102 year-old Peggy Gilbert RIP -saxaphonist/leader of all women jazz bands

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just saw the obit in the NY Times by MARGALIT FOX
Published: February 25, 2007

Peggy Gilbert Obit

Long before the proliferation of women’s bands in the World War II era, and long afterward, Ms. Gilbert presided over a series of jazz groups, performing widely and appearing in Hollywood films like “The Wet Parade” (1932), “Melody for Two” (1937) and “The Great Waltz” (1938).

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 25 February 2007 14:18 (eighteen years ago)

Here's another excerpt from the article:

"To contemporary audiences, Ms. Gilbert was best known for the Dixie Belles, a Dixieland band of older women she formed in 1974, when she was 69. (Reviewers said Ms. Gilbert blew a mean tenor sax until she was well into her 90s.) The Dixie Belles, who performed together until 1998, were featured on the “Tonight” show and on several sitcoms, among them “The Golden Girls,” “Dharma & Greg,” “The Ellen Show” and “Married With Children.”

For most of the 20th century, Ms. Gilbert toured the country by station wagon, plane, ship and even dogsled. She played on vaudeville stages and in glittering nightclubs; on military bases and in millionaires’ mansions; and once, to her dismay, in what turned out to be a circus. Along the way, she encountered incredulity, outright rejection and auditions at which band members were asked to lift their skirts to prove they had good legs.

All this Ms. Gilbert endured, because from the time she was a schoolgirl in Iowa, all she really wanted to do was play the saxophone."

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 25 February 2007 14:20 (eighteen years ago)

After the war, when men returned to the bandstand, and the demand for women’s bands dried up, she worked as a secretary for the Los Angeles local of the American Federation of Musicians, continuing to perform at night and on weekends.

― curmudgeon, Monday, 26 February 2007 01:31 (eighteen years ago)

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