Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Edwin Branford “Eddie” Edwards was born on May 22, 1891  in New Orleans, Louisiana and started on violin at age 10 and five years later he picked up the trombone. In 1916, he was chosen to go to Chicago, Illinois by Alcide Nunez to play trombone with Johnny Stein’s Jazz Band. With a few changes of personnel, this band became the Original Dixieland Jass Band, which made the first jazz records in 1917. He played on one of the first commercially released jazz recordings, Livery Stable Blues, later released as Barnyard Blues.

Leaving the band after being drafted into the United States Army, he served from July 1918 to March 1919. After being discharged, Eddie led his own band and worked in Jimmy Durante’s band before returning to the Original Dixieland Jass Band. After that band broke up, he again led a band in New York City for most of the 1920s until retiring from music in the early Thirties. He then ran a newspaper stand and worked as a sports coach.

Coming out of retirement he returned to music in 1936 when Nick LaRocca reformed the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, playing with them until 1938. He played in other bands with Larry Shields, Tony Sbarbaro, and J. Russell Robinson in New York City into the 1940s. He continued playing professionally intermittently until shortly before his death.

His composition Sensation Rag or Sensation was performed at the 1938 Benny Goodman jazz concert at Carnegie Hall and was included on the album The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert. Darktown Strutters’ Ball, composed by  Shelton Brooks, a Black man, was recorded by the Original Dixieland Jass Band and inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2006.

Trombonist Eddie Edwards, who played both violin and trombone, and who also played minor-league baseball and worked as an electrician, transitioned on  April 9, 1963 in his hometown at the age of 71.

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