| Biography | Florence Kathleen Stobart (born 1 April 1925, South Shields, County Durham, England) is an English jazz saxophonist.
Stobart in her long career as a leading jazz saxophonist has recorded and played with countless top musicians, yet her own recorded output is comparatively sparse. From her professional debut at the age of fourteen she eventually moved to London where work was more plentiful, playing with Art Pepper (then a serviceman) while posted in the UK during the war. Following a spell with the Vic Lewis big band during the late 1940s Stobart married trumpeter Bert Courtley and formed her own band in the early 1950s.
Her work over many years with Humphrey Lyttelton has produced some of her finest playing and Lyttelton rightly regards her as a world-class musician. Her other credits include work with Johnnie Griffin, Al Haig, Earl Fatha Hines, Buddy Tate, Zoot Sims, Harry Beckett and Dick Hyman. Stobart topped the bill at the first British womens jazz festival in 1982 and was a member of Gail Force 17 (the womens big band) during the mid-1980s. Additionally she has made a reputation as a music teacher. Still refusing to retire from the road, she was on tour with Lyttelton again throughout the 1990s. |