Topsy M. Durham — daughter of San Marcos-based jazz musician, Eddie Durham — is currently writing her third book in a series about her father’s life, legacy, and contributions to jazz music.
The book, titled “Eddie Durham & The Ladies of Jazz,” chronicles Durham’s work with the All-Star Girl Orchestra, an African-American all female swing band that toured the United States and Canada during the 1940s. The book, spanning a 60-year period of Durham’s life from 1927 to 1887, chronicles the female jazz musicians with whom Durham and his brother worked over their long careers.
“There were some really big surprises,” Topsy said. “Like Ella Fitzgerald. My father’s all girl band was opening for her when Ella had let her band go, but she was still touring.”
