Two strums…two strums were all it took to make music history.
An electric pulse hits the listeners’ ears twice. Let’s hear it again: Few people at the time had heard the sound recorded. The year was 1938, and when trombonist and guitarist Eddie Durham recorded his arrangement of “Moten Swing” with the Kansas City Five, it was one of the first jazz recordings made with instrument.
But that wasn’t the end of Durham’s progressive ways.; He also organized one of the first all-female orchestras. And he invented the “non-pressure” technique; a way of playing the trombone without too much pressure on the lips, as to not leave behind a mark after playing.
This episode was written in part by Syracuse University students Seth Kluk-Barany and Meghan Mary Gibbs as part of the Sound Beat Class Partnership. For more on the SBCP, go to soundbeat.org right now.
Sound Beat is produced at the Belfer Audio Archive, Syracuse University Library.
I’m Brett Barry.