Background
Edward Duchin was born on April 1, 1909, in Cambridge, Massachussets. He was the son of Frank Duchin, a tailor, and Tillie Baron Duchin. Both his parents were German Jewish immigrants.
(This is a very interesting and unique book for this reaso...)
This is a very interesting and unique book for this reason. Each song is presented in its original version followed by the Eddy Duchin arrangement. His interpretations are unique and quite elaborate. In addition to the music, there is one page devoted to a foreword, another page with a full page black and white photograph of Duchin, and a page of biographical notes about Duchin. In addition, there are other black and white photographs throughout the book. Titles: • By the light of the silvery moon • Smiles • Memories • The Japanese sandman • My buddy • Sweet Georgia Brown • In the shade of the old apple tree • Nagasaki • Shine on harvest moon • My isle of golden dreams • Chinatown, my Chinatown • Canadian capers
https://www.amazon.com/Eddy-Duchins-Piano-Styles-1/dp/B000JHYMK8?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B000JHYMK8
Edward Duchin was born on April 1, 1909, in Cambridge, Massachussets. He was the son of Frank Duchin, a tailor, and Tillie Baron Duchin. Both his parents were German Jewish immigrants.
Although Duchin demonstrated no particular aptitude for music as a boy, Duchin's mother insisted that he take piano lessons, and by the time he was in high school he was earning three dollars a night for playing the piano at school functions. Nonetheless, in 1925, Duchin enrolled in the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, following the lead of a relative who owned several drug stores in Boston. Duchin received his degree in pharmacology in 1929.
While attending the college, Duchin spent a summer playing in Leo Reisman's orchestra, then appearing at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York. During his senior year he worked as a soda jerk, but soon discovered that his occasional orchestra engagements were far more profitable and enjoyable. In 1929, Duchin decided to rejoin the Reisman orchestra, then playing at the Central Park Casino, and forgo pharmacy.
In 1931 Duchin organized his own band, which subsequently won such wide acclaim that major advertisers eagerly sought its services. By 1933 the Eddy Duchin orchestra had a regular radio series, sponsored by Pepsodent's Junis face cream on the National Broadcasting Company, and two years later the orchestra was featured on the Texaco program.
Duchin himself had developed a style of piano playing that was restrained and polished. He was an artist who extemporized in key with the melody, in contrast to many jazz musicians who opposed any musical confinements. In 1935 the orchestra was featured in the motion picture Coronado, and in 1937 in The Hit Parade, a film starring Phil Regan and Frances Langford. Billed as "The Magic Fingers of Radio, " Duchin, with his orchestra, played at the most notable dinner clubs in the country.
In the 1930's the orchestra appeared at the Persian Room, the Starlight Roof, and the Sert Room in New York, the Palmer House in Chicago, and the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. In 1937 the orchestra played at a ball for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. , in the East Room of the White House, and in 1939 and 1940 it played at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco and the New York World's Fair. Although Duchin's arrangements of well-known tunes originally appealed to the society set, which considered his music avantgarde without being unintelligible, his music became nationally popular as a result of his radio shows.
Between 1935 and 1942 the orchestra continually introduced new songs or arrangements, including "Stormy Weather, " "Old Man Mose, " "My Twilight Dream, " "I Concentrate on You" and "You Can't Brush Me Off, " which were recorded by the RCA Victor, Brunswick, and Columbia recording companies.
The Duchin orchestra was disbanded six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Duchin volunteered for service in the Navy. Refusing to accept the special treatment given celebrities of his type, Duchin requested combat duty. Because he had perfect pitch, he was trained in the use of submarine detection devices that relied on differentiating among underwater sounds. He was subsequently assigned to a destroyer escort in the D-day invasion and Third Fleet Pacific operations and in 1945 was honorably discharged with the rank of lieutenant commander.
After the war Duchin returned to show business, but this time as a solo pianist. Although somewhat slow in regaining his popularity, Duchin received a boost when he and the comedian Edward Everett Horton were asked to replace Bing Crosby on the Kraft Cheese Company's half-hour radio show in 1946. Duchin entertained the thousands of listeners of this program with his delicate and inventive style of piano playing. Between 1947 and 1950 he was much in demand at fashionable clubs throughout the country. In the latter year he learned he had leukemia; after several months of intensive treatment he died in Memorial Hospital, New York City, at the age of forty-one.
Edward Duchin is best remembered for his remarkable piano playing. He was easy to listen to without being rote or entirely predictable. In 1939 his Duchin orchestra received the Pilot Radio award for its broadcasts for the American Tobacco Company, which were characterized as "the best on the air. " The Eddy Duchin Story, a popular movie based upon his life, was released in 1956.
(This is a very interesting and unique book for this reaso...)
(This is a 9" x 12" book of sheet music published in 1937....)
In 1935 Duchin married Marjorie Oelrichs; she died two days after the birth of their son, Peter, in 1937. In 1947 Duchin married Maria Teresa Winn.
