Eddie Condon

Eddie Condon

Condon in 1946
Background information
Birth name Albert Edwin Condon
Born (1905-11-16)November 16, 1905
Goodland, Indiana, U.S.
Died August 4, 1973(1973-08-04) (aged 67)
New York City
Genres Jazz
Occupation(s) Musician, bandleader
Instruments Guitar
Years active 1921–1973
Labels Commodore, OKeh, Victor, Brunswick, Columbia
Associated acts George Brunies, Billy Butterfield, Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, Walter Page, Pee Wee Russell, Ralph Sutton, Jack Teagarden, George Wettling

Albert Edwin Condon (November 16, 1905 – August 4, 1973) was an American jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in Chicago jazz, he also played piano and sang.

Biography

Condon was born in Goodland, Indiana, the son of John and Margaret (née McGraw) Condon. He grew up in Momence, Illinois, and Chicago Heights, Illinois, where he attended St. Agnes and Bloom High School. After playing ukulele, he switched to banjo and was a professional musician by 1921. He was based in Chicago for most of the 1920s, and played with such jazz notables as Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden, and Frank Teschemacher.

In 1928, Condon moved to New York City. He frequently arranged jazz sessions for various record labels, sometimes playing with the artists he brought to the recording studios, including Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. He organised racially integrated recording sessions—when these were still rare—with Waller, Armstrong and Henry 'Red' Allen. He played with the band of Red Nichols for a time. Later, from 1938 he had a long association with Milt Gabler's Commodore Records.

A handful of records were issued under his own name: a July 28, 1928 two-song session was recorded for OKeh, but only issued in England. On October 30, 1928, an OKeh was issued as "Eddie Condon and his Footwarmers", featuring Jack Teagarden. A further session on February 8, 1929 yielded a record issued under the name "Eddie Hot Shots" and issued on Victor's hot dance series. In 1933, a further two sessions were recorded for Brunswick consisting of 6 recordings, only 2 of which were released in the US. From 1938 on, Condon recorded for Commodore and one session for Decca.

From the late 1930s on he was a regular at the Manhattan jazz club Nick's. The sophisticated variation on Dixieland music which Condon and his colleagues created there came to be nicknamed "Nicksieland." By this time, his regular circle of musical associates included Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, George Brunies, Edmond Hall, and Pee Wee Russell. In 1939, he appeared with "Bobby Hacket and Band" in the Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film musical short-subject, On the Air.

Condon did a series of jazz radio broadcasts from New York's Town Hall during 1944–45 which were nationally popular. These recordings survive, and have been issued on the Jazzology label.

From 1945 through 1967 he ran his own New York jazz club, Eddie Condon's, first located on West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, then 52nd Street near Sixth Avenue, on the present site of the CBS headquarters building; then later, on the south side of East 56th Street, east of Second Avenue. In the 1950s Condon recorded a sequence of classic albums for Columbia Records. The musicians involved in these albums, and at Condon's club, included Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett (cornet), Billy Butterfield (trumpet), Edmond Hall, Peanuts Hucko, Pee Wee Russell, Bob Wilber (clarinet), Cutty Cutshall, Lou McGarity, George Brunies (trombone), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Gene Schroeder, Dick Cary, Ralph Sutton (piano), Bob Casey, Walter Page, Jack Lesberg, Al Hall (bass), George Wettling, Buzzy Drootin, Cliff Leeman (drums).

Condon toured Britain in 1957 with a band including Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder and George Wettling. His last tour was in 1964, when he took a band to Australia and Japan. Condon's men, on that tour, were top mainstream jazz musicians: Buck Clayton (trumpet), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Dick Cary (piano and alto horn), Jack Lesberg (bass), Cliff Leeman (drums), Jimmy Rushing (vocals). Billy Banks, a vocalist who had recorded with Condon and Pee Wee Russell in 1932, and had lived in obscurity in Japan for many years, turned up at one of the 1964 concerts: Pee Wee asked him "have you got any more gigs?".

In 1948, Condon's autobiography We Called It Music was published. Eddie Condon's Treasury of Jazz (1956) was a collection of articles co-edited by Condon and Richard Gehman.

A latter-day collaborator, clarinetist Kenny Davern, described a Condon gig: "It was always a thrill to get a call from Eddie and with a gig involved even more so. I remember eating beforehand with Bernie (Previn, trumpet) and Lou (McGarity, trombone) and everyone being in good spirits. There was a buzz on, we'd all had a taste and there was a great feel to the music."[1]

Condon toured and appeared at jazz festivals through 1971. He died in New York City.

Selected discography

References

  1. ↑ Liner notes, A Night With Eddie Condon, by Kenny Davern. Arbors Records).

Further reading

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