During this time, Gilbert made sure her bands were heard on the radio because she knew it would build them an audience. They were broadcast both live from nightclubs and ballrooms and from the radio stations. In 1933, Gilbert joined Boots and Her Buddies. She traveled with them for about three months, then returned to Los Angeles, where the rest of the women from the band joined her a few months later. With their arrival in May 1933, Gilbert saw the opportunity to form her own big band. The band played in Las Vegas and at all of the major theater chains in the area: Warner Bros. Theaters, Pantages Theaters, and West Coast Theaters. In October 1933, Gilbert took her band to Hawaii with E.K. Fernandez, the man who began the entertainment business in Hawaii in 1903. After the band returned from Hawaii in 1934, there were plenty of jobs available for musicians in Los Angeles. Gilbert always had a gig lined up for the band, and they played in popular nightclubs all over L.A., including the Cocoanut Grove at the Ambassador Hotel, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and the Club New Yorker. Late 1930s The Hollywood music scene continued to flourish in 1935, despite the Great Depression. Gilbert and her band played in clubs and ballrooms all over Hollywood, San Diego, and Southern California. They also took over the radio, as they were broadcast over KFWB, KFOX, and KFXM. They played on KFOX regularly, according to radio listings, and performed regularly at the Italian Village in Los Angeles during the cocktail hour primetime. These radio performances and club gigs led to Gilbert's continued popularity in the mid-1930s. In March 1936, the band performed at the 41 Club's 35th anniversary celebration, the Annual Dinner Dance of the California Yacht Club, and the Albert Sheetz Circus Café. The band at this point consisted of Kathleen McArtor on drums, Bunny Hart on guitar, Mable Hicks on trumpet, Caryl Agnew on piano, and Gilbert on saxophone. These performances were "rated tops as exponents of modern harmony and swing rhythm." In 1937, the band played at the Zenda Dance Café in Los Angeles five nights a week and appeared in the Second Hollywood Swing Concert at The Palomar. They were considered "one of the finest bands of its type in the country." In January 1938, Gilbert and her band returned to the Zenda Ballroom, where