Peggy Gilbert

Peggy Gilbert (born Margaret Fern Knechtges ; * 17th January 1905 in Sioux City , Iowa ; † 12. February 2007 in Burbank , California ) was an American jazz - saxophonist and bandleader . She was the first female jazz musician whose career spanned more than 80 years.

Live and act

Childhood and youth

Gilbert's parents were both musicians, her father John Darwin Knechtges played the violin and directed the Hawkeye Symphony Orchestra , which accompanied silent films, and her mother sang in an opera choir. Gilbert learned to play the piano and violin at an early age. She performed with a group of Highland Dancers at the age of seven and played with her father's music group when she was nine. After listening to the Kansas City Nighthawks on the radio, she discovered jazz music and began playing the saxophone. After graduating from high school , she performed on local stages and in vacation spots with her own band, The Melody Girls ; their appearances were broadcast by Radio KSCJ . In 1928 she took her mother's more easily pronounced surname and moved to Hollywood , where she was hired as an actress in films and appeared in vaudeville shows with Fanchon and Marco .

Swing era

In 1933 she founded her own jazz band made up of female musicians only, the name of which changed often, first it was called Peggy Gilbert and Her Metro Goldwyn Orchestra , later also Peggy Gilbert and her Symphonics , but the name would change more often. In the band she played the saxophone, vibraphone , piano and sang. In 1937 she and her band opened the second The Palomar Swing Concert in Los Angeles, in which Benny Goodman , Stuff Smith , Louis Prima , Ben Pollack and Les Hite also performed. In 1938 she played with her girl band The Early Girls six days a week on Radio KMPC in Beverly Hills . As early as 1938 she campaigned for the rights of women jazz musicians and became known in the Down Beat when she complained about discriminatory articles - albeit under the title "How to play a saxophone with a bra".

In the 1930s and 1940s she performed with her band in most of the famous nightclubs in Hollywood and at Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles. She also toured the United States and Canada, and performed at the Cotton Club in New York. During guest performances met her at Kay Boley , a vaudeville actress who as a contortionist occurred in which they fell in love and with whom she lived until her own death. During this time, she also appeared in films and performed with her big band for the United Service Organizations for troop support in Alaska.

After the Second World War

After the Second World War, the economic situation for female musicians changed; she worked full-time as a secretary for the musicians' union. She continued to work in supporting roles for the film. In the early 1950s she played on television with Ada Leonard's band for a year. She also appeared with her drummer brother Orval Gilbert and the multi-instrumentalist Marnie Wells in the trio The Jacks and Jills .

In 1974, at the age of 69, she put together her last big, all-female band, in which well-known musicians from the vaudeville and big band era performed together under the name The Dixie Belles . The group found popularity on television and at jazz festivals; Among other things, she appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and, in addition to many other engagements, also on the Rose Bowl Parade in 1980. In 1985 the band recorded the album Peggy Gilbert & The Dixie Belles , which was on CD Cambria Master Recordings was released. The band performed together until 1998 and was also a guest on television series such as The Golden Girls . Peggy Gilbert lived to be 102 and died in Burbank , California .

Filmography (selection)

• 1932: The Wet Parade
• 1937: Melody for Two
• 1938: The Great Waltz

literature

• Jeanne G. Pool: Peggy Gilbert & Her All-Girl Band , Scarecrow Press 2008, ISBN 978-0810861022

Web links

• Literature by and about Peggy Gilbert in the catalog of the German National Library
• Official website (English)
• Peggy Gilbert in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Margalit Fox: Peggy Gilbert, 102, Dies; Led female jazz ensembles. The New York Times , February 25, 2007, accessed February 28, 2012 . 
2. ^ ^{A b c} Jeannie G. Pool: Peggy Gilbert Biography. 2007, accessed February 28, 2012 . 
3. ^ Leslie Gourse : Madame Jazz. Oxford University Press. New York 1995, p. 208
4. ↑ Linda Rapp: Gilbert, Peggy (1905-2007). (No longer available online.) Glbtq.com, March 4, 2007, p. 2 , archived from the original on February 24, 2012 ; accessed on February 28, 2012 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.