance and its abundance of gifts make it a band of unquestioned achievement. When Diva plays quietly and dramatically as it does in its tribute to Ella Ftizgerald - a haunting "How High the Moon" - its sound is fabulous.