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Edna Lewis


 

 
 Medium: Musician

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Longtimers Part 3 Excerpt

Biography

Edna Lewis first played music in public on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918. At age 11 she played a bugle and marched with the Boy Scouts in the parade. Although she already had years of violin lessons (``I spent all of my time trying to tune the thing'') and piano lessons (``I didn't like the piano. I always wanted something I could blow.'') Eventually Edna's mom bought a saxophone and, being a ``natural psychologist'', she told Edna that the saxophone was for herself and that she was going to take the lessons.
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Edna begged her Mom to allow her to try the saxophone. ``I begged and begged for the thing, and she allowed me to beg for a week or so and then she finally let me have it.'' I learned to play that sax in about three months. And even though I could play as good as a man, most bands of that era were all-male. Edna finally met a band leader who told that if she cut her hair into a ``boyish bob'' and wear a tuxedo that he would use her all the time so she did. This happened in 1922.

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