“Jazz is king, jazz is the thing the folks dig the most.”
U.S. crooner Bing Crosby sang the line and Melbourne teenager Patsy Stevens danced to the hit from the 1950s movie High Society. Sixty years on she is still digging jazz in all its traditional styles and doing what she does best, inviting Noosa to share her joy.
Noosa Today’s Jim Fagan wrote this introduction to a lovely profile of Noosa’s jazz saint called How Patsy jazzed up Noosa back in 2019. Sadly, Patsy digs and dances no more, at least on this mortal coil. She passed away peacefully at Sunshine Coast University Hospital on Boxing Day.
“Patsy had a great life”, said husband Richard Stevens, who was her partner in organising the Noosa Jazz Party for more than 30 years, initially with jazz legend Frank Johnson, then with whoever they could round up to help.
Indeed she did, Richard, and she will always be remembered by everyone who loves jazz in Noosa.
Born in Footscray, Melbourne, she went to Louther Hall girls’ school and soon became enamoured with the Melbourne jazz scene, attending jazz dances at venues such as Leggets, Orama and Collingwood Town Hall.
Patsy’s first marriage was to trombonist Mal Wilkinson, with whom she had two daughters, Kate (deceased) and Sally, but when they parted ways she started living with and subsequently married Richard Stevens, who remembers that the four of them began a perfect relationship. Patsy ran her own successful restaurant called Patsy’s Tarts in Mornington, Victoria before they picked up and moved to Sunshine Beach in the early 1980s.
Richard recalls: “Patsy had the idea that we needed a jazz club in Noosa and the early ‘90s saw her involved in the first jazz parties and the newly-formed Noosa Heads Jazz Club Inc. Patsy greeted members at the door by name up until the last few years, and kept the books for the club until she became unwell. She had an outstanding knowledge of jazz music and Australian jazz musicians, but having had one for her first husband, she was very pleased to marry a normal bloke with a day job.”
But normal didn’t last long.
When Richard took up the tuba (later the sousaphone) at age 45, he reckons she groaned, “Oh no, not again!”
Fortunately she got used to Richard’s new lifestyle and his band The Jazz Factory became the backbone of the phenomenally successful Noosa Jazz Party.
Richard says: “Patsy’s involvement with her extended family was outstanding, cherishing her relationship with her girls Sally, Naomi and Sophie, her grandchildren Jack, Fynn, Lily, Holly, Amy, Sam and Tom, and great-grandchildren Archie and Leo.”
Friends and family will celebrate the life of Patsy Stevens privately this weekend.
