Department News - 2004

Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004

Texas State University-San Marcos will present the Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 on Friday, February 6, 7.00 p.m., in Evans Auditorium on the Texas State campus. The evening will feature presentations about Eddie Durham, native of San Marcos and “Maestro of Southwestern Swing,” and renditions of his Big Band compositions. Sponsored by the Texas State School of Music, Department of History Taylor Lecture Series and Center for Texas Music History, NEH Southwest Regional Humanities Center, Calaboose African American Museum, San Marcos Area Arts Council and the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District Coalition, the event is free and open to the general public.

The Texas State Jazz Ensemble, under the direction of Freddy Mendoza, and the Texas State Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Keith Winking, will perform Big Band compositions of Eddie Durham.

Featured presenters include Loren Schoenberg, Stanley Crouch and Dave Oliphant. Schoenberg, Executive Director of the National Museum of Jazz in Harlem and faculty member at the Julliard Institute for Jazz Studies, “is a first-class musician, arranger, leader, and a critic” and has performed many of Durham’s compositions during his distinguished career. Stanley Crouch is an award-winning author and columnist with the New York Daily News, co-founded Jazz at Lincoln Center, and held the 2002-03 Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor of Jazz Studies at Columbia University. Crouch will discuss Durham’s musical legacy in “conquering the Southwest.” Dave Oliphant, a respected historian of Texas music, has authored books and articles about Eddie Durham and Texas Jazz, including Texan Jazz, The Early Swing Era: 1930-1941 and The Roots of Texas Music. Oliphant will speak about Eddie Durham’s San Marcos and Texas roots.

The special guest of the evening is Marsha Durham, daughter of Eddie Durham and executrix of Eddie’s publishing estate.

Eddie Durham’s musical legacy is spectacular. Durham’s contributions are vast and influenced the emerging musical movement known as Southwestern Swing or Kansas City Jazz during the 1920s and 1930s. After spending his early years in San Marcos’ Dunbar neighborhood, Durham joined Bennie Moten’s seminal “Kansas City Sound” band, along with Count Basie. After Moten’s death, Basie eventually formed the Count Basie orchestra around the core members of the Moten band, which Durham joined. Durham composed and arranged early hits of Basie’s orchestra, including “One O’Clock Jump,” “Topsy,” “Good Morning Blues,” and “Swinging The Blues.” After a stint with the Count Basie Orchestra, Durham arranged tunes for The Glen Miller Band, contributing to the band’s signature piece, “In The Mood,” for which Durham gained entry into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Durham also produced classic arrangements for Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, and Jan Savitt, cementing his place as one of the premier arrangers and composers of the Big Band Era. An accomplished trombonist, Durham possessed talents that extended beyond composing and arranging songs. Most significantly, Durham pioneered recording using an amplified guitar. His work with the electric guitar strongly influenced a generation of jazz artists, including Charles Christian, widely held to be one of the greatest electric guitarists ever. The electric guitar became, of course, a standard instrument for Blues and Rock & Roll bands.

The Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 also kicks off wider publicity for the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District, a proposed multi-acre heritage and cultural tourism and economic development initiative located primarily within the Dunbar Historic District in central San Marcos. The integrated heritage tourism area would include an Eddie Durham Heritage Park and Durham Music Museum, preservation efforts in the historic Dunbar neighborhood, improvements to the Calaboose African American Museum, the preservation and restoration of the Old Hays County Jail for a Hays County History Museum, a restored Old First Baptist Church N.B.C. for community use and exhibit space, a restored blacksmith’s workshop, and several additional exhibits that would include a visual recreation of “The Beat,” the once vibrant commercial heart of San Marcos’ African-American community.

For more information about the Eddie Durham Jazz Legacy Night 2004 and the Dunbar Heritage and Museums District, please contact Dr. Keith Winking (512.245.2651) or Dr. Gene Bourgeois (512.245.2142).

Texas State University-San Marcos is a member of the Texas State University system.

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