You’ve heard about it.

What was the Cotton Club like in its heyday?

No need to wonder.

This is the context in which the music appeared. It was NOT concert music ala Jazz at Lincoln Center. It was part of the entertainment industry. It just so happened that the composers, arrangers and performers were geniuses.

All three of these short … Read more

Count Basie and his orchestra, recorded in NYC August 9, 1937.

Written and arranged by Eddie Durham, one of the most important and underappreciated artists in jazz and American music history.

Irish and Mexican on his father’s side, Native American and Afro-American on his mother’s, in his childhood Durham grew up wearing his hair long and braided, Native American-style.

Born … Read more