The local jazz community is in mourning following the death of a woman described as a trailblazer of Toronto music performance.

Dr. Kira Payne, a gifted alto and tenor saxophonist who played in such outfits as the Bobby Herriot Orchestra, Jim Galloway’s Wee Big Band, the Swing Shift Big Band and Martin Loomer & his Orange Devils, and later pursued additional careers as a physician and psychiatrist, succumbed to a brain tumour Saturday.

She was 50.

“She was a fantastic musician, a beautiful person and a beautiful player,” remembers Fern Lindzon, a Juno-nominated jazz vocalist who performed with Payne on several occasions.

“She had a gorgeous sound and she was really gutsy. She had a real fearlessness of picking up the instrument and playing, and that was really inspiring to someone like me who, at the very beginning, I came out of classical music and I was scared to death to play jazz.

“Kira was very inspiring as a woman who had really held her own.”

Noted jazz musician, broadcaster and author Bill King called Payne a trailblazer.

“She was one who broke the jazz barrier for women as far as instrumentalists here in Toronto,” said King. “There was Jane Bunnett and Jane Fair who were able to get in and play with male-dominated bands and not just be singers. It wasn’t something that was common back then.

“Kira crossed that barrier and sort of paved the way.”

Described by King, Lindzon and a number of her peers as “an amazing person” known for her warmth, encouragement and intellect, the Peterborough native pursued her passion for music at Humber College, graduating with a diploma in music performance, and topped it with a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Toronto.

But she wasn’t finished with her education: in the early ’90s, while gigging with the Bobby Herriot Orchestra at the Old Mill Inn, Payne told King she wanted to try another profession.

“One day she came to me and said, ‘My dream is to be a doctor.’ So I wrote her a reference, she got in, had tremendously high scores, put in her seven years and got her degree,” King recalls.

Payne attended medical school at McMaster University and the family practice program at Queen’s University. She later completed a psychiatry residency program and earned her master’s of health sciences in bioethics at the University of Toronto. She later worked as a psychiatrist at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences.

Payne’s influence extends beyond local artistry: Greg Wells credits her with launching his Grammy-nominated career as a record producer and songwriter for pop superstars Adele, Céline Dion, Katy Perry, OneRepublic, Mika and Timbaland.

“Kira was three years older than me,” Wells wrote via email from Los Angeles. “We both attended Adam Scott high school in our hometown of Peterborough. She was always very friendly and encouraging with my pursuit of music. She was the standout star of the high school jazz band, always the smartest person in the room and always the most gracious.”

It was at Payne’s insistence that Wells enrolled at Humber and it was during a lunch that she suggested he apply for a Canada Council for the Arts grant to study arranging in Los Angeles with bandleader and artist Clare Fischer, Prince’s arranger.

“That lunch changed my life,” Wells recalls. I wound up winning the grant I applied for, studied with Clare Fischer and it changed my music trajectory forever.

“It’s all due to Kira’s generosity of spirit and brilliant mind.”

Payne leaves her partner Joan Taylor, mother Ann Payne, sisters Kelly and Erin Payne and many other relatives.

Dr. Kira Payne, Toronto jazz trailblazer, dies at 50 | Toronto Star