Kathy Stobart

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Florence Kathleen "Kathy" Stobart (b. April 1, 1925 South Shields) is a British jazz saxophonist. Her concentration is on tenor sax.

Stobart first learned piano as a child. After picking up saxophone, she first played locally in Newcastle and then in London in the 1940s with Denis Rose, Ted Heath and Jimmy Skidmore. Later that decade she played with Art Pepper and Peanuts Hucko. She played with pianist Art Thompson in the late 1940s, and was married to him briefly. She toured with Vic Lewis in 1949 and led her own group in 1950-51; among its members were Derek Humble, Dill Jones, and Bert Courtney; she was married to Courtney from 1951 until his death in 1969. In the 1950s and 1960s she went into semiretirement to raise her family. From 1969 to 1977 she played with Humphrey Lyttelton. Following this she led her own groups, with Harry Beckett, John Burch, and Lennie Best, among others. Aside from this she has played with Johnny Griffin, Al Haig, Earl Hines, Buddy Tate, Zoot Sims, Marian McPartland, and Dick Hyman.

[edit] References

• Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford, 1999, pp. 624-625.