Teddy Edwards

Dextrous saxophonist said to be the first to play bebop on the tenor

Theodore Marcus Edwards, tenor saxophone player, composer and arranger: born Jackson, Mississippi 26 April 1924; married (one son); died Los Angeles 20 April 2003.

His musical contemporaries insisted that Teddy Edwards was the first man to play bebop on the tenor saxophone. But the distinction, hard to prove, is insignificant beside the mass of original, inventive and dextrous solos that he leaves to us on record. Ruby Braff was always comforted by the fact that he had left a musical legacy to be remembered by, and the same is very much true of Edwards.

Why is Edwards not as well known as some of his noisier peers? He was a jazz player of unique talent who, as far as can be judged, was constantly inspired and who had a confidence and ability that came from the knowledge that he had something to say that people wanted to hear. There was a strong sense of form in his playing and, while always modern, his improvisations were exciting and accessible to an audience.

The reason that he was not better known was that he chose to live his life in Los Angeles rather than New York, which was then the centre of jazz innovators, and that, after an early experience with drugs, he became conservative. He was smartly dressed on stage, often in a suit. He never swore, was highly regarded by his fellow musicians and was often condemned by being described as "a gentleman".

His career rocketed on the West Coast when in 1945 he joined the trumpeter Howard McGhee, who had come to Los Angeles with Charlie Parker. McGhee was lionised on the Coast and there was plenty of work with him for the 22-year-old Edwards. Over the next year Edwards made records with McGhee and his solo on one of them, "Up in Dodo's Room", was described by the legendary trumpeter Fats Navarro as being the first manifestation of bebop on the tenor – Charlie Parker played the alto saxophone and Dizzy Gillespie, the other founder of the music, played trumpet.

Part of Edwards's attraction was the fact that he didn't sound like anyone else. Most tenor players drew on Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young for their inspiration. Edwards was on his own, as his duets with the other contemporary West Coast giants Dexter Gordon and Wardell Gray confirm. Tenor saxophone battles were popular in the concert halls, and Edwards took on all comers. He also played with Parker himself at this time.

Edwards had a big tone and a style that was typical of the "southern tenors", black musicians from Texas, Kansas and Louisiana who based their playing on the blues that drenched the Deep South. Even when he played ballads, the blues came bursting through. But perhaps some of his originality came from the fact that, until he met McGhee who persuaded him to switch to tenor, he had always played alto saxophone. He found the tenor much easier to play and was able to exploit the nimble dexterity that he had learned on the alto with the larger horn.

His family was musical, and he was encouraged to take up the alto when he was 10:

There was a fellow living in our house who played saxophone with one of the local orchestras, so my mother made a deal with him. He was charging me 35 cents a lesson, so she washed his shirts – 35 cents' worth of shirts, to pay for my lesson.

Two years later, in 1936, Edwards began playing with Doc Palmer and His Royal Mississipians and in other local bands. As the family moved, he went with them, and played in Tampa. By the time he was 16 he joined the migration north, intending to settle in New York. He went first to Detroit and then joined the Ernie Fields big band, a touring "territory" band that was working towards New York via Washington. But a change of plan deposited the band in Los Angeles, and Edwards liked what he found there. It was to be many years before he played in New York.

Eventually he settled on the West Coast and joined the blues band led by Roy Milton. The switch to tenor came with McGhee, and one of Edwards's tenor battles with Dexter Gordon, called simply "The Duel", was issued on the Dial label in 1947. By now Edwards was well enough known to lead his own bands. In 1949 the Lighthouse Club opened at Hermosa Beach, and Edwards became one of the first of the Lighthouse All Stars. He also backed artists such as Billie Holiday who came to the area.

In 1954 he was invited to join the Max Roach Quintet, a classic bebop group that partnered the drummer Roach with Clifford Brown, the most dazzling trumpeter that modern jazz had produced. Brown's fleet and eloquent style fitted perfectly with Edwards's tenor and the band's reputation grew. It was helped by Edwards's talents as a composer and his tune "Sunset Eyes", recorded by the quintet, was the first piece to switch backwards and forwards between four beats to the bar and Latin rhythm – a device thought of by Edwards and later to become popular throughout modern jazz.

Roach realised that the band was ready for international success and decided to leave for a national tour. He wanted Edwards to go along but by now Edwards was taking heroin and decided to stay in Los Angeles to break his addiction. He succeeded in this and his place with Roach was taken by Harold Land and, later, by Sonny Rollins.

There was plenty of work for a man of his talents, and Edwards worked with Benny Carter, Hampton Hawes, Gerald Wilson. He turned out to be a good lyricist and wrote songs for Nancy Wilson, Ernie Andrews and Jimmy Witherspoon. In 1959 he was taken on by the Pacific Jazz label and began recording albums under his own name. He had his first reunion with Howard McGhee in 1961 with the album Together Again and the two joined again for McGhee's 1979 album Young at Heart.

A regular by now at West Coast festival and clubs, he was called on by Benny Goodman when the clarinettist formed a band to play a season at Disneyland. When Goodman returned to the East he took Edwards with him to work in his sextet, which also included the cornettist Bobby Hackett. Edwards stayed in New York to write for and play in the big band that Goodman put together for the 1964 World's Fair in Brussels.

Back on the West Coast, he joined Dizzy Gillespie for the 1965 Monterey Festival and worked and recorded with the Milt Jackson-Ray Brown Quintet in Los Angeles. He toured Japan with Jackson and Brown in 1976 and recorded with them in Tokyo.

He appeared as soloist on several film soundtracks, including Any Wednesday (1966), which starred Jane Fonda and Jason Robards, and They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). He was also one of the musicians on screen who mimed to the music of Count Basie in Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles (1974). He made short films for television with his own group and with the bandleader Gerald Wilson.

In 1978 Edwards came to Europe for the first of what became regular visits. He recorded with the 60-piece Metropole Orchestra in Holland and for the BBC and for Dutch radio. His touring was handicapped by an allergy to feathers. Because of this he was unable to sleep in most hotels and stayed awake all night. His British manager Ernie Garside, who drove him round the country to his various jobs, became used to the sleeping saxophonist in the passenger seat.

He made a concert tour of Europe, Australia and New Zealand in 1982 with his friend the singer Tom Waits and they worked as a duo on the soundtrack of the film One from the Heart that same year. In 1991 Waits sang on Edwards's album Mississippi Lad, where all the compositions and arrangements were written by Edwards.

From the late Fifties onwards, Edwards underwent major surgery for a unusual set of misfortunes. His last years were consumed by his battles against prostate cancer, when his many musician friends rallied round him. The 24-hour medical care that he needed in his last months was paid for by another friend, Herb Alpert, and Edwards was able to be present in a wheelchair at a benefit concert given for him a couple of months ago.

Steve Voce