Bix Beiderbecke
Encyclopedia
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz
cornet
ist, jazz pianist
, and composer.
With Louis Armstrong
, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on "Singin' the Blues" (1927) and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone
and a gift for improvisation
. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad
style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz
. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions but the only one he recorded, mixed classical influences with jazz syncopation
. Beiderbecke also has been credited for his influence, directly, on Bing Crosby
and, indirectly, via saxophonist Frank Trumbauer, on Lester Young
.
A native of Davenport, Iowa
, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear
, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering that some critics have connected to his original sound. He first recorded with a Midwestern jazz ensemble The Wolverines
in 1924, after which he played briefly for the Detroit-based Jean Goldkette
Orchestra before joining Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer
for an extended gig at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, Missouri. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer both joined Goldkette in 1926. The band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson
at the Roseland Ballroom
in New York City in . The following year, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known and most prestigious dance orchestra in the country: the New York-based Paul Whiteman
Orchestra.
Beiderbecke's most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, although they were generally recorded under his own name or Trumbauer's. The Whiteman period also marked a precipitous decline in Beiderbecke's health, brought on by the demand of the bandleader's relentless touring and recording schedule in combination with Beiderbecke's persistent alcoholism. A few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbecke's decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28.
His death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz. In magazine articles, musicians' memoirs, novels, and Hollywood films, Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic
hero, the "Young Man with a Horn". His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, while his death has been seen as a martyrdom for the sake of art. The musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke "jazz's Number One Saint," while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus. The historical Beiderbecke, meanwhile, is the subject of scholarly controversy regarding his true name, his sexual orientation, the cause of his death, and the importance of his contributions to jazz.
Beiderbecke's father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor
of his native Germany. Beiderbecke's mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain. She played the organ at Davenport's First Presbyterian Church, and encouraged young Bix's interest in the piano. Bix Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children. His brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. Bix began playing piano at age two or three. His sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head. Five years later, he was the subject of an admiring article in the Davenport Daily Democrat that proclaimed: "Seven-year-old boy musical wonder! Little Bickie Beiderbecke plays any selection he hears."
At age ten, his older brother Burnie recalled that he stopped coming home for supper, instead hurrying down to the riverfront and slipping aboard one or another of the excursion boats to play the Calliope
. A friend remembered that the plots of the silent matinees Bix and his friends watched on Saturdays didn't interest him much, but as soon as the lights came on he would rush home to see if he could duplicate the melodies the accompanist had played during the action.
When his brother Burnie returned to Davenport at the end of 1918 after serving stateside during World War I, he brought with him a Victrola phonograph machine and several records, including "Tiger Rag
" and "Skeleton Jangle" by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. From these records Bix Beiderbecke first learned to love hot jazz; he taught himself to play cornet by listening to Nick LaRocca
's horn lines. Beiderbecke also listened to jazz music off the riverboats that docked in downtown Davenport. Louis Armstrong and the drummer Baby Dodds
claimed to have met Beiderbecke when their New Orleans-based excursion boat stopped in Davenport. Historians disagree over whether that is true.
Beiderbecke attended Davenport High School from 1919 to 1921. During this time, he sat in and played professionally with various bands, including those of Wilbur Hatch
, Floyd Bean, and Carlisle Evans. In the spring of 1920 he performed for the school's Vaudeville Night, singing in a vocal quintet called the Black Jazz Babies and playing his horn. He also performed, at the invitation of his friend Fritz Putzier, in Neal Buckley's Novelty Orchestra. The group was hired for a gig in December 1920, but a complaint was lodged with the American Federation of Musicians, Local 67, that the boys did not have union cards. In an audition before a union executive, Beiderbecke was forced to sight read and failed. He did not earn his card.
On April 22, 1921, a month after he turned 18, Beiderbecke was arrested by two Davenport police officers on a charge brought by the father of a young girl. According to biographer Jean Pierre Lion, "Bix was accused of having taken this man's five-year-old daughter into a garage and committing on her an act qualified by the police report as 'lewd and lascivious.'" Although Beiderbecke was briefly taken into custody and held on a $1,500 bond, the charge was dropped after the girl was not made available to testify. According to an affidavit submitted by her father, this was because "of the child's age and the harm that would result to her in going over this case." It is not clear from the father's affidavit if the girl had identified Beiderbecke. Until recently, biographers have largely ignored this incident in Beiderbecke's life, and Lion was the first, in 2005, to print the police blotter and affidavit associated with the arrest. He dismissed the seriousness of the charge, but speculated that the arrest nevertheless might have led Beiderbecke to "feel abandoned and ashamed: he saw himself as suspect of perversion." Beiderbecke fans and scholars continue to argue over this incident's relevance and importance.
Beiderbecke's parents enrolled him in the exclusive Lake Forest Academy
, north of Chicago in Lake Forest, Illinois
. While historians have traditionally suggested that his parents sent him to Lake Forest to discourage his interest in jazz, others have begun to doubt this version of events, believing that he may have been sent away in response to his arrest. Regardless, Mr. and Mrs. Beiderbecke apparently felt that a boarding school would provide their son with both the necessary faculty attention and discipline to improve his academic performance. His interests, however, remained limited to music and sports. In pursuit of the former, Beiderbecke took the train into Chicago to catch the hot jazz bands at clubs and speakeasies
, including the infamous Friar's Inn
, where he listened to and sometimes sat in with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings
. He also traveled to the predominantly African-American South Side
to listen to what he called "real" jazz musicians. "Don't think I'm getting hard, Burnie," he wrote to his brother, "but I'd go to hell to hear a good band." On campus, he helped organize the Cy-Bix Orchestra with drummer Walter "Cy" Welge and almost immediately got into trouble with the Lake Forest headmaster for performing indecorously at a school dance.
Beiderbecke often failed to return to his dormitory before curfew, and sometimes stayed off-campus the next day. In the early morning hours of May 20, he was caught on the fire escape to his dormitory, attempting to climb back into his room. The faculty voted to expel him the next day, due both to his academic failings and his extracurricular activities, which included drinking. The headmaster informed Beiderbecke's parents by letter that following his expulsion school officials confirmed that Beiderbecke "was drinking himself and was responsible, in part at least, in having liquor brought into the School." Soon after, Beiderbecke began pursuing a career in music.
He returned to Davenport briefly in the summer of 1922, then moved to Chicago to join the Cascades Band, working that summer on Lake Michigan excursion boats. He gigged around Chicago until the fall of 1923, at times returning to Davenport to work for his father.
's "Wolverine Blues." During this time, Beiderbecke also took piano lessons from a young woman who introduced him to the works of Eastwood Lane
. Lane's piano suites and orchestral arrangements were both self-consciously American and influenced by the French Impressionists, and it is said to have greatly influenced Beiderbecke's style, especially on "In a Mist." A subsequent gig at Doyle's Dance Academy in Cincinnati became the occasion for a series of band and individual photographs that resulted in the most famous image of Beiderbecke—sitting fresh-faced, his hair perfectly combed, his horn resting on his right knee.
On February 18, 1924, the Wolverines first recorded at Gennett Records
in Richmond, Indiana. Their two sides that day included "Fidgety Feet," written by Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields
from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and "Jazz Me Blues." Beiderbecke's solo on the latter suggested something new and significant in jazz, according to biographers Richard M. Sudhalter
and Philip R. Evans:
The Wolverines recorded 15 sides for Gennett Records between February and October 1924. The titles revealed a tough and well-formed cornet talent. His lip had toughened from earlier, more tentative years; on nine of the Wolverines' recorded titles he proceeds commandingly from lead to opening solo without any need for a respite from playing.
Beiderbecke made his first recordings 21 months before Armstrong recorded as a leader with the Hot Five. Beiderbecke's style was very different from that of Louis Armstrong according to the The Oxford Companion to Jazz:
Where Armstrong emphasized showmanship and virtuosity, Beiderbecke emphasized melody, even when improvising, and—different from Armstrong and contrary to how the Bix Beiderbecke of legend would be portrayed—he rarely strayed into the upper reaches of the register. Paul Mares
of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings insisted that Beiderbecke's chief influence was the New Orleans cornetist Emmett Hardy
, who died in 1925 at the age of 23. Indeed, Beiderbecke had met Hardy and the clarinetist Leon Roppolo
in Davenport in 1921 when the two joined a local band and played in town for three months. Beiderbecke apparently spent time with them, but the degree to which Hardy's style influenced Beiderbecke's is difficult to know because Hardy never recorded. In some respects, Beiderbecke's playing was sui generis, but he nevertheless listened to and studied the music around him: from Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings to Claude Debussy
and Maurice Ravel
.
Soon, he was listening to Hoagy Carmichael
, too. A law student and aspiring pianist and songwriter, Carmichael invited the Wolverines to Bloomington, Indiana, late in April 1924. Beiderbecke had met Carmichael a couple of times before and the two became friends. On May 6, 1924, the Wolverines recorded a tune Carmichael had written especially for Beiderbecke and his colleagues: "Riverboat Shuffle
".
Beiderbecke left the Wolverines in October 1924 for a spot with Jean Goldkette in Detroit, but the job didn't last long. Goldkette recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company
, whose musical director, Eddie King, objected to Beiderbecke's hot-jazz style of soloing; it wasn't copacetic with the commercial obligations that came with the band's recording contract. King also was frustrated by the cornetist's inability to deftly sight read. After a few weeks, Beiderbecke was bounced from the Goldkette band, but soon arranged a recording session back in Richmond with some of its members. On January 26, 1925, Bix and His Rhythm Jugglers set two tunes to wax: "Toddlin' Blues," another number by LaRocca and Shields, and Beiderbecke's own composition, "Davenport Blues
." Beiderbecke biographer Lion has complained that the second number was marred by the alcohol consumed by the musicians. In subsequent years, "Davenport Blues" has been recorded by musicians from Bunny Berigan
to Ry Cooder
to Geoff Muldaur
.
