EDDY DUCHIN & DURELLE ALEXANDER Vtg B&W Press Photo Jazz Swing Big Band Leader

Description

PLEASE SEE ALL HIGH RESOLUTION SCANNED PHOTOS
of actual item for best assessment of physical condition; pre-owned, used condition with light wear.  This original vintage photo could potentially have surface scratches/scuffs, light creasing, tiny rips/tears, light chipping/edge wear, etc.  The "curioddities" watermark is not on the physical image and was only added to the digital scan. If you have any questions at all, please ask before purchasing; thank you.
Edwin Frank Duchin (April 1, 1909 – February 9, 1951), commonly known as Eddy Duchin or alternatively Eddie Duchin, was an American jazz pianist and bandleader during the 1930s and 1940s. Playing what later came to be called "sweet" music rather than jazz, Duchin opened a new gate for similarly styled, piano-playing sweet bandleaders such as Henry King, Joe Reichman, Nat Brandwynne, Dick Gasparre, Little Jack Little, and particularly Carmen Cavallaro (who acknowledged Duchin's influence) to compete with the large jazz bands for radio time and record sales.
Duchin often used beautiful, soft-voiced singers such as Durelle Alexander and Lew Sherwood to accommodate his sweet and romantic songs, giving them extra appeal and making them more interesting.
By the mid-1950s, Columbia Pictures, having enjoyed success with musical biographies, mounted a feature film based on the bandleader's life. The Eddy Duchin Story (1956) is a fictionalized tearjerker, with Tyrone Power in the title role, and piano dubbed by Carmen Cavallaro. The film did well in theaters.
Dancing with Duchin, an anthology of some of Duchin's recordings, was released in 2002.
Durelle Alexander (March 30, 1918 - May 21, 1994) was a child performer who appeared in "Hollywood Junior Follies" and several silent "Our Gang" comedies throughout the 1920s. As an adult, she had a singing career with several big bands on radio and on tour. By 1935, Alexander was appearing as a featured vocalist on Whiteman's radio show Paul Whiteman's Musical Varieties and Kraft Music Hall on NBC. Throughout this period, she would appear in several Radio Guide magazine articles. By September 1936, she made the cover. She later toured with the prominent big bands of Paul Whiteman, Eddy Duchin, Smith Ballew, and Archie Bleyer.
The first known recording with Alexander singing was "Animal Crackers In My Soup" with Smith Ballew and his Orchestra, recorded in July 1935. In 1936, she toured with Paul Whiteman in Billy Roses' Annual Texas Centennial.
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