Teddy Edwards and Me…

That was like a dream. When I was small, I always used to listen to (Benny) Goodman's program on the radio, "Camel Caravan." At home, we did not have a radio, so every Wednesday night, I went to the ice cream parlor around the corner, just to stand outside and listen.. For Goodman, everything was business. He turned every penny around twice before spending it. During a rehearsal that did not work out as planned, he once said to me "How can you be so calm? I am a nervous wreck." To which I replied, 'Benny, you have to accept that things do not always go as planned.' Meanwhile, I was thinking about all those millions he had in his bank account. Goodman had a big fear that people would not accept him, especially before a concert. He would get on stage and once the audience started clapping, he knew he was all right. Without the applause, he probably would have dropped dead on the spot.
Teddy Edwards on his stint with Benny Goodman
Well, you would be off to the side. You wouldn't be hid behind the screen, but off the scene completely. But I learned a lot by playing in those burlesque places. In the first place, I always felt that you make every experience pay off for you, regardless of what it is. Now, when I played for those burlesque dancers, I studied playing the melody, I had to play the melody real well... You could build up your strength in your playing, because you usually didn't have a bass. You'd have drums and a piano in those places, and sometimes you'd play two of you at a time, maybe just you and the drums playing fifteen minutes, and you and the piano player playing fifteen minutes, then you'd play fifteen minutes all together. All those things make you strong.
Teddy Edwards, early woodshedding

***Teddy’s Ready! (1960) signed by Teddy, Billy Higgins***

That was the scene in America, Everybody was thinking about 52nd Street, but Central Avenue was the scene. When I arrived in Los Angeles, we got to LA around three o’clock in the morning and there were people all over the street everywhere. They had after hours clubs going, everything was happening... 52nd Street was about three blocks. They had music from about 118th Street in Los Angeles all the way to First Street with clubs. On Central Avenue, they had the Alabam.
Teddy Edwards, jazz and club scene in Los Angeles

***Together Again!!! (1961) signed by Teddy, Ray Brown***

We were the first ones playing bebop in California, even before Dizzy and Charlie Parker came. We were the first bebop players in California. I had first met Roy Porter, the drummer, who played "Ornithology" with Charlie Parker. He was the drummer. We had a pianist and a guitar and Howard (McGhee) and I were the frontline. We had another tenor and when he joined the band, it became three horns in the group. It was a really good sextet. Once Charlie Parker finished his engagement at Billy Berg's, he wanted to stay out here for a while and so Howard and I decided to have four saxophones. That is where he made his classic solo on the "Gypsy," during his nervous breakdown, just before he had his nervous breakdown. We were in front of the bandstand at the Finale Club and a couple came over to Howard and asked him if he would play the "Gypsy." So Howard turned around to the band and asked, "Does anybody know the 'Gypsy?'" And Bird said, "Yeah, I know the 'Gypsy,'" and played his classic solo. When they were recording, he was in the middle of his nervous breakdown. I see all the alto players around the world playing the "Gypsy," and I think, "Wow, if they only knew why they are playing the 'Gypsy.'" He introduced it to the jazz world even though he was sick. His nervous breakdown was not a mental thing. It was a case where he was trying to kick his drug habit without any medical attention. He lost control of his nerves, just nervous. It was like his arm might fly out and his head turn around and he might run two steps and walk one. He just had no control. I would ask him, "How do you feel Bird?" And he would say, "I'm OK. I'm OK."

Teddy Edwards on his onetime roommate, Charlie Parker

***Heart & Soul (1962) signed by Teddy***

I used to take him down to the theater, to the movies. That was the only way he could rest. The movie soundtrack would let him go to sleep. He managed to go to sleep when the music would turn on. The last night of the Finale Club, we took him to the hotel, which was only a half a block away. We told the manager if he had any problems to call us. About ten o'clock the next morning, he called and said that Charlie Parker was in the lobby nude and to come down there right away. We got up and went straight down there and when we got there, they said that they had taken him to the General Hospital. I know in Ross Russell's book (Bird Lives!), he says that he was the first one to the General Hospital, but that is not right. Howard, he and I were the first ones on the scene in the hospital. They had him strapped down on this couch and he was very clear. He used to call me Teddy Bear. He said, "Teddy Bear, go to the hotel and get my horn and my clothes." Howard went to go with us and that is how clear he (Parker) was in his mind. We had many wonderful, wonderful times. I heard him (Parker) play some of his greatest solos. I was sitting beside him.
Teddy Edwards on his friend Charlie Parker

***Good Gravy! (1961) signed by Teddy***

I was blessed to see Teddy Edwards several times in the late 1990s at the Jazz Standard in New York City. These were rare occurrences as Teddy seldom ventured east of the Mississippi from his home base in Los Angeles. Unheralded and vastly underrated, Teddy was a gifted composer, lyricist and a groundbreaking jazz saxophonist. There aren’t many who were friends with Charlie Parker, toured and recorded with Benny Goodman, Tom Waits and Gerald Wilson, wrote songs for singers Ernie Andrews, Nancy Wilson and Jimmy Witherspoon, and appeared in Blazing Saddles with Count Basie’s orchestra. Indeed, Teddy Edwards was a rare and exceptional talent.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1924, Teddy was surrounded by music, "Well, my father was a musician and my grandfather was one of the early acoustic bass players during that time. Sometimes, the band would rehearse at our house and my mother and my grandmother would get my little chair and sit me right next to the saxophones. They would have been very disappointed if I hadn't turned out to be a saxophonist! Someone that lived at our house played saxophone and his aptitude for playing was very low, but he taught me what he knew. He was honest, he said, 'I don't know anything else to teach you.' I started studying with him when I was eleven years old and at twelve years old, I was playing with one of the local bands at home. I was around music all the time, music in our house in Jackson, Mississippi. That was my home. I went to Detroit in 1940."

In Detroit, Teddy concentrated on the alto saxophone, although a big change happened when Teddy went to Los Angeles in 1945 and hooked up with an old Detroit friend, trumpeter Howard McGhee, "Howard McGhee decided to stay (in Los Angeles) after he finished an engagement with Coleman Hawkins at Billy Berg's. He was searching around, trying to find a tenor saxophone player that he liked, and he couldn't find anybody. So he asked me to switch and hook up with him, and I thought it was a good idea. I was able to transfer my knowledge of how to get through the chords. I always had my own sound on both instruments."

Teddy and Howard participated on some jazz sessions in 1945 and 1946, recording for Dial and Spotlite. In fact, there are musicologists who consider Teddy’s solo on “Up In Dodo’s Room” one of the first examples of bebop, a hard driving, furious fury of notes signifying something. The great trumpeter Fats Navarro agreed, as Teddy recounted years later, "I didn't realize that the solo had any significance until I met Fats Navarro in 1948. 'Look, he said, do you realize that you changed the course of history? That solo was the first solo by any tenor saxophone player that didn't come from the Lester Young or the Coleman Hawkins school.' If I remember correctly, the solo had all the half-steps, it had the major-seventh, which was just beginning to get popular, and it had the flat nine. I played all the hip stuff that they call hip today in 1945." The evolution from swing to bebop on tenor saxophone had begun, helped along by an unencumbered Teddy employing the techniques on tenor which he had mastered on the alto.

***Young At Heart (1979) signed by Teddy, Art Hillery, Billy Higgins***

In those days, Los Angeles was a very fertile and rich music scene with Benny Carter, Sonny Criss, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, Hampton Hawes and Gerald Wilson among others. In 1948, Teddy went into the studio with Dexter Gordon to record The Duel, a followup to The Chase, Dexter's blowing session with Wardell Gray released the previous year. Teddy remembered, "Dexter and I were also supposed to do two pieces without the other - two ballads. His recording took so much time that there was only five minutes left for me. The producer suggested that I play a simple blues. The only preparation I did was to tell the rhythm section that I was going to play an introduction with a break in the second chorus." "Blues In Teddy's Flat" became a million dollar seller for Dial Records, selling more than the entire Dial catalog, not a bad return for a throwaway five minute session! However, in a longstanding and unfortunate record company practice, Teddy received only $41.25, a paltry remittance.

No one was more surprised than Teddy, "Anyway, this 'Blues In Teddy's Flat,' I thought Dexter had the contract on it and he thought I had it, and neither one of us had the contract on it. It was about three years later that this guy... he came to me and said that I should be in good shape by now. I said, 'What are you talking about?' And he said that 'Blues In Teddy's Flat' was in a jukebox and it was a standard order because everybody plays it automatically... He said that I should have an apartment building or big car and everything else and a big bank account. I went down to a big music store at the time and, sure enough, they told me it sold all day. There were two elderly ladies buying records and they told me just to stand there. So when they get ready to check out, then he put the needle down on "Blues In Teddy's Flat," and before it got through the first twelve bars, they said, "We'll take it." You would think that given the remarkable success of this record, Teddy would have been in demand as a recording artist. You would be wrong. Inexplicably, Teddy did not record for the next ten years. While he did participate In an odd session or two and played clubs on the west coast, it was a lost decade for sure. Finally, Teddy restarted his solo career in 1960 when he released Sunset Eyes on Pacific Jazz and, later, recorded several critically acclaimed albums on Contemporary Records, and reunited with his old friend Howard McGhee on Together Again!!! in 1962.

***Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1979) signed by Teddy, Hank Jones, Kenny Burrell, Roy Haynes, Richard Davis***

Teddy was nonplussed about his lack of relative renown, “My problem has not been with the audience. If I have a problem, it’s been with the negotiators, the agents and the managers. They’ve never taken a liking to me, but people have always responded to me, as far as I can remember. When I was twelve years old, I could always satisfy an audience. I never lost that. I got that. I was born with that, nobody can ever take that away.” His career also probably suffered because he stayed out west and did not succumb to the temptation to move to New York City like his friend Dexter Gordon. There was an East Coast bias versus the West Coast, decades before Biggie and Tupac!

In Los Angeles, Teddy was able to nurture a valuable relationship with Tom Waits, first touring with him in the early 1980s and then performing on the 1982 movie soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola’s epic failure One From The Heart, which Waits served as the musical director. The movie nearly bankrupted Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios, but the music written by Waits and featuring country pop chanteuse Crystal Gayle, an unlikely duet alliance, holds up surprisingly well. It helps that Teddy’s burnished tenor saxophone imbues the songs with such warmth and resonance. Teddy explained the musical process, “There was something magical about those recordings. Tom did not like to use a ‘click track’ to assure synchronicity with the film. Before the recording, I knew nothing about the story line and played on a soundtrack behind the singer Crystal Gayle. When we later put the result under the scene in the film, it turned out that what we played was completely supportive of the action.”

***Just The Way It Had To Be (1973) signed by Teddy, Monty Alexander, Ray Brown, Milt Jackson***

In turn, Waits became a big fan, “I don’t know that Teddy’s ever gotten the kind of recognition he’s due for all the contributions he’s made, but I sure love him and enjoy working with him.” For his part, Teddy was equally smitten, “Tom Waits is the one who got me my contract with Polygram (in 1991). He’s wonderful, he’s America’s best lyricist since Johnny Mercer. He came down to the studio on the Mississippi Lad album, that’s the first one I did for Polygram, and he sang two of my songs, wouldn’t accept any money, just trying to give me the best boost that he could.”

***Memphis Jackson (1970) signed by Teddy, Harold Land, Milt Jackson, Harry Sweets Edison, Ray Brown, Ernie Watts***

I was thrilled to see Teddy perform at the Jazz Standard in New York City. Although he had had some health issues, he looked fabulous, resplendent in his suit, more Wall Street banker than downtown bebop denizen. His sound on tenor was warm and redolent and he played standards, “Oh Lady Be Good,” “Tenderly,” “Almost Like Being In Love,” originals “Midnight Creeper,” “Sensitive,” and his best known composition “Sunset Eyes.” After the show, I visited with Teddy as he graciously signed some vinyl. I mentioned my love and devotion for all things Waits, “Oh, I love Tom. We had so much fun touring and playing together. He really is a remarkable songwriter and so generous.” When he signed the Howard McGhee record, Teddy said, “You know, we had a lot of great times together. He really helped me get started.” Teddy loved his recordings with Milt Jackson, “Bags was always fun to play with, always surrounded by great musicians, Ray (Brown), Monty (Alexander) and Sweets (Edison). Those were great sessions.” I thanked Teddy again for his time and especially his music.

Teddy Edwards, a consummate jazz talent, underrated, perhaps, but no less talented and beloved.