The following month, Beiderbecke enrolled at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. His stint in academia was even briefer than his time in Detroit, however. When he attempted to pack his course schedule with music, his guidance counselor forced him instead to take religion, ethics, physical education, and military training. It was an institutional blunder that Benny Green described as being, in retrospect, "comical," "fatuous," and "a parody." Beiderbecke promptly began to skip classes, and after he participated in a drunken bar fight, he was expelled. That summer he played with his friends Don Murray and Howdy Quicksell
at a lake resort in Michigan. The band was run by Goldkette, and it put Beiderbecke in touch with another musician he had met before: the C-melody saxophone
player Frankie Trumbauer. The two hit it off, both personally and musically, despite Trumbauer having been warned by other musicians: "Look out, he's trouble. He drinks and you'll have a hard time handling him." They were inseparable for much of the rest of Beiderbecke's career, with Trumbauer acting as a father figure to Beiderbecke. When Trumbauer organized a band for an extended run at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, Beiderbecke joined him. There he also played alongside the clarinetist Pee Wee Russell
, who praised Beiderbecke's ability to drive the band. "He more or less made you play whether you wanted to or not," Russell said. "If you had any talent at all he made you play better."
s. The Roseland promoted a "Battle of the Bands" in the local press and, on October 12, after a night of furious playing, Goldkette's men were declared the winners. "We… were amazed, angry, morose, and bewildered," Rex Stewart, Fletcher's lead trumpeter, said of listening to Beiderbecke and his colleagues play. He called the experience "most humiliating".
Although the band recorded numerous sides for Victor during this period, none of them showcases Beiderbecke's most famous solos. Much of Goldkette's money was made through these records, but they were subject—as Eddie King had well understood—to the forces of the commercial market. As a result, their sound was often "sweeter" than what many of the hot jazz musicians would have preferred. In addition to their sessions with Goldkette, Beiderbecke and his friends recorded under their own names for the Okeh
label. For instance, on February 4, 1927, Frank Trumbauer and His Orchestra recorded "Trumbology", "Clarinet Marmalade", and "Singin' the Blues", all three of which featured some of Beiderbecke's best work. Again with Trumbauer, Beiderbecke re-recorded Carmichael's "Riverboat Shuffle" in May and delivered two of his best known solos a few days later on "I'm Coming, Virginia" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
". Beiderbecke earned co-writing credit with Trumbauer on "For No Reason at All in C", recorded under the name Tram, Bix and Eddie (in their Three Piece Band). Beiderbecke switched between cornet and piano on that number, and then in September played only piano for his recording of "In A Mist
". This was perhaps the most fruitful year of his short career.
Under financial pressure, Goldkette folded his premier band in September in New York. Paul Whiteman hoped to snatch up Goldkette's best musicians for his traveling orchestra, but Beiderbecke, Trumbauer, Murray, Rank, Eddie Lang
, Joe Venuti, Chauncey Morehouse
, and Frank Signorelli
instead joined the bass saxophone
player Adrian Rollini
at the Club New Yorker. When that job ended sooner than expected, in October 1927, Beiderbecke and Trumbauer signed on with Whiteman. They joined his orchestra in Indianapolis on October 27.
's Rhapsody in Blue
in New York in 1924, and the orchestrator of that piece, Ferde Grofé
, continued to be an important part of the band in 1928. At three hundred pounds, Whiteman was huge both physically and culturally—"a man flabby, virile, quick, coarse, untidy and sleek, with a hard core of shrewdness in an envelope of sentimentalism," according to a 1926 New Yorker profile. And many Beiderbecke partisans have turned Whiteman into a villain in the years since.
Benny Green, in particular, derided Whiteman for being a mere "mediocre vaudeville act," and suggesting that "today we only tolerate the horrors of Whiteman's recordings at all in the hope that here and there a Bixian fragment will redeem the mess." Richard Sudhalter has responded by suggesting that Beiderbecke saw Whiteman as an opportunity to pursue musical ambitions that did not stop at jazz:
The education that Beiderbecke did not receive from the University of Iowa, in other words, he sought through Whiteman. In the meantime, Beiderbecke played on four number-one records in 1928
, all under the Whiteman name: "Together," "Ramona," "My Angel," and "Ol' Man River
", which featured Bing Crosby on vocals. This accomplishment says less about the jazz excellence of these records than it does about the tastes of the largely white, record-buying public to which Whiteman (and Goldkette before him) catered.
For Beiderbecke, the downside of being with Whiteman was the relentless touring and recording schedule, exacerbated by Beiderbecke's alcoholism. On November 30, 1928, in Cleveland, Beiderbecke suffered what Lion terms "a severe nervous crisis" and Sudhalter and Evans suggest "was in all probability an acute attack of delirium tremens
," presumably triggered by Beiderbecke's attempt to curb his alcohol intake. "He cracked up, that's all," trombonist Bill Rank said. "Just went to pieces; broke up a roomful of furniture in the hotel."
In February 1929, Beiderbecke returned home to Davenport to convalesce and was hailed by the local press as "the world's hottest cornetist." He then spent the summer with Whiteman's band in Hollywood in preparation for the shooting of a new talking picture, The King of Jazz. Production delays prevented any real work from being done on the film, leaving Beiderbecke and his pals plenty of time to drink heavily. By September, he was back in Davenport, where his parents helped him to seek treatment. He spent a month, from October 14 until November 18, at the Keeley Institute
in Dwight, Illinois.
While he was away, Whiteman famously kept a chair empty in Beiderbecke's honor. But when he returned to New York at the end of January 1930, the renowned soloist did not rejoin Whiteman and performed only sparingly. On his last recording session, in New York, on September 15, 1930, Beiderbecke played on the original recording of Hoagy Carmichael's new song, "Georgia on My Mind
", with Carmichael doing the vocal, Eddie Lang on guitar, Joe Venuti on violin, Jimmy Dorsey
on clarinet and alto saxophone, Jack Teagarden
on trombone, and Bud Freeman
on tenor saxophone. The song would go on to become a jazz and popular music standard
.
Two years earlier, Beiderbecke had influenced another Carmichael standard, "Star Dust
". A Beiderbecke riff caught in Carmichael's head and became the tune's chorus. Bing Crosby, who sang with Whiteman, also cited Beiderbecke as an important influence. "Bix and all the rest would play and exchange ideas on the piano," he said.
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929
, the once-booming music industry contracted and work became more difficult to find. For a while, Beiderbecke's only income came from a radio show booked by Whiteman, The Camel Pleasure Hour. However, during a live broadcast on October 8, 1930, Beiderbecke's seemingly limitless gift for improvisation finally failed him: "He stood up to take his solo, but his mind went blank and nothing happened," recalled a fellow musician, Frankie Cush. Whiteman finally let Beiderbecke go. The cornetist spent the rest of the year at home in Davenport and then, in February 1931, he returned to New York one last time.
Historians have disagreed over the identity of the doctor who pronounced Beiderbecke dead. The official cause of death, meanwhile, was lobar pneumonia
, with scholars continuing to debate the extent to which his alcoholism was also a factor. Beiderbecke's mother and brother took the train to New York and brought his body home to Davenport. He was buried there on August 11 in the family plot at Oakdale Cemetery
.
. The notice appeared in October 1931 and began with a bit of hyperbole and an incorrect fact, two hallmarks of much of the subsequent writing about Beiderbecke: "The announcement of Bix Beiderbecke's death plunged all jazz musicians into despair. We first believed it was a false alarm, as we had heard so often before about Bix. Unfortunately, precise information has been forthcoming, and we even know the day—August 7—when he passed away."
The New Republic
critic Otis Ferguson
wrote two short articles for the magazine, "Young Man with a Horn" (July 29, 1936) and "Young Man with a Horn Again" (November 18, 1940), that worked to revive interest not only in Beiderbecke's music but also in his biography. Beiderbecke "lived very briefly… in what might be called the servants' entrance to art," Ferguson wrote. "His story is a good story, quite humble and right." The romantic notion of the doomed jazz genius can be traced back at least as far as Beiderbecke, and lived on in Charlie Parker
, Billie Holiday
, and many more.
Ferguson's sense of what was "right" became the basis for the Beiderbecke Romantic legend, which has traditionally emphasized the musician's Iowa roots, his often careless dress, his difficulty sight reading, the purity of his tone, his drinking, and his early death. These themes were repeated by Beiderbecke's friends in various memoirs, including The Stardust Road (1946) and Sometimes I Wonder (1965) by Hoagy Carmichael, Really the Blues (1946) by Mezz Mezzrow
, and We Called It Music (1947) by Eddie Condon
. Beiderbecke was portrayed as a tragic genius along the lines of Ludwig van Beethoven
, but without the high-culture pretensions. "For his talent there were no conservatories to get stuffy in, no high-trumpet didoes to be learned doggedly, note-perfect as written," Ferguson wrote, "because in his chosen form the only writing of any account was traced in the close shouting air of Royal Gardens, Grand Pavilions, honkeytonks, etc." He was "this big overgrown kid, who looked like he'd been snatched out of a cradle in the cornfields," Mezzrow wrote. "The guy didn't have an enemy in the world," recalled Beiderbecke's friend Russ Morgan
, "[b]ut he was out of this world most of the time." According to Ralph Berton, he was "as usual gazing off into his private astronomy," but his cornet, Condon famously quipped, sounded "like a girl saying yes."
In 1938, Dorothy Baker
borrowed the titles of her friend Otis Ferguson's two articles and published the novel Young Man with a Horn. Her story of the doomed trumpet player Rick Martin was inspired, she wrote, by "the music, but not the life" of Beiderbecke, but the image of Martin quickly became the image of Beiderbecke: His story is about "the gap between the man's musical ability and his ability to fit it to his own life." In 1950, Michael Curtiz
directed the film Young Man with a Horn
, starring Kirk Douglas
, Lauren Bacall
, and Doris Day
. In this version, in which Hoagy Carmichael also plays a role, the Rick Martin character lives.
In Blackboard Jungle
, a 1955 film starring Glenn Ford
and Sidney Poitier
, Beiderbecke's music is briefly featured, but as a symbol of cultural conservatism in a nation on the cusp of the rock and roll revolution. Still, the Beiderbecke of legend came to represent a certain kind of cool
character that was omnipresent in 1950s popular culture: the alienated young white man rebelling against white culture and willing to engage black culture in pursuit of his art.
