The most famous Jazz icon you never heard of, is... Eddie Durham wrote the book for the original Count Basie Orchestra out of Kansas City, many of its compositions and at first, all arrangements. He also played in the Basie Orchestra trombone section and as a featured soloist on electric guitar. That he had been such a primary in the intro of amplification on the guitar, was as significant as anything ever done, not just by him. Because the electric guitar had a prominence certainly in the 2nd half of the 20th Century, the first electric guitarist is the foundation to an astounding set of developments in music. Eddie Durham is that first practitioner. He’s also taught Charlie Christian. If he was unobserved, as he certainly is, he would already through this 1 triumph have this accolade of the most unobserved musical genius of the 20th Century. But, there’s also his composing - his blues compositions alone put him on the map forever. “Sent For You Yesterday, Here U Come Today”, “Good Morning Blues”, “1 O’Clock Jump, “I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire”, “Topsy”, “Swinging the Blues”. Also one of the masterful genius' of the composers/arrangers to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra "Wham, ReBop, BoomBam". And Durham arranged “In The Mood” for the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1939. It's the soundtrack of America and Durham's ticket to the NARAS Hall of Fame.... Scouted by band leaders as a "hit-maker", Eddie's unique story from the inside, has never been told. UNTIL NOW. Don't miss this gem!

EDITION 2 (Feb. 25, 2021) There existed no comprehensive writing of trombonist/guitarist, composer/arranger, pianist, choreographer, EDDIE DURHAM (1906-1987), or his unique musical family. This book reaches back over half of a century and chronologically compiles news articles and flyers from, transcribed radio interviews, quotes, personal interviews with family, scholars, Eddie's peers, and colleagues, some of whom were only accessible to his family. Collectively, his brothers and cousins worked in the "Homecoming Band" of the Teddy Roosevelt Roughriders, with T-Bone Walker, Les Hite, Lionel Hampton, Blanche & Cab Calloway, Illinois Jacquet, Harry James, Teddy Wilson, Buck Clayton, Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Artie Shaw, Andy Kirk, and Nat King Cole. Whew! The Durham Brothers Orchestra tour the circuses and the minstrel shows. As a teenager, Eddie DURHAM himself roomed with Art Tatum, Cozy Cole, and the Tommy Dorsey family. Eddie joined The Oklahoma Blue Devils and The Bennie Moten Orchestra. By the 1930s at the dawn of the American big-band era, Eddie is scouted as a "hit-maker" because his written charts, compositions, and arrangements for The Count Basie Orchestra, creating the idiom of "swing music", with hit after hit such as "Moten's Swing", "Time Out", "Out The Window", "Every Tub", "Magic Carpet", "John's Idea", "One O'Clock Jump", "Jumpin at the Woodside", "Topsy", "Good Morning Blues" and "Swinging the Blues". For Jimmie Lunceford, he wrote "Wham Rebop Boom Bam" and "Blues In The Groove". He co-wrote "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" for the Ink Spots. For Glenn Miller he wrote "Sliphorn Jive" and Eddie Durham is the arranger of "In The Mood" which landed both in the NARAS Hall of Fame. Eddie's swinging hits spawned the emergence of a dance known first as jitterbug, then Lindyhop, then as swing dancing, a dance which is still thriving a century later in international competitions in all its regalia. Eddie worked with Harry James, Jan Savitt and when World War II broke out, he served as musical director and coach under a USO program instituted by Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune for four all-female orchestras, many times opening for Ella Fitzgerald. After the war, he led a Cavalcade of Jazz tour which included Wynonnie Harris (whom Elvis studied), Dinah Washington, Jack Teagarden, and Little Richard. Right off of this tour, Little Richard emerges with his first hit. What's left? Eddie wrote six-part harmony, experimented with electricity to make his guitar louder, and built his own whammy bar, a device made famous by Jimi Hendrix. Eddie built his own amplifier, coached the famous brass sections you love. On his trombone, he developed a non-pressure technique. Eddie's guitar and trombone recordings with these orchestras are groundbreaking, including The Kansas City sessions by John Hammond, and the Dave Dexter sessions. This book includes a bonus: a full discography of Eddie and his family and Eddie's "Music 101" class curriculum which he was slated to begin teaching before his death on March 6, 1987. Eddie's unique inside-out perspective of working closely with these band-leaders who would become famous from his hits has never been told. UNTIL NOW. Charles Frazier (formerly: Marvel Comics) designed the astounding collectible book cover. Impresario George Wein wrote the Foreword (founder: Newport Jazz, Folk, and New Orleans Jazz Festivals; White House Honoree). Co-Edited by Doctor Albert Vollmer. (Music licensing: BMG/ASCAP. Exhibits: http://www.DurhamJazz.com)

Blues on Stage presents a new history of the development of the "Classic Blues" of the 1920s, offering a comprehensive review of various Black singers who recorded and were influential in this era, including Bessie Smith, Trixie Smith, Butterbeans and Susie, and Ma Rainey. The business of music recording and publishing, including songwriting and touring theater circuits, is explored as part of the narrative of how and when these artists became nationally popular. The most highly regarded singers of this period were not folk or rural artists, but rather highly experienced stage professionals whose careers often extended two decades or more prior to their first recordings. These artists, some of the most famous acts on the Black vaudeville and tent show circuits, were preceded in the recording studio by many cabaret and nightclub singers with a different entertainment perspective and were followed by artists who came from a more rural, less professional background. For anyone interested in the roots of jazz and blues, Blues on Stage offers a new and comprehensive introduction to the development of this American musical style.

The Ultimate Book of Blues Guitar Legends features 150+ blues guitarists from prewar to today, featuring artist photography and an authoritative text detailing their careers and gear.

Here is the book jazz lovers have eagerly awaited, the second volume of Gunther Schuller's monumental The History of Jazz. When the first volume, Early Jazz, appeared two decades ago, it immediately established itself as one of the seminal works on American music. Nat Hentoff called it "a remarkable breakthrough in musical analysis of jazz," and Frank Conroy, in The New York Times Book Review, praised it as "definitive.... A remarkable book by any standard...unparalleled in the literature of jazz." It has been universally recognized as the basic musical analysis of jazz from its beginnings until 1933. The Swing Era focuses on that extraordinary period in American musical history--1933 to 1945--when jazz was synonymous with America's popular music, its social dances and musical entertainment. The book's thorough scholarship, critical perceptions, and great love and respect for jazz puts this well-remembered era of American music into new and revealing perspective. It examines how the arrangements of Fletcher Henderson and Eddie Sauter--whom Schuller equates with Richard Strauss as "a master of harmonic modulation"--contributed to Benny Goodman's finest work...how Duke Ellington used the highly individualistic trombone trio of Joe "Tricky Sam" Nanton, Juan Tizol, and Lawrence Brown to enrich his elegant compositions...how Billie Holiday developed her horn-like instrumental approach to singing...and how the seminal compositions and arrangements of the long-forgotten John Nesbitt helped shape Swing Era styles through their influence on Gene Gifford and the famous Casa Loma Orchestra. Schuller also provides serious reappraisals of such often neglected jazz figures as Cab Calloway, Henry "Red" Allen, Horace Henderson, Pee Wee Russell, and Joe Mooney. Much of the book's focus is on the famous swing bands of the time, which were the essence of the Swing Era. There are the great black bands--Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Earl Hines, Andy Kirk, and the often superb but little known "territory bands"--and popular white bands like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsie, Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman, plus the first serious critical assessment of that most famous of Swing Era bandleaders, Glenn Miller. There are incisive portraits of the great musical soloists--such as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Bunny Berigan, and Jack Teagarden--and such singers as Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Helen Forest.

This collection of writings by Gunther Schuller--the first composer to be awarded the Elise L. Stoeger Composer's Chair of the Chamber Society of Lincoln Center--provides a marvelous introduction to the man and his extraordinary range of musical experience, taste, and learning. In Part I, "Jazz and the Third Stream," Schuller offers his reflections on jazz, insightful pieces on such figures as Duke Ellington, Cecil Taylor, and Sonny Rollins, and several essays on "the third stream," the genre where jazz and classical music intersect. Part II, "Music Performance and Contemporary Music," includes articles on the art of conducting, the future of opera, the question of a new classicism, and Schuller's own thoughts on his controversial opera The Visitation. The final section, "Music Aesthetics and Education," presents Schuller's reflections on such matters as form, structure, and symbol in music; the need for broadening the audience for quality music; and his vision of the ideal conservatory and the total musician.

Lester Young was one of the great jazz masters, and his impact on the course of the art form was profound. He fundamentally changed the way the saxophone was played--his long, flowing lines brought new levels of expressiveness and subtlety to the jazz language, setting the standard for all modern players. In Being Prez, renowned British critic Dave Gelly follows Lester Young through his life in a rapidly changing world, showing how the music of this exceptionally sensitive man was shaped by his experiences. The reader meets a complicated, vulnerable, gentle individual who was brought up in his father's traveling carnival band. His early career was spent in the nightclubs and dancehalls of Kansas City and the Southwest, and he made his landmark recording debut at the peak of the Swing Era. But at the height of his powers, he was drafted into the US Army, where racism and his own unworldliness landed him in military prison. Following these events, Young grew increasingly withdrawn and suspicious, changes in his character reflected in the darkening mood of his music. Gelly, himself a jazz saxophonist, examines many of Young's classic recordings in illuminating detail. He reveals how as a saxophonist--and as major contributor to the Count Basie band--Young created a strong personal voice, a cool modernism, and a new rhythmic flexibility in the freely dancing rhythms of 4-beat swing. With his sax jutting oddly to one side, his bizarre oblique use of language, and his unique musical rapport with Billie Holiday (who famously nicknamed him "Prez"), Lester Young has become an icon and a cult figure. This marvelous biography illuminates the life and work of this giant of jazz.