Goodland, Indiana-born (November 16, 1905 - August 4, 1973) Chicago jazz figurehead (even if he lived much of his life in New York) was a guitarist, banjo player, composer, band leader, and club owner, as well as a prime mover in the desegregation of jazz. A professional banjoist at 17, Condon built a circle of gifted friends (including Frank Teschemacher, Jimmy McPartland -- future husband of British pianist Marian McPartland -- and Bud Freeman. In 1927, with Red McKenzie, Condon led what seems to be the first Chicago-style jazz records ("we were just a bunch of musicians who happened to be in Chicago at the time," he says).
In New York, during 1928, he worked unhappily with Nichols, and then with Red McKenzie's Mound City Blue Blowers, with whom he set up some of the earliest -- but classic -- multiracial recording dates, featuring black musicians Louis Armstrong, Leonard Davis and Happy Cauldwell performing with Jack Teagarden, Joe Sullivan and Gene Krupa.
His series of Town Hall concerts, which ran throughout WWII, were broadcast (the last on CBS), and issued on disc. After the war, Condon opened his own club on W. 3rd St., near his Washington Square home, where personalities like Robert Mitchum, John Steinbeck, Yul Brynner, Bing Crosby, and Johny Mercer, were regular visitors. Eventually, Condon had his own TV program (the Eddie Condon Floorshow), a best-selling autobiography, and a New York Journal-American column (Pro and Condon).
Among his recordings are Chronological Eddie Condon 1927-38, 1938-40, & 1942-3 (Classics), Eddie Condon Dixieland All Stars: The Original Decca Recordings (1939-46; MCA/GRP), The Town Hall Concert Volumes 1-7 (1944; Jazzology), Definitive Eddie Condon and His Jazz Concert All Stars (1944; Stash), From Eddie Condon's, 47 West 3rd Street (1951-2; Storyville), Ringside at Condon's (1951-2; Savoy), and Dixieland Jam (1957-8; CBS).
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