In 1971, on the 40th anniversary of Beiderbecke's death, the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival was founded in Davenport, Iowa, to honor the musician. Three years later, Ralph Berton, whose brother Vic Berton
played for a time with Beiderbecke in the Wolverines, published a memoir, Remembering Bix, in which he claimed that Beiderbecke had had a brief fling with another of Berton's brothers, Eugene. This has led to speculation that Beiderbecke was gay, accompanied by vehement denials. Also in 1974, Sudhalter and Evans published their biography, Bix: Man and Legend, which was nominated for a National Book Award
. In 1977, the Beiderbecke childhood home at 1934 Grand Avenue in Davenport was added to the National Register of Historic Places
.
Beiderbecke's music was featured in three British comedy drama television series, all written by Alan Plater
: The Beiderbecke Affair
(1984), The Beiderbecke Tapes
(1987), and The Beiderbecke Connection
(1988). In 1991, the Italian director Pupi Avati
released Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend
. Filmed partially in the Beiderbecke home, which Avati had purchased and renovated, Bix was screened at the Cannes Film Festival
.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Beiderbecke's music continues to reside mostly out of the mainstream and some of the facts of his life are still debated, but scholars largely agree—due in part to the influence of Sudhalter and Evans—that he was an important innovator in early jazz; jazz cornetists, including Sudhalter (before his death in 2008), and Tom Pletcher, closely emulate his style. In 2003, to mark the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the Greater Astoria Historical Society
and other community organizations, spearheaded by Paul Maringelli and The Bix Beiderbecke Sunnyside Memorial Committee, erected a plaque in Beiderbecke's honor at the apartment building in which he died in Queens. That same year, Frederick Turner published his novel 1929, which followed the facts of Beiderbecke's life fairly closely, focusing on his summer in Hollywood and featuring appearances by Al Capone
and Clara Bow
. The critic and musician Digby Fairweather
sums up Beiderbecke's musical legacy, arguing that "with Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke was the most striking of jazz's cornet (and of course, trumpet) fathers; a player who first captivated his 1920s generation and after his premature death, founded a dynasty of distinguished followers beginning with Jimmy McPartland and moving on down from there."
the best known among them, but these players "lacked the technical resources and, even more, the creative depth to make the solo the compelling centerpiece of jazz music." That changed in 1924 when Beiderbecke and Armstrong began to make their most important records. According to the critic Terry Teachout
, they are "the two most influential figures in the early history of jazz" and "the twin lines of descent from which most of today's jazz can be traced."
Beiderbecke's cornet style is often described by contrasting it with Armstrong's markedly different approach. Armstrong was a virtuoso on his instrument, and his solos often took advantage of that fact. Beiderbecke was largely, although not completely, self-taught, and the constraints imposed by that fact were evident in his music. While Armstrong often soared into the upper register, Beiderbecke stayed in the middle range, more interested in exploring the melody and harmonies than in dazzling the audience. Armstrong often emphasized the performance aspect of his playing, while Beiderbecke tended to stare at his feet while playing, uninterested in personally engaging his listeners. Armstrong was deeply influenced by the blues, while Beiderbecke was influenced as much by modernist composers such as Debussy and Ravel as by his fellow jazzmen.
Beiderbecke's most famous solo was on "Singin' the Blues", recorded February 4, 1927. It has been hailed as an important example of the "jazz ballad style"—"a slow or medium-tempo piece played gently and sweetly, but not cloyingly, with no loss of muscle." The tune's laid-back emotions hinted at what would become, in the 1950s, the cool jazz style, personified by Chet Baker
and Bill Evans
. More than that, though, "Singin' the Blues" has been noted for the way its improvisations feel less improvised than composed, with each phrase building on the last in a logical fashion. Benny Green describes the solo's effect on practiced ears:
Like Green, who made particular mention of Beiderbecke's "amount of teaching," the jazz historian Ted Gioia
also has emphasized Beiderbecke's lack of formal instruction, suggesting that it caused him to adopt "an unusual, dry embouchure" and "unconventional fingerings," which he retained for the rest of his life. Gioia points to "a characteristic streak of obstinacy" in Beiderbecke that provokes "this chronic disregard of the tried-and-true." He argues that this stubbornness was behind Beiderbecke's decision not to switch from cornet to trumpet when many other musicians, including Armstrong, did so. In addition, Gioia highlights Beiderbecke's precise timing, relaxed delivery, and pure tone, which contrasted with "the dirty, rough-edged sound" of King Oliver and his protégé Armstrong, whose playing was often more energetic and whose style held more sway early in the 1920s than Beiderbecke's. Gioia further wonders whether the many hyperbolic and quasi-poetic descriptions of Beiderbecke’s style—most notably Condon's "like a girl saying yes"—may indicate that Beiderbecke's sound was muddled on recordings.
Eddie Condon, Hoagy Carmichael, and Mezz Mezzrow, all of whom hyperbolically raved about his playing, also saw Beiderbecke play live or performed alongside him. Condon, for instance, wrote of being amazed by Beiderbecke's piano playing: "All my life I had been listening to music… But I had never heard anything remotely like what Beiderbecke played. For the first time I realized music isn't all the same, it had become an entirely new set of sounds…" "I tried to explain Bix to the gang," Carmichael wrote, but "… [i]t was no good, like the telling of a vivid, personal dream… the emotion couldn't be transmitted."
Mezzrow described Beiderbecke's tone as being "pickled in alcohol… I have never heard a tone like he got before or since. He played mostly open horn, every note full, big, rich and round, standing out like a pearl, loud but never irritating or jangling, with a powerful drive that few white musicians had in those days."
Some critics have highlighted "Jazz Me Blues," recorded with the Wolverines on February 18, 1924, as being particularly important to understanding Beiderbecke's style. Although it was one of his earliest recordings, the hallmarks of his playing were evident. "The overall impression we get from this solo, as in all of Bix at his best," writes the trumpeter Randy Sandke
, "is that every note is spontaneous yet inevitable." Richard Hadlock describes Beiderbecke's contribution to "Jazz Me Blues" as "an ordered solo that seems more inspired by clarinetists Larry Shields of the ODJB and Leon Roppolo of the NORK than by other trumpet players." He goes on to suggest that clarinetists, by virtue of their not being tied to the melody as much as cornetists and trumpet players, could explore harmonies.
"Jazz Me Blues" was also important because it introduced what has been called the "correlated chorus," a method of improvising that Beiderbecke's Davenport friend Esten Spurrier attributed to both Beiderbecke and Armstrong. "Louis departed greatly from all cornet players in his ability to compose a close-knit individual 32 measures with all phrases compatible with each other…," Spurrier told the biographers Sudhalter and Evans, "so Bix and I always credited Louis as being the father of the correlated chorus: play two measures, then two related, making four measures, on which you played another four measures related to the first four, and so on ad infinitum to the end of the chorus. So the secret was simple—a series of related phrases."
Beiderbecke's piano playing, meanwhile, can be considered on his recordings "Big Boy" (October 8, 1924), "For No Reason at All in C" (May 13, 1927), "Wringin' and Twistin'" (September 17, 1927)—all with ensembles—and his only solo recorded work, "In a Mist" (September 8, 1927). Critic Frank Murphy argues that many of the same characteristics that mark Beiderbecke on the cornet mark him on the keyboard: the uncharacteristic fingering, the emphasis on inventive harmonies, and the correlated choruses. Those inventive harmonies, on both cornet and piano, eventually helped point the way to bebop
, which abandoned melody almost entirely.
"Candlelights", "Flashes", and "In the Dark" are piano compositions transcribed with the help of Bill Challis but never recorded by Beiderbecke. Two additional compositions were attributed to him by two other jazz composers: "Betcha I Getcha," attributed to Beiderbecke as a co-composer by Joe Venuti, the composer of the song, and "Cloudy", attributed to Beiderbecke by composer Charlie Davis
as a composition from circa 1924.
As Bix Beiderbecke and his Rhythm Jugglers:
With the Jean Goldkette Orchestra in 1926–1927:
With Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra and guitarist Eddie Lang:
As Bix Beiderbecke and His Gang:
With the Paul Whiteman Orchestra:
As Bix Beiderbecke and His Orchestra:
With Hoagy Carmichael and His Orchestra:
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
ist, jazz pianist
Jazz piano
Jazz piano is a collective term for the techniques pianists use when playing jazz. The piano has been an integral part of the jazz idiom since its inception, in both solo and ensemble settings. Its role is multifaceted due largely to the instrument's combined melodic and harmonic capabilities...
, and composer.
With Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on "Singin' the Blues" (1927) and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
and a gift for improvisation
Jazz improvisation
Jazz improvisation is an important aspect of jazz. Basically, improvisation is composing on the spot and coming up with melodies off the top of one's head. Traditionally, jazz improvisation was distinguished from other forms of music improvisation by its chordal complexity, often exhibiting ii V...
. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions but the only one he recorded, mixed classical influences with jazz syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
. Beiderbecke also has been credited for his influence, directly, on Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
and, indirectly, via saxophonist Frank Trumbauer, on Lester Young
Lester Young
Lester Willis Young , nicknamed "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and clarinetist. He also played trumpet, violin, and drums....
.
A native of Davenport, Iowa
Davenport, Iowa
Davenport is a city located along the Mississippi River in Scott County, Iowa, United States. Davenport is the county seat of and largest city in Scott County. Davenport was founded on May 14, 1836 by Antoine LeClaire and was named for his friend, George Davenport, a colonel during the Black Hawk...
, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear
Learning music by ear
Learning music by ear is done by repeatedly listening to other musicians and then attempting to recreate what one hears. This is how people learn music in any musical tradition in which there is no complete musical notation...
, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering that some critics have connected to his original sound. He first recorded with a Midwestern jazz ensemble The Wolverines
The Wolverines
The Wolverines were an American jazz band. They were one of the most successful territory bands of the American Midwest in the 1920s.-History:...
in 1924, after which he played briefly for the Detroit-based Jean Goldkette
Jean Goldkette
John Jean Goldkette was a jazz pianist and bandleader born in Patras, Greece. Goldkette spent his childhood in Greece and Russia, and emigrated to the United States in 1911....
Orchestra before joining Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer
Frankie Trumbauer
Orie Frank Trumbauer was one of the leading jazz saxophonists of the 1920s and 1930s. He played the C-melody saxophone which, in size, is between an alto and tenor saxophone...
for an extended gig at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, Missouri. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer both joined Goldkette in 1926. The band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson
Fletcher Henderson
James Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr. was an American pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music. His was one of the most prolific black orchestras and his influence was vast...
at the Roseland Ballroom
Roseland Ballroom
The Roseland Ballroom is a multi-purpose hall, in a converted ice skating rink, with a colorful ballroom dancing pedigree, in New York City's theatre district, on West 52nd Street....
in New York City in . The following year, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known and most prestigious dance orchestra in the country: the New York-based Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
Orchestra.
Beiderbecke's most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, although they were generally recorded under his own name or Trumbauer's. The Whiteman period also marked a precipitous decline in Beiderbecke's health, brought on by the demand of the bandleader's relentless touring and recording schedule in combination with Beiderbecke's persistent alcoholism. A few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbecke's decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28.
His death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz. In magazine articles, musicians' memoirs, novels, and Hollywood films, Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
hero, the "Young Man with a Horn". His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, while his death has been seen as a martyrdom for the sake of art. The musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke "jazz's Number One Saint," while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus. The historical Beiderbecke, meanwhile, is the subject of scholarly controversy regarding his true name, his sexual orientation, the cause of his death, and the importance of his contributions to jazz.
Early life
Bix Beiderbecke was born on March 10, 1903, in Davenport, Iowa, the son of Bismark Herman and Agatha Jane (Hilton) Beiderbecke. There is disagreement over whether Beiderbecke was christened Leon Bismark (and nicknamed "Bix") or Leon Bix. His father was nicknamed "Bix," as, for a time, was his older brother, Charles Burnette "Burnie" Beiderbecke. Burnie Beiderbecke claimed that the boy was named Leon Bix and subsequent biographers have reproduced birth certificates to that effect. However, more recent research—which takes into account church and school records in addition to the will of a relative—has suggested that he was originally named Leon Bismark. Regardless, his parents called him Bix, which seems to have been his preference. In a letter to his mother when he was nine years old, Beiderbecke signed off, "frome [sic] your Leon Bix Beiderbecke not Bismark Remeber" [sic].Beiderbecke's father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...
of his native Germany. Beiderbecke's mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain. She played the organ at Davenport's First Presbyterian Church, and encouraged young Bix's interest in the piano. Bix Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children. His brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. Bix began playing piano at age two or three. His sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head. Five years later, he was the subject of an admiring article in the Davenport Daily Democrat that proclaimed: "Seven-year-old boy musical wonder! Little Bickie Beiderbecke plays any selection he hears."
Calliope (music)
A calliope is a musical instrument that produces sound by sending a gas, originally steam or more recently compressed air, through large whistles, originally locomotive whistles....
. A friend remembered that the plots of the silent matinees Bix and his friends watched on Saturdays didn't interest him much, but as soon as the lights came on he would rush home to see if he could duplicate the melodies the accompanist had played during the action.
When his brother Burnie returned to Davenport at the end of 1918 after serving stateside during World War I, he brought with him a Victrola phonograph machine and several records, including "Tiger Rag
Tiger Rag
"Tiger Rag" is a jazz standard, originally recorded and copyrighted by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917. It is one of the most recorded jazz compositions of all time.-Origins:...
" and "Skeleton Jangle" by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. From these records Bix Beiderbecke first learned to love hot jazz; he taught himself to play cornet by listening to Nick LaRocca
Nick LaRocca
Dominic James "Nick" LaRocca , was an early jazz cornetist and trumpeter and the leader of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. He is the composer of one of the most recorded jazz classics of all-time, "Tiger Rag"...
's horn lines. Beiderbecke also listened to jazz music off the riverboats that docked in downtown Davenport. Louis Armstrong and the drummer Baby Dodds
Baby Dodds
Warren "Baby" Dodds was a jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana."Baby" Dodds was the younger brother of clarinetist Johnny Dodds. He is regarded as one of the very best jazz drummers of the pre-big band era, and one of the most important early jazz drummers...
claimed to have met Beiderbecke when their New Orleans-based excursion boat stopped in Davenport. Historians disagree over whether that is true.
Beiderbecke attended Davenport High School from 1919 to 1921. During this time, he sat in and played professionally with various bands, including those of Wilbur Hatch
Wilbur Hatch
Wilbur Hatch , was an American music composer who worked primarily in radio and television. He was born in Mokena, Illinois and died in Studio City, California.-Radio:...
, Floyd Bean, and Carlisle Evans. In the spring of 1920 he performed for the school's Vaudeville Night, singing in a vocal quintet called the Black Jazz Babies and playing his horn. He also performed, at the invitation of his friend Fritz Putzier, in Neal Buckley's Novelty Orchestra. The group was hired for a gig in December 1920, but a complaint was lodged with the American Federation of Musicians, Local 67, that the boys did not have union cards. In an audition before a union executive, Beiderbecke was forced to sight read and failed. He did not earn his card.
On April 22, 1921, a month after he turned 18, Beiderbecke was arrested by two Davenport police officers on a charge brought by the father of a young girl. According to biographer Jean Pierre Lion, "Bix was accused of having taken this man's five-year-old daughter into a garage and committing on her an act qualified by the police report as 'lewd and lascivious.'" Although Beiderbecke was briefly taken into custody and held on a $1,500 bond, the charge was dropped after the girl was not made available to testify. According to an affidavit submitted by her father, this was because "of the child's age and the harm that would result to her in going over this case." It is not clear from the father's affidavit if the girl had identified Beiderbecke. Until recently, biographers have largely ignored this incident in Beiderbecke's life, and Lion was the first, in 2005, to print the police blotter and affidavit associated with the arrest. He dismissed the seriousness of the charge, but speculated that the arrest nevertheless might have led Beiderbecke to "feel abandoned and ashamed: he saw himself as suspect of perversion." Beiderbecke fans and scholars continue to argue over this incident's relevance and importance.
Beiderbecke's parents enrolled him in the exclusive Lake Forest Academy
Lake Forest Academy
Lake Forest Academy is a college preparatory boarding and day school for grades 9 through 12 located on the North Shore in Lake Forest, Illinois, United States. As of the 2008-2009 school year, students at Lake Forest Academy come from 20 states and 28 countries. The current Head of School is Dr....
, north of Chicago in Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest, Illinois
Lake Forest is an affluent city located in Lake County, Illinois, United States. The city is south of Waukegan along the shore of Lake Michigan, and is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the North Shore. Lake Forest was founded around Lake Forest College and was laid out as a town in...
. While historians have traditionally suggested that his parents sent him to Lake Forest to discourage his interest in jazz, others have begun to doubt this version of events, believing that he may have been sent away in response to his arrest. Regardless, Mr. and Mrs. Beiderbecke apparently felt that a boarding school would provide their son with both the necessary faculty attention and discipline to improve his academic performance. His interests, however, remained limited to music and sports. In pursuit of the former, Beiderbecke took the train into Chicago to catch the hot jazz bands at clubs and speakeasies
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
, including the infamous Friar's Inn
Friar's Inn
Friar's Inn was a nightclub and speakeasy in Chicago, Illinois, a famed jazz music venue in the 1920s.Though some sources refer to it casually as "Friar's Club", it was not related to the Friars Club of New York....
, where he listened to and sometimes sat in with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings
New Orleans Rhythm Kings
The New Orleans Rhythm Kings were one of the most influential jazz bands of the early-to-mid 1920s. The band was a combination of New Orleans and Chicago musicians who helped shape Chicago Jazz and influenced many younger jazz musicians....
. He also traveled to the predominantly African-American South Side
South Side (Chicago)
The South Side is a major part of the City of Chicago, which is located in Cook County, Illinois, United States. Much of it has evolved from the city's incorporation of independent townships, such as Hyde Park Township which voted along with several other townships to be annexed in the June 29,...
to listen to what he called "real" jazz musicians. "Don't think I'm getting hard, Burnie," he wrote to his brother, "but I'd go to hell to hear a good band." On campus, he helped organize the Cy-Bix Orchestra with drummer Walter "Cy" Welge and almost immediately got into trouble with the Lake Forest headmaster for performing indecorously at a school dance.
Beiderbecke often failed to return to his dormitory before curfew, and sometimes stayed off-campus the next day. In the early morning hours of May 20, he was caught on the fire escape to his dormitory, attempting to climb back into his room. The faculty voted to expel him the next day, due both to his academic failings and his extracurricular activities, which included drinking. The headmaster informed Beiderbecke's parents by letter that following his expulsion school officials confirmed that Beiderbecke "was drinking himself and was responsible, in part at least, in having liquor brought into the School." Soon after, Beiderbecke began pursuing a career in music.
He returned to Davenport briefly in the summer of 1922, then moved to Chicago to join the Cascades Band, working that summer on Lake Michigan excursion boats. He gigged around Chicago until the fall of 1923, at times returning to Davenport to work for his father.
Wolverines
Beiderbecke joined the Wolverine Orchestra late in 1923, and the seven-man group first played a speakeasy called the Stockton Club near Hamilton, Ohio. Specializing in hot jazz and recoiling from so-called sweet music, the band took its name from one of its most frequent numbers, Jelly Roll MortonJelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
's "Wolverine Blues." During this time, Beiderbecke also took piano lessons from a young woman who introduced him to the works of Eastwood Lane
Eastwood Lane
Eastwood Lane was an American composer who wrote piano suites and ballet music.Eastwood Lane was born in Brewerton, New York....
