Eddie Durham was born August 19, 1906, in San Marcos, Texas. From an early age, Durham performed with his family in the Durham Brothers Orchestra, which consisted of Eddie and his three brothers along with three cousins and family friend, trumpeter Edgar Battle.
The Durham Brothers spent a dozen or so years touring and their employment included accompanying circuses, where Eddie learned to write arrangements with five- and six-part harmony for large ensembles.
Circus work took Eddie to Chicago, where he attended the Chicago Conservatory, though his band experience had taught him much. And he was profoundly influenced by hearing King Oliver’s band at the Lincoln Gardens.
After years of traveling Eddie played in several groups that are now seen as precursors of the Count Basie Orchestra, such as the legendary Blue Devils of Walter Page. Foremost was Bennie Moten and his Orchestra. Eddie said: “They played an old style. Bennie and Buster [Moten] brought me into the band to write and to play…nobody else arranged after I came in.”
Durham and Bill Basie completely rewrote the Moten band book between 1929 and ’33. Eddie weeded out the stomps, switched out tuba for string bass and banjo for guitar, and set the band on the path to swing.
From 1929, as well as playing trombone, Durham started experimenting to enhance the sound of his guitar using resonators and megaphones. For example, he played a Dobro with the resonator miked on Jimmie Lunceford’s 1935 recording of “Hittin’ the Bottle.” In 1938, Durham recorded single string electric guitar solos with the Kansas City Five (or Six), which were both small groups that included members of Count Basie’s rhythm section along with the tenor saxophone of Lester Young.
After Bennie Moten’s death in 1935, Eddie Durham worked with the Count Basie and Jimmie Lunceford bands, writing classic charts used by both bands. He wrote scores for Glenn Miller, and his arrangement of Joe Garland’s “In the Mood” became a million-seller for the bandleader in 1939.
During the 1940s, Durham created Eddie Durham’s All-Star Girl Orchestra, an African-American all female swing band that toured the US and Canada.
Eddie Durham died March 6, 1987. – TST staff and contributors
