Teddy Edwards passed away over the weekend after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. Edwards will be missed terribly. To see yet another voice unheard and unappreciated during his lifetime is a source of great angst for me. So an encore of a Fireside I did with Mr. Teddy Edwards a few years back.

Teddy Edwards should be a legend. But then there would be justice in the world and justice is something beyond comprehension these days. I will allow you to experience Teddy on your own. It is Teddy and the Roadshow, unedited and in his own words.

All About Jazz: Let's start from the beginning.

Teddy Edwards: 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 (laughing). Someone that lived at our house played saxophone and his altitude 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. I stayed there for about four years and I had a death in the family and ventured back down to Jackson and ventured down into Louisiana with a group from home.

The leader was drafted and they made me the leader. I was the youngest one in the group, but I was the one carrying it and attracting the attention. We ventured down into Tampa, Florida. Youngsters used to stand outside just to meet players, Cannonball and Nat Adderley. They (Cannonball and Nat Adderley) were too young to come in the place (laughing). The Ernie Fields' Orchestra was in town to play a dance and they would have a few days and so some of the guys in his orchestra heard me play and they went back and told him about me and he came and asked me if I would join his band. I told him that I was getting ready to go to New York because my father had told me to go to New York. Ernie told me, "We're going to Washington D.C., so you just ought to work your way on up with us and you would have more money when you get to New York." I said, "That makes sense." We got to Pensacola, Florida and the next stop was over in Louisiana and started getting further and further away from New York (laughing).

FJ: Did you finally make it to the Big Apple?

TE: Oh, not on that trip, Fred (laughing). I made it as far as Wilmington, Delaware. I got that close. We played a theater in Baltimore and we played a dance in Wilmington. By that time, how should I say it, I developed sentimentally toward the guys and I was stuck there for a while. But anyway, we had a gig in Lincoln, Nebraska and the next gig was in Los Angeles at the Club Alabam. That was around late November of '44. That was my introduction to Los Angeles. Incidentally, Fred, I played my big orchestra at the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, just across the street from the Dunbar Hotel, where I stayed the first night I came to Los Angeles. Anyway, that is how I got to Los Angeles.

FJ: Let's talk about those Central Avenue sounds.

TE: That was the scene in America. Everybody was thinking about 52nd Street, but the Central Avenue was the scene. When I arrived to 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. Everybody wanted to know. Just like you asked me about Central Avenue, people have been asking me that every since because the newspapers here were not caring about the music because the bebop thing was making a change. 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 one block on Central Avenue, where I first worked at the Alabam, they had the Alabam,