Margolis grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area exposed to a wide range of music influences and began playing guitar at age 12 inspired by Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, folk, country, blues and the eclectic concerts she attended at The Fillmore and Winterland.
[1] Margolis was the first woman to attend Stein's improvisation class, and eventually she took over his weekly gig at Peta's in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood.
[1] In 1988 Kitty Margolis and Madeline Eastman co-founded the first women-owned label on the West Coast, Mad-Kat Records, in order to make their own music with no commercial or artistic constraints.
[6] In 2022 she performed at Ronnie Scott's in London as part of a celebration of her former bandmate and close friend, the late saxophonist, composer, and arranger Pee Wee Ellis.
[16] Margolis is also in the Circle of Advisors for "Bread & Roses Presents," an organization that provides live music and the performing arts to individuals in institutional settings in the San Francisco Bay Area.
[17] Margolis and her husband, Alfonso Montuori Ph.D., also teach educational seminars that explore "collaborative creativity" and the "improvisational mindset" of jazz artists for non-musical environments such as the workplace,[18] which has been presented at the Esalen Institute,[19] the Italian energy company Enel,[20] and UCSF School of Medicine.
[26] The San Francisco Examiner called Evolution "the best jazz-vocal disc in years"[27] and All About Jazz's review of the album said "her versatility brings to mind Ella Fitzgerald and Carmen McRae".
[29] DownBeat gave the release four stars, calling it "one of the most compelling vocal collections of the year",[30] and it was listed in 1998's MusicHound Jazz: the essential album guide.
[31] Margolis's 2001 album explored some of the challenges San Francisco was facing in the Dot-com bubble with her own composition "You Just Might Get It," as well as covers of Pink Floyd's "Money" and Tom Waits's "Take it With Me".