. Lane's piano suites and orchestral arrangements were both self-consciously American and influenced by the French Impressionists, and it is said to have greatly influenced Beiderbecke's style, especially on "In a Mist." A subsequent gig at Doyle's Dance Academy in Cincinnati became the occasion for a series of band and individual photographs that resulted in the most famous image of Beiderbecke—sitting fresh-faced, his hair perfectly combed, his horn resting on his right knee.
On February 18, 1924, the Wolverines first recorded at Gennett Records
Gennett Records
Gennett was a United States based record label which flourished in the 1920s.-Label history:Gennett records was founded in Richmond, Indiana by the Starr Piano Company, and released its first records in October 1917. The company took its name from its top managers: Harry, Fred and Clarence Gennett....
in Richmond, Indiana. Their two sides that day included "Fidgety Feet," written by Nick LaRocca and Larry Shields
Larry Shields
Lawrence James "Larry" Shields was an early American dixieland jazz clarinetist.Shields was born into an Irish-American family in Uptown New Orleans, on the same block where jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden lived...
from the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, and "Jazz Me Blues." Beiderbecke's solo on the latter suggested something new and significant in jazz, according to biographers Richard M. Sudhalter
Dick Sudhalter
Richard "Dick" Sudhalter was an American jazz trumpeter, scholar, critic, and album annotator.-Biography:...
and Philip R. Evans:
Both qualities—complementary or "correlated" phrasing and cultivation of the vocal, "singing" middle-range of the cornet—are on display in Bix's "Jazz Me Blues" solo, along with an already discernible inclination for unusual accidentals and inner chordal voices. It is a pioneer record, introducing a musician of great originality with a pace-setting band. And it astonished even the Wolverines themselves.
The Wolverines recorded 15 sides for Gennett Records between February and October 1924. The titles revealed a tough and well-formed cornet talent. His lip had toughened from earlier, more tentative years; on nine of the Wolverines' recorded titles he proceeds commandingly from lead to opening solo without any need for a respite from playing.
Beiderbecke made his first recordings 21 months before Armstrong recorded as a leader with the Hot Five. Beiderbecke's style was very different from that of Louis Armstrong according to the The Oxford Companion to Jazz:
Where Armstrong emphasized showmanship and virtuosity, Beiderbecke emphasized melody, even when improvising, and—different from Armstrong and contrary to how the Bix Beiderbecke of legend would be portrayed—he rarely strayed into the upper reaches of the register. Paul Mares
Paul Mares
Paul Mares , was an American early dixieland jazz cornet & trumpet player, and leader of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.Mares was born in New Orleans. His father, Joseph E...
of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings insisted that Beiderbecke's chief influence was the New Orleans cornetist Emmett Hardy
Emmett Hardy
Emmett Louis Hardy was an early jazz cornet player and one of the best regarded New Orleans musicians of his generation....
, who died in 1925 at the age of 23. Indeed, Beiderbecke had met Hardy and the clarinetist Leon Roppolo
Leon Roppolo
Leon Roppolo was a prominent early jazz clarinetist, best known for his playing with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Roppolo also played saxophone and guitar. Roppolo married Mabel Alice Branchard on 17 May 1920 in New Orleans...
in Davenport in 1921 when the two joined a local band and played in town for three months. Beiderbecke apparently spent time with them, but the degree to which Hardy's style influenced Beiderbecke's is difficult to know because Hardy never recorded. In some respects, Beiderbecke's playing was sui generis, but he nevertheless listened to and studied the music around him: from Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings to Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
and Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
.
Soon, he was listening to Hoagy Carmichael
Hoagy Carmichael
Howard Hoagland "Hoagy" Carmichael was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust", "Georgia On My Mind", "The Nearness of You", and "Heart and Soul", four of the most-recorded American songs of all time.Alec Wilder, in his study of the...
, too. A law student and aspiring pianist and songwriter, Carmichael invited the Wolverines to Bloomington, Indiana, late in April 1924. Beiderbecke had met Carmichael a couple of times before and the two became friends. On May 6, 1924, the Wolverines recorded a tune Carmichael had written especially for Beiderbecke and his colleagues: "Riverboat Shuffle
Riverboat Shuffle
"Riverboat Shuffle" is a popular song composed by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Irving Mills, Mitchell Parish and Dick Voynow. First recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and The Wolverines in 1924, it was Carmichael's first composition and become a Dixieland standard. The Wolverines released the song as a...
".
Beiderbecke left the Wolverines in October 1924 for a spot with Jean Goldkette in Detroit, but the job didn't last long. Goldkette recorded for the Victor Talking Machine Company
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
, whose musical director, Eddie King, objected to Beiderbecke's hot-jazz style of soloing; it wasn't copacetic with the commercial obligations that came with the band's recording contract. King also was frustrated by the cornetist's inability to deftly sight read. After a few weeks, Beiderbecke was bounced from the Goldkette band, but soon arranged a recording session back in Richmond with some of its members. On January 26, 1925, Bix and His Rhythm Jugglers set two tunes to wax: "Toddlin' Blues," another number by LaRocca and Shields, and Beiderbecke's own composition, "Davenport Blues
Davenport Blues
Davenport Blues is a 1925 song composed and recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and released as a Gennett 78. The song has become a jazz and pop standard....
." Beiderbecke biographer Lion has complained that the second number was marred by the alcohol consumed by the musicians. In subsequent years, "Davenport Blues" has been recorded by musicians from Bunny Berigan
Bunny Berigan
Rowland Bernard "Bunny" Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter who rose to fame during the swing era, but whose virtuosity and influence were shortened by a losing battle with alcoholism that ended in his early death at age 33. He composed the jazz instrumentals "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues"...
to Ry Cooder
Ry Cooder
Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
to Geoff Muldaur
Geoff Muldaur
Geoff Muldaur is an American founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band of Cambridge, Massachusetts; a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days; and an accomplished solo guitarist, singer, and songwriter....
.
The following month, Beiderbecke enrolled at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. His stint in academia was even briefer than his time in Detroit, however. When he attempted to pack his course schedule with music, his guidance counselor forced him instead to take religion, ethics, physical education, and military training. It was an institutional blunder that Benny Green described as being, in retrospect, "comical," "fatuous," and "a parody." Beiderbecke promptly began to skip classes, and after he participated in a drunken bar fight, he was expelled. That summer he played with his friends Don Murray and Howdy Quicksell
Howard 'Howdy' Quicksell
Howard "Howdy" Quicksell was an American composer and banjoist.He was featured on banjo with the Jean Goldkette orchestra from 1922 until 1927, one of just two mainstays with the Goldkette band from inception to demise...
at a lake resort in Michigan. The band was run by Goldkette, and it put Beiderbecke in touch with another musician he had met before: the C-melody saxophone
C melody saxophone
The C melody saxophone is a saxophone pitched in the key of C, one whole step above the tenor saxophone. In the UK it is sometimes referred to as a "C tenor", and in France as a "tenor en ut". The C melody was part of the series of saxophones pitched in C and F, intended by the instrument's...
player Frankie Trumbauer. The two hit it off, both personally and musically, despite Trumbauer having been warned by other musicians: "Look out, he's trouble. He drinks and you'll have a hard time handling him." They were inseparable for much of the rest of Beiderbecke's career, with Trumbauer acting as a father figure to Beiderbecke. When Trumbauer organized a band for an extended run at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, Beiderbecke joined him. There he also played alongside the clarinetist Pee Wee Russell
Pee Wee Russell
Charles Ellsworth Russell, much better known by his nickname Pee Wee Russell, was a jazz musician. Early in his career he played clarinet and saxophones, but eventually focused solely on clarinet....
, who praised Beiderbecke's ability to drive the band. "He more or less made you play whether you wanted to or not," Russell said. "If you had any talent at all he made you play better."
Goldkette
In the spring of 1926, Trumbauer closed up shop in St. Louis and, with Beiderbecke, moved to Detroit, this time to play with Goldkette's headline ensemble. They played the summer at Hudson Lake, a resort in northern Indiana, and split the next year between touring, recording, and performing at Detroit's Graystone Ballroom. In October 1926, Goldkette's "Famous Fourteen," as they came to be called, opened at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City opposite the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the East Coast's outstanding African American big bandBig band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s. The Roseland promoted a "Battle of the Bands" in the local press and, on October 12, after a night of furious playing, Goldkette's men were declared the winners. "We… were amazed, angry, morose, and bewildered," Rex Stewart, Fletcher's lead trumpeter, said of listening to Beiderbecke and his colleagues play. He called the experience "most humiliating".
Although the band recorded numerous sides for Victor during this period, none of them showcases Beiderbecke's most famous solos. Much of Goldkette's money was made through these records, but they were subject—as Eddie King had well understood—to the forces of the commercial market. As a result, their sound was often "sweeter" than what many of the hot jazz musicians would have preferred. In addition to their sessions with Goldkette, Beiderbecke and his friends recorded under their own names for the Okeh
Okeh Records
Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...
label. For instance, on February 4, 1927, Frank Trumbauer and His Orchestra recorded "Trumbology", "Clarinet Marmalade", and "Singin' the Blues", all three of which featured some of Beiderbecke's best work. Again with Trumbauer, Beiderbecke re-recorded Carmichael's "Riverboat Shuffle" in May and delivered two of his best known solos a few days later on "I'm Coming, Virginia" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans
Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
"Way Down Yonder In New Orleans" is a popular song with music by John Turner Layton, Jr. and lyrics by Henry Creamer. First published in 1922, Creamer and Layton advertised it as "A Southern Song, without A Mammy, A Mule, Or A Moon", a dig at some of the Tin Pan Alley clichés of the era.It was...
". Beiderbecke earned co-writing credit with Trumbauer on "For No Reason at All in C", recorded under the name Tram, Bix and Eddie (in their Three Piece Band). Beiderbecke switched between cornet and piano on that number, and then in September played only piano for his recording of "In A Mist
In a Mist
"In a Mist" is a 1927 song composed by Bix Beiderbecke and released as a 78 single on Okeh as a piano solo. The song has become a jazz and pop standard....
". This was perhaps the most fruitful year of his short career.
Under financial pressure, Goldkette folded his premier band in September in New York. Paul Whiteman hoped to snatch up Goldkette's best musicians for his traveling orchestra, but Beiderbecke, Trumbauer, Murray, Rank, Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang
Eddie Lang was an American jazz guitarist, regarded as the Father of Jazz Guitar. He played a Gibson L-4 and L-5 guitar, providing great influence for many guitarists, including Django Reinhardt.-Biography:...
, Joe Venuti, Chauncey Morehouse
Chauncey Morehouse
Chauncey Morehouse was an American jazz drummer.-Biography:Chauncey Morehouse was born in Niagara Falls, New York in 1902 and was raised in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he played drums from a very early age. He also played piano and banjo too. As a high schooler, he led a group called the...
, and Frank Signorelli
Frank Signorelli
Frank Signorelli was an US jazz pianist of the 1920s. He was a founder member of the Original Memphis Five in 1917, then joined the Original Dixieland Jazz Band briefly in 1921. In 1927 he played in Adrian Rollini's New York ensemble, and subsequently worked with Eddie Lang, Bix Beiderbecke, Matty...
instead joined the bass saxophone
Bass saxophone
The bass saxophone is the second largest member of the saxophone family. Its design is similar to that of the baritone saxophone, with a loop of tubing near the mouthpiece. It was the first type of saxophone presented to the public, when Adolphe Sax exhibited a bass saxophone in C at an exhibition...
player Adrian Rollini
Adrian Rollini
Adrian Francis Rollini was a multi-instrumentalist best known for his jazz music. He played the bass saxophone, piano, xylophone, and many other instruments. Rollini is also known for introducing the goofus in jazz music...
at the Club New Yorker. When that job ended sooner than expected, in October 1927, Beiderbecke and Trumbauer signed on with Whiteman. They joined his orchestra in Indianapolis on October 27.
Whiteman
The Paul Whiteman Orchestra was the most popular and highest paid band of the day. In spite of Whiteman's nickname, "The King of Jazz," his was not a jazz ensemble, but a popular music outfit that played bits of jazz and classical music according to the demands of its record-buying and concert-going audience. Whiteman was perhaps best known for having premiered George GershwinGeorge Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
's Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects....
in New York in 1924, and the orchestrator of that piece, Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
, continued to be an important part of the band in 1928. At three hundred pounds, Whiteman was huge both physically and culturally—"a man flabby, virile, quick, coarse, untidy and sleek, with a hard core of shrewdness in an envelope of sentimentalism," according to a 1926 New Yorker profile. And many Beiderbecke partisans have turned Whiteman into a villain in the years since.
Benny Green, in particular, derided Whiteman for being a mere "mediocre vaudeville act," and suggesting that "today we only tolerate the horrors of Whiteman's recordings at all in the hope that here and there a Bixian fragment will redeem the mess." Richard Sudhalter has responded by suggesting that Beiderbecke saw Whiteman as an opportunity to pursue musical ambitions that did not stop at jazz:
Colleagues have testified that, far from feeling bound or stifled by the Whiteman orchestra, as Green and others have suggested, Bix often felt a sense of exhilaration. It was like attending a music school, learning and broadening: formal music, especially the synthesis of the American vernacular idiom with a more classical orientation, so much sought-after in the 1920s, were calling out to him.
The education that Beiderbecke did not receive from the University of Iowa, in other words, he sought through Whiteman. In the meantime, Beiderbecke played on four number-one records in 1928
1928 in music
-Events:*April 27 - Igor Stravinsky's ballet Apollon musagète is premiered in Washington.*September 11 - Leoš Janáček's String Quartet No. 2, Intimate Letters, is premiered in Brno....
, all under the Whiteman name: "Together," "Ramona," "My Angel," and "Ol' Man River
Ol' Man River
"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
", which featured Bing Crosby on vocals. This accomplishment says less about the jazz excellence of these records than it does about the tastes of the largely white, record-buying public to which Whiteman (and Goldkette before him) catered.
For Beiderbecke, the downside of being with Whiteman was the relentless touring and recording schedule, exacerbated by Beiderbecke's alcoholism. On November 30, 1928, in Cleveland, Beiderbecke suffered what Lion terms "a severe nervous crisis" and Sudhalter and Evans suggest "was in all probability an acute attack of delirium tremens
Delirium tremens
Delirium tremens is an acute episode of delirium that is usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol, first described in 1813...
," presumably triggered by Beiderbecke's attempt to curb his alcohol intake. "He cracked up, that's all," trombonist Bill Rank said. "Just went to pieces; broke up a roomful of furniture in the hotel."
In February 1929, Beiderbecke returned home to Davenport to convalesce and was hailed by the local press as "the world's hottest cornetist." He then spent the summer with Whiteman's band in Hollywood in preparation for the shooting of a new talking picture, The King of Jazz. Production delays prevented any real work from being done on the film, leaving Beiderbecke and his pals plenty of time to drink heavily. By September, he was back in Davenport, where his parents helped him to seek treatment. He spent a month, from October 14 until November 18, at the Keeley Institute
Keeley Institute
The Keeley Institute, known for its Keeley Cure, was a commercial medical operation that offered treatment to alcoholics from 1879 to 1965. Though at one time there were more than 200 branches in the United States and Europe, the original institute was founded by Leslie Keeley in Dwight, Illinois,...
in Dwight, Illinois.
While he was away, Whiteman famously kept a chair empty in Beiderbecke's honor. But when he returned to New York at the end of January 1930, the renowned soloist did not rejoin Whiteman and performed only sparingly. On his last recording session, in New York, on September 15, 1930, Beiderbecke played on the original recording of Hoagy Carmichael's new song, "Georgia on My Mind
Georgia on My Mind
"Georgia on My Mind" is a song written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell . It is the official state song of the U.S. state of Georgia. Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy's sister, Georgia Carmichael. However, the lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or...
", with Carmichael doing the vocal, Eddie Lang on guitar, Joe Venuti on violin, Jimmy Dorsey
Jimmy Dorsey
James "Jimmy" Dorsey was a prominent American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He was known as "JD"...
on clarinet and alto saxophone, Jack Teagarden
Jack Teagarden
Weldon Leo "Jack" Teagarden , known as "Big T" and "The Swingin' Gate", was an influential jazz trombonist, bandleader, composer, and vocalist, regarded as the "Father of Jazz Trombone".-Early life:...
on trombone, and Bud Freeman
Bud Freeman
Lawrence "Bud" Freeman was a U.S. jazz musician, bandleader, and composer, known mainly for playing the tenor saxophone, but also able at the clarinet. He had a smooth and full tenor sax style with a heavy robust swing. He was one of the most influential and important jazz tenor saxophonists of...
on tenor saxophone. The song would go on to become a jazz and popular music standard
Traditional pop music
Traditional pop or classic pop or standards music denotes, in general, Western popular music that either wholly predates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, or to any popular music which exists concurrently to rock and roll but originated in a time before the appearance of rock and roll,...
.
Two years earlier, Beiderbecke had influenced another Carmichael standard, "Star Dust
Stardust (song)
"Stardust" is an American popular song composed in 1927 by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics added in 1929 by Mitchell Parish. Originally titled "Star Dust", Carmichael first recorded the song at the Gennett Records studio in Richmond, Indiana...
". A Beiderbecke riff caught in Carmichael's head and became the tune's chorus. Bing Crosby, who sang with Whiteman, also cited Beiderbecke as an important influence. "Bix and all the rest would play and exchange ideas on the piano," he said.
With all the noise [of a New York pub] going on, I don't know how they heard themselves, but they did. I didn't contribute anything, but I listened and learned… I was now being influenced by these musicians, particularly horn men. I could hum and sing all of the jazz choruses from the recordings made by Bix, Phil Napoleon, and the rest.
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
, the once-booming music industry contracted and work became more difficult to find. For a while, Beiderbecke's only income came from a radio show booked by Whiteman, The Camel Pleasure Hour. However, during a live broadcast on October 8, 1930, Beiderbecke's seemingly limitless gift for improvisation finally failed him: "He stood up to take his solo, but his mind went blank and nothing happened," recalled a fellow musician, Frankie Cush. Whiteman finally let Beiderbecke go. The cornetist spent the rest of the year at home in Davenport and then, in February 1931, he returned to New York one last time.
Death
Beiderbecke died in his apartment, #1G, 43-30 46th Street, in Sunnyside, Queens, on Thursday, August 6, 1931. The week had been quite hot, making sleep difficult, and late into the evenings, Beiderbecke had played piano, both to the annoyance and to the delight of his neighbors. On the evening of August 6, at about 9.30 pm, his rental agent, George Kraslow, heard noises coming from across the hallway. "His hysterical shouts brought me to his apartment on the run," Kraslow told Philip Evans in 1959.He pulled me in and pointed to the bed. His whole body was trembling violently. He was screaming there were two Mexicans hiding under his bed with long daggers. To humor him, I looked under the bed and when I rose to assure him there was no one hiding there, he staggered and fell, a dead weight, in my arms. I ran across the hall and called in a woman doctor, Dr. Haberski, to examine him. She pronounced him dead.
Historians have disagreed over the identity of the doctor who pronounced Beiderbecke dead. The official cause of death, meanwhile, was lobar pneumonia
Lobar pneumonia
Lobar pneumonia is a form of pneumonia that affects a large and continuous area of the lobe of a lung.It is one of the two anatomic classifications of pneumonia .- Symptoms :...
, with scholars continuing to debate the extent to which his alcoholism was also a factor. Beiderbecke's mother and brother took the train to New York and brought his body home to Davenport. He was buried there on August 11 in the family plot at Oakdale Cemetery
Oakdale Memorial Gardens
Oakdale Memorial Gardens, formerly Oakdale Cemetery, is located in east-central Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was established in 1856 and designed by Captain George F. de la Roche, who had finished the design of Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. five years earlier. It is considered a...
.
Legend and legacy
When he died, Beiderbecke was little known except among fellow musicians, and for several years critics paid his music little mind. As Jean Pierre Lion has pointed out, "the only serious and analytical obituary to have been published in the months" after his death was by a Frenchman, Hugues PanassiéHugues Panassié
Hugues Panassié was a French jazz critic and producer. His most famous works were Hot Jazz: The Guide to Swing Music and The Real Jazz, published in 1936 and 1942, respectively....
. The notice appeared in October 1931 and began with a bit of hyperbole and an incorrect fact, two hallmarks of much of the subsequent writing about Beiderbecke: "The announcement of Bix Beiderbecke's death plunged all jazz musicians into despair. We first believed it was a false alarm, as we had heard so often before about Bix. Unfortunately, precise information has been forthcoming, and we even know the day—August 7—when he passed away."
The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
critic Otis Ferguson
Otis Ferguson
Otis Ferguson was an American writer best remembered for his music and film reviews in The New Republic in the 1930s.Although he can be seen as a key predecessor to film critics like James Agee, Manny Farber, Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, he has also been characterized by Robert Christgau as...
wrote two short articles for the magazine, "Young Man with a Horn" (July 29, 1936) and "Young Man with a Horn Again" (November 18, 1940), that worked to revive interest not only in Beiderbecke's music but also in his biography. Beiderbecke "lived very briefly… in what might be called the servants' entrance to art," Ferguson wrote. "His story is a good story, quite humble and right." The romantic notion of the doomed jazz genius can be traced back at least as far as Beiderbecke, and lived on in Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
, and many more.
Ferguson's sense of what was "right" became the basis for the Beiderbecke Romantic legend, which has traditionally emphasized the musician's Iowa roots, his often careless dress, his difficulty sight reading, the purity of his tone, his drinking, and his early death. These themes were repeated by Beiderbecke's friends in various memoirs, including The Stardust Road (1946) and Sometimes I Wonder (1965) by Hoagy Carmichael, Really the Blues (1946) by Mezz Mezzrow
Mezz Mezzrow
Milton Mesirow, better known as Mezz Mezzrow was an American jazz clarinetist and saxophonist from Chicago, Illinois. Mezzrow is well known for organizing and financing historic recording sessions with Tommy Ladnier and Sidney Bechet. Mezzrow also recorded a number of times with Bechet and...
, and We Called It Music (1947) by Eddie Condon
Eddie Condon
Albert Edwin Condon , better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion....
. Beiderbecke was portrayed as a tragic genius along the lines of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, but without the high-culture pretensions. "For his talent there were no conservatories to get stuffy in, no high-trumpet didoes to be learned doggedly, note-perfect as written," Ferguson wrote, "because in his chosen form the only writing of any account was traced in the close shouting air of Royal Gardens, Grand Pavilions, honkeytonks, etc." He was "this big overgrown kid, who looked like he'd been snatched out of a cradle in the cornfields," Mezzrow wrote. "The guy didn't have an enemy in the world," recalled Beiderbecke's friend Russ Morgan
Russ Morgan
Russ Morgan was a big band orchestra leader and musical arranger in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...
, "[b]ut he was out of this world most of the time." According to Ralph Berton, he was "as usual gazing off into his private astronomy," but his cornet, Condon famously quipped, sounded "like a girl saying yes."
In 1938, Dorothy Baker
Dorothy Baker
-Early life:She was born Dorothy Dodds on April 21, 1907 in Missoula, Montana and raised in California. Baker attended Whittier College, then transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, from which she graduated in 1929...
borrowed the titles of her friend Otis Ferguson's two articles and published the novel Young Man with a Horn. Her story of the doomed trumpet player Rick Martin was inspired, she wrote, by "the music, but not the life" of Beiderbecke, but the image of Martin quickly became the image of Beiderbecke: His story is about "the gap between the man's musical ability and his ability to fit it to his own life." In 1950, Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz
Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...
directed the film Young Man with a Horn
Young Man with a Horn (film)
Young Man with a Horn is a 1950 drama film based on a biographical novel of the same name aboutBix Beiderbecke, the legendary jazz cornetist...
, starring Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
, and Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
. In this version, in which Hoagy Carmichael also plays a role, the Rick Martin character lives.
In Blackboard Jungle
Blackboard Jungle
Blackboard Jungle is a 1955 social commentary film about teachers in an inner-city school. It is based on the novel of the same name by Evan Hunter.-Plot:...
, a 1955 film starring Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
and Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
, Beiderbecke's music is briefly featured, but as a symbol of cultural conservatism in a nation on the cusp of the rock and roll revolution. Still, the Beiderbecke of legend came to represent a certain kind of cool
Cool (aesthetic)
Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of...
character that was omnipresent in 1950s popular culture: the alienated young white man rebelling against white culture and willing to engage black culture in pursuit of his art.
In 1971, on the 40th anniversary of Beiderbecke's death, the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival was founded in Davenport, Iowa, to honor the musician. Three years later, Ralph Berton, whose brother Vic Berton
Vic Berton
Vic Berton , was an American jazz drummer.Berton was born, Victor Cohen, in Chicago. His father was a violinist and began his son on string instruments around age five. He was hired as a percussionist at the Alhambra Theater in Milwaukee in 1903 when he was only seven years old...
played for a time with Beiderbecke in the Wolverines, published a memoir, Remembering Bix, in which he claimed that Beiderbecke had had a brief fling with another of Berton's brothers, Eugene. This has led to speculation that Beiderbecke was gay, accompanied by vehement denials. Also in 1974, Sudhalter and Evans published their biography, Bix: Man and Legend, which was nominated for a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
. In 1977, the Beiderbecke childhood home at 1934 Grand Avenue in Davenport was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Beiderbecke's music was featured in three British comedy drama television series, all written by Alan Plater
Alan Plater
Alan Frederick Plater, CBE, FRSL was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television from the 1960s to the 2000s.-Career:...
: The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair
The Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the UK by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981...
(1984), The Beiderbecke Tapes
The Beiderbecke Tapes
The Beiderbecke Tapes is a two-part British television drama serial written by Alan Plater and broadcast in 1987. It is the second serial in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and stars James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne...
(1987), and The Beiderbecke Connection
The Beiderbecke Connection
The Beiderbecke Connection is a four part British television serial written by Alan Plater and broadcast in 1988. It is the third and final part of The Beiderbecke Trilogy and stars James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne...
(1988). In 1991, the Italian director Pupi Avati
Pupi Avati
Giuseppe Avati, better known as Pupi Avati is an Italian film director, producer, and screenwriter.-Early life and career:...
released Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend
Bix (film)
Bix is a 1991 Italian drama film about the final years of cornet player Bix Beiderbecke. It was directed by Pupi Avati and was entered into the 1991 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:...
. Filmed partially in the Beiderbecke home, which Avati had purchased and renovated, Bix was screened at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Beiderbecke's music continues to reside mostly out of the mainstream and some of the facts of his life are still debated, but scholars largely agree—due in part to the influence of Sudhalter and Evans—that he was an important innovator in early jazz; jazz cornetists, including Sudhalter (before his death in 2008), and Tom Pletcher, closely emulate his style. In 2003, to mark the hundredth anniversary of his birth, the Greater Astoria Historical Society
Greater Astoria Historical Society
The Greater Astoria Historical Society is a non-profit cultural and historical organization located in Astoria, Queens, New York, dedicated to preserving the past and promoting the future of the neighborhoods that are part of historic Long Island City, including; the Village of Astoria,...
and other community organizations, spearheaded by Paul Maringelli and The Bix Beiderbecke Sunnyside Memorial Committee, erected a plaque in Beiderbecke's honor at the apartment building in which he died in Queens. That same year, Frederick Turner published his novel 1929, which followed the facts of Beiderbecke's life fairly closely, focusing on his summer in Hollywood and featuring appearances by Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
and Clara Bow
Clara Bow
Clara Gordon Bow was an American actress who rose to stardom in the silent film era of the 1920s. It was her appearance as a spunky shopgirl in the film It that brought her global fame and the nickname "The It Girl." Bow came to personify the roaring twenties and is described as its leading sex...
. The critic and musician Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather
Digby Fairweather is a British jazz cornettist and broadcaster.-Biography:Fairweather has been a professional jazz musician since 1 January 1977, but worked for seven years previously with several local jazz bands in the Essex area and recorded his first album in 1975...
sums up Beiderbecke's musical legacy, arguing that "with Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke was the most striking of jazz's cornet (and of course, trumpet) fathers; a player who first captivated his 1920s generation and after his premature death, founded a dynasty of distinguished followers beginning with Jimmy McPartland and moving on down from there."
Style and influence
Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong were among jazz's first soloists. In New Orleans, jazz had been ensemble playing, with the various instruments weaving their parts into a single and coherent aural tapestry. There had been soloists, to be sure, with the clarinetist Sidney BechetSidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.He was one of the first important soloists in jazz , and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist...
the best known among them, but these players "lacked the technical resources and, even more, the creative depth to make the solo the compelling centerpiece of jazz music." That changed in 1924 when Beiderbecke and Armstrong began to make their most important records. According to the critic Terry Teachout
Terry Teachout
Terry Teachout is a critic, biographer and blogger. He is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal, the chief culture critic of Commentary, and the author of "Sightings," a column about the arts in America that appears biweekly in the Friday Wall Street Journal...
, they are "the two most influential figures in the early history of jazz" and "the twin lines of descent from which most of today's jazz can be traced."
Beiderbecke's cornet style is often described by contrasting it with Armstrong's markedly different approach. Armstrong was a virtuoso on his instrument, and his solos often took advantage of that fact. Beiderbecke was largely, although not completely, self-taught, and the constraints imposed by that fact were evident in his music. While Armstrong often soared into the upper register, Beiderbecke stayed in the middle range, more interested in exploring the melody and harmonies than in dazzling the audience. Armstrong often emphasized the performance aspect of his playing, while Beiderbecke tended to stare at his feet while playing, uninterested in personally engaging his listeners. Armstrong was deeply influenced by the blues, while Beiderbecke was influenced as much by modernist composers such as Debussy and Ravel as by his fellow jazzmen.
Beiderbecke's most famous solo was on "Singin' the Blues", recorded February 4, 1927. It has been hailed as an important example of the "jazz ballad style"—"a slow or medium-tempo piece played gently and sweetly, but not cloyingly, with no loss of muscle." The tune's laid-back emotions hinted at what would become, in the 1950s, the cool jazz style, personified by Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
and Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
. More than that, though, "Singin' the Blues" has been noted for the way its improvisations feel less improvised than composed, with each phrase building on the last in a logical fashion. Benny Green describes the solo's effect on practiced ears:
When a musician hears Bix's solo on 'Singing the Blues', he becomes aware after two bars that the soloist knows exactly what he is doing and that he has an exquisite sense of discord and resolution. He knows also that this player is endowed with the rarest jazz gift of all, a sense of form which lends to an improvised performance a coherence which no amount of teaching can produce. The listening musician, whatever his generation or his style, recognizes Bix as a modern, modernism being not a style but an attitude.
Like Green, who made particular mention of Beiderbecke's "amount of teaching," the jazz historian Ted Gioia
Ted Gioia
Ted Gioia is a noted jazz critic and music historian, best known for his books The History of Jazz and Delta Blues, both selected as notable books of the year by The New York Times. He is one of the editors in chief of the Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. He is also a jazz musician and one of the...
also has emphasized Beiderbecke's lack of formal instruction, suggesting that it caused him to adopt "an unusual, dry embouchure" and "unconventional fingerings," which he retained for the rest of his life. Gioia points to "a characteristic streak of obstinacy" in Beiderbecke that provokes "this chronic disregard of the tried-and-true." He argues that this stubbornness was behind Beiderbecke's decision not to switch from cornet to trumpet when many other musicians, including Armstrong, did so. In addition, Gioia highlights Beiderbecke's precise timing, relaxed delivery, and pure tone, which contrasted with "the dirty, rough-edged sound" of King Oliver and his protégé Armstrong, whose playing was often more energetic and whose style held more sway early in the 1920s than Beiderbecke's. Gioia further wonders whether the many hyperbolic and quasi-poetic descriptions of Beiderbecke’s style—most notably Condon's "like a girl saying yes"—may indicate that Beiderbecke's sound was muddled on recordings.
Eddie Condon, Hoagy Carmichael, and Mezz Mezzrow, all of whom hyperbolically raved about his playing, also saw Beiderbecke play live or performed alongside him. Condon, for instance, wrote of being amazed by Beiderbecke's piano playing: "All my life I had been listening to music… But I had never heard anything remotely like what Beiderbecke played. For the first time I realized music isn't all the same, it had become an entirely new set of sounds…" "I tried to explain Bix to the gang," Carmichael wrote, but "… [i]t was no good, like the telling of a vivid, personal dream… the emotion couldn't be transmitted."
Mezzrow described Beiderbecke's tone as being "pickled in alcohol… I have never heard a tone like he got before or since. He played mostly open horn, every note full, big, rich and round, standing out like a pearl, loud but never irritating or jangling, with a powerful drive that few white musicians had in those days."
Some critics have highlighted "Jazz Me Blues," recorded with the Wolverines on February 18, 1924, as being particularly important to understanding Beiderbecke's style. Although it was one of his earliest recordings, the hallmarks of his playing were evident. "The overall impression we get from this solo, as in all of Bix at his best," writes the trumpeter Randy Sandke
Randy Sandke
Randy Sandke is a jazz trumpeter and guitarist.In an interview with Larry Kart he said: "I got into jazz kind of chronologically, beginning with Bix and Louis, then Dizzy, Clifford Brown, Miles, and Freddie Hubbard. I also studied at Roosevelt University with Renold Schilke, a legendary teacher...
, "is that every note is spontaneous yet inevitable." Richard Hadlock describes Beiderbecke's contribution to "Jazz Me Blues" as "an ordered solo that seems more inspired by clarinetists Larry Shields of the ODJB and Leon Roppolo of the NORK than by other trumpet players." He goes on to suggest that clarinetists, by virtue of their not being tied to the melody as much as cornetists and trumpet players, could explore harmonies.
"Jazz Me Blues" was also important because it introduced what has been called the "correlated chorus," a method of improvising that Beiderbecke's Davenport friend Esten Spurrier attributed to both Beiderbecke and Armstrong. "Louis departed greatly from all cornet players in his ability to compose a close-knit individual 32 measures with all phrases compatible with each other…," Spurrier told the biographers Sudhalter and Evans, "so Bix and I always credited Louis as being the father of the correlated chorus: play two measures, then two related, making four measures, on which you played another four measures related to the first four, and so on ad infinitum to the end of the chorus. So the secret was simple—a series of related phrases."
Beiderbecke's piano playing, meanwhile, can be considered on his recordings "Big Boy" (October 8, 1924), "For No Reason at All in C" (May 13, 1927), "Wringin' and Twistin'" (September 17, 1927)—all with ensembles—and his only solo recorded work, "In a Mist" (September 8, 1927). Critic Frank Murphy argues that many of the same characteristics that mark Beiderbecke on the cornet mark him on the keyboard: the uncharacteristic fingering, the emphasis on inventive harmonies, and the correlated choruses. Those inventive harmonies, on both cornet and piano, eventually helped point the way to bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, which abandoned melody almost entirely.
Compositions
Bix Beiderbecke wrote or co-wrote six instrumental compositions during his career:- "Davenport Blues" (1925)
- "In a Mist (Bixology)" (1927)
- "For No Reason at All in C" (1927) with Franky Trumbauer
- "Candlelights" (1930)
- "Flashes" (1931)
- "In the Dark" (1931)
"Candlelights", "Flashes", and "In the Dark" are piano compositions transcribed with the help of Bill Challis but never recorded by Beiderbecke. Two additional compositions were attributed to him by two other jazz composers: "Betcha I Getcha," attributed to Beiderbecke as a co-composer by Joe Venuti, the composer of the song, and "Cloudy", attributed to Beiderbecke by composer Charlie Davis
Charlie Davis
Charles Allan Davis is a former West Indian cricketer who played in fifteen Tests from 1968 to 1973. Davis started his first-class career at the age of 17, playing for Trinidad. After a good Shell Shield season in 1968 Davis was selected for the West Indies...
as a composition from circa 1924.
Major recordings
Bix Beiderbecke's first recordings were as a member of the Wolverine Orchestra:- "Fidgety Feet" / "Jazz Me Blues," recorded on February 18, 1924, in Richmond, Indiana, and released as Gennett 5408
- "Copenhagen", recorded on May 6, 1924, and released as Gennett 5453B and Claxtonola 40336B
- "Riverboat ShuffleRiverboat Shuffle"Riverboat Shuffle" is a popular song composed by Hoagy Carmichael with lyrics by Irving Mills, Mitchell Parish and Dick Voynow. First recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and The Wolverines in 1924, it was Carmichael's first composition and become a Dixieland standard. The Wolverines released the song as a...
" / "Susie (Of the Islands)", recorded on May 6, 1924, and released as Gennett 5454
As Bix Beiderbecke and his Rhythm Jugglers:
- "Toddlin' Blues" / "Davenport BluesDavenport BluesDavenport Blues is a 1925 song composed and recorded by Bix Beiderbecke and released as a Gennett 78. The song has become a jazz and pop standard....
", recorded on January 26, 1925, in Richmond, Indiana, and released as Gennett 5654
With the Jean Goldkette Orchestra in 1926–1927:
- "My Pretty Girl" / "Cover Me Up with Sunshine", recorded on February 1, 1927, in New York and released as Victor 20588
- "Sunny Disposish" / "Fox Trot" from "Americana", recorded on February 3, 1927, in New York and released as Victor 20493B
With Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra and guitarist Eddie Lang:
- "Clarinet Marmalade" / "Singin' the Blues", recorded on February 4, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 40772
- "I'm Coming, Virginia" / "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", recorded on May 13, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 40843
- "For No Reason at All in C" / "Trumbology", recorded on May 13, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 40871, Columbia 35667, and Parlophone R 3419
- "In a MistIn a Mist"In a Mist" is a 1927 song composed by Bix Beiderbecke and released as a 78 single on Okeh as a piano solo. The song has become a jazz and pop standard....
" / "Wringin' an' Twistin'", recorded on September 9, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 40916 and Vocalion 3150 - "Borneo" / "My Pet", recorded on April 10, 1928, in New York and released as Okeh 41039
As Bix Beiderbecke and His Gang:
- "At the Jazz Band Ball" / "Jazz Me Blues", recorded on October 5, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 40923
- "Royal Garden Blues" / "Goose Pimples", recorded on October 5, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 8544
- "Sorry" / "Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down", recorded on October 25, 1927, in New York and released as Okeh 41001
- "Wa-Da-Da (Everybody's Doin' It Now)", recorded on July 7, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois and released as Okeh 41088
- "Rhythm King", recorded on September 21, 1928 in New York and released as Okeh 41173
With the Paul Whiteman Orchestra:
- "Lonely Melody" [Take 3] / "Mississippi Mud" [Take 2], with Bing CrosbyBing CrosbyHarry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, the Rhythm Boys, and Izzy Friedman, recorded on January 4, 1928, in New York and released as Victor 25366 - "RamonaRamona (song)"Ramona" is a 1928 song, with lyrics written by L. Wolfe Gilbert and music by Mabel Wayne.-History:It was created as the title song for the 1928 adventure film-romance Ramona . The song was used again in the 1936 remake of the movie...
", recorded on January 4, 1928 in New York and released as Victor 21214-A. #1 for 3 weeks - "Ol' Man RiverOl' Man River"Ol' Man River" is a song in the 1927 musical Show Boat that expresses the African American hardship and struggles of the time with the endless, uncaring flow of the Mississippi River; it is sung from the point-of-view of a dock worker on a showboat, and is the most famous song from the show...
" (From Show Boat), recorded on January 11, 1928 in New York and released as Victor 21218-A and Victor 25249 with Bing Crosby on vocals. #1 for 1 week - "San" [Take 6], recorded on January 12, 1928 in New York and released as Victor 24078-A
- "Together"Together (1928 song)"Together" is a 1928 popular song with music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Buddy G. DeSylva and Lