[Dixielandjazz] Female Jazz musicians

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

It may have been one of the Edinburgh Jazz Festivals graced by Marek's presence, but it was one at which I arrived late, to be told by a regular I have been meeting every year I was there that he had attended a concert in which the then moustachioed and not as yet silvertopped Scott Hamilton was a guest with the Humphrey Lyttelton band. At the heart of the warm welcome they gave him was the tenor playing of Kathy Stobart, which I was told was decidedly hot. The woman on the band was doing the cooking, and so was Scott, though my informant assured me that at times she seemed to be roasting him.
I'm sure he had a great time, I mean Scott and my friend, not to mention Humph and the rest of his band. 

For a member of a genuinely older generation, there are alas only the two accompaniments by Irene Eadie, who married Teddy Wilson and reputedly had some influence on the development of his playing. Bill Haesler can comment from down under, I hope, on the music as well as the discographical details. Ms. Eadie within the limited scope allowed was definitely no repeater of pianistic commonplaces. 

It is a shame that for all that her accompanists were Elmer Snowden and Milt Hinton, maybe also Sonny Greer(?), Blanche (Mrs. WillietheLionSmith) Merrill had only a prepared piano and a programme of honky tonk on the one recording I know of. It's plain there was a lot in reserve, and reports of her playing 
live are of a serious stride performer.