[Dixielandjazz] Kathy Stobart R.I.P.

[Ken Mathieson]

Hi Marek, 

Were you at Nice the year when a British All-Stars band was featured? Kath was in that as was another much missed player, trumpeter John McLevy. From memory I think Roy Williams was also on the band, but at this remove I can't remember who else was involved. Does anyone have any info on the personnel. 

I know the great jazz accordionist Jack Emblow was there in a non-playing capacity. He claimed that he was John McLevy's valet and was employed to whisper hot phrases in John's ear when he was brushing John's jacket prior to him going on stage. John and Jack shared a room which had eccentric French plumbing and they discovered that when they fiddled with the taps on the bidet in their bathroom, they played a perfect bagpipe drone. By opening and shutting the taps they could also replicate little glissandi, so they invited the rest of the band to a concert of "authentic" Scottish music in their room. After a few drinks for all, Jack retired to the bathroom and donned a bath towel as a makeshift kilt, then sat on the bidet with his back to the door. John had a mute in his trumpet and once Jack got the drone going, John threw open the door to the bathroom revealing Jack in the "kilt" "playing the bidet". Meanwhile John, whose early background had involved playing for Scottish Country Dancing, struck up some jaunty traditional airs like The Black Bear. The show brought the house down and was being talked about for years by the UK jazz community.

Cheers,

Ken Mathieson
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marek Boym 
  To: Ken Mathieson 
  Cc: Dixieland Jazz Mailing List 
  Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2014 10:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [Dixielandjazz] Kathy Stobart R.I.P.


  Ken's email reminded me: I heard Kathy Stobart in Nice with a big band directed by Dick Hyman and recreating Ellington music.  She fit in very well.  The band had charts, of course, but it consisted of soloists invited to participate in the festival, so it was hardly well rehearsed, although it must have had more than the public rehearsals I attended.




  On 15 July 2014 22:55, Ken Mathieson <ken at kenmath.free-online.co.uk> wrote:

    Hi Andy,

      but she was also a musical chameleon who could fit in with a Dixieland ensemble just as well as with a bop band playing very complex music or in a big band sax section. 




   


    My impression of her playing style was that she was essentially a mainstreamer who had spent many years playing bop, so her playing was informed by the bop vocabulary without ever losing her hard-swinging rhythmic feel.


  I concur.
  Cheers







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