Peggy Gilbert (January 17, 1905 – February 12, 2007), born Margaret Fern Knechtges, was an American jazz saxophonist and bandleader.
She was born in Sioux City, Iowa. When she was seven years old, she played piano and violin with her father's band; she later discovered jazz and started to play the saxophone. After high school, she performed in local theatres and resorts and became a performer on radio and television.
In 1928, she moved to Hollywood, where she appeared in movies and toured with Fanchon and Marco vaudeville shows. In 1933 she founded her all-female jazz band, whose name often changed from "Peggy Gilbert and Her Metro Goldwyn Orchestra" to "Peggy Gilbert and her Symphonics". She performed on saxophone, vibes, piano, and vocals. In the 1930s and 1940s, Gilbert and her band performed in the most famous nightclubs in Hollywood, including the Cocoanut Grove. At one of these clubs, she met and fell in love with Kay Boley, a vaudevillian and contortionist.
During this period, she appeared in films, toured Alaska with a USO troupe, and began to be an advocate for women musicians. After a difficult period following the Second World War, Gilbert had success on radio and television programs in the 1950s. In 1974, at 69 years old, she created her last great all-female band, The Dixie Belles, with musicians from vaudeville and the Big Band era. The group performed on TV and at jazz festivals, appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and in the 1980 Rose Bowl Parade. In 1985, the band recorded the album Peggy Gilbert & the Dixie Belles. Gilbert lived until the age of 102 and died in Burbank, California.
Life and career
Early years
Peggy Gilbert was born Margaret Fern Knechtges Gilbert on January 17, 1905, in Sioux City, Iowa. Her father, John Darwin Knechtges, played in theater pit bands in Sioux City as a violinist, and her mother, Edith Ella Gilbert, sang for the opera house in Sioux City. Gilbert "was raised to respect all types of music and to love all kinds of music". She began to take piano lessons at age eight, and frequently accompanied her father to stage shows, playing piano in her first performance with his band.
Gilbert lived in a nurturing home environment. She and her brother Oral Lloyd Knechtges, who was born in 1900, were always encouraged to listen to music, and they lived a very comfortable life. In addition, her parents did not tolerate prejudice, and they "learned right from the beginning to treat everyone with respect and consideration, regardless of race or ethnicity." Gilbert admired her father and his musical ability and took much of her inspiration from him.
At age seven, Gilbert landed her first professional job as a dancer for the touring group of the Scottish cultural ambassador Sir Henry Lauder. She and six other young girls toured Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Iowa, performing the Highland Fling dance.
From a young age, Gilbert was aware of the injustice that came along with gender preference, and she learned that she would have to work hard in order to achieve what she wanted. For example, although her brother Orval encouraged her in her studies, she realized that people treated him differently; she was very aware of the fact that she was "just a girl."
Gilbert attended Sioux City High School where she took secretarial courses, as well as weekly piano lessons. When she graduated in 1923, she attended Morningside College for six months before leaving and going into the music business. Part of this decision was based on the fact that in the 1920s, her father became ill, so Gilbert was needed to help support her parents. At this time, she self-taught herself the alto saxophone, as she was told it was not suitable for young women, and joined the Musicians Union in Sioux City.
The Melody Girls
Gilbert organized her first band in Sioux City, a group that was composed of Gilbert on the saxophone and clarinet, Marjorie Kelley on piano, Dorothy Kelley on banjo and accordion, Orval Knechtges on drums, Ruth Dubnoff on violin, and two other men on trumpet and bass. The Melody Girls, also formed in Sioux City, was made up of five or six pieces and was formed with some of the musicians from her first band. The band played all around the city, in all of the clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Martin Hotel, where they played for two years and were broadcast every night on the local radio station KSCJ.