Louis Stewart at the Cork jazz Festival, 1991

Louis Stewart was born in 1944 in Waterford, but grew up in Dublin. He began his Jazz career in the sixties, playing with people like Noel Kelehan, and Jim Doherty. In 1968, with Jim Doherty, he travelled to the Montreux Jazz Festival, where he won the press award for Outstanding European Soloist of the Festival, with Alan Skidmore. Following this, he joined the Tubby Hayes quartet, and Big Band, turning down a scholarship to the Berklee school of music in Boston. He also toured Europe with the Benny Goodman band. In the mid seventies Louis joined the Ronnie Scott quartet, and recorded a number of albums, with Ronnie Scott, under his own name, and with visiting (Sam Jones, Billy Higgins) and London (Martin Drew, Peter Ind) musicians. He also became a member of the George Shearing trio, with Niels Henning Orsted-Pederson, which recorded a number of excellent albums (now sadly very difficult to get). Since then Louis has been based in Dublin, though he still regularly tours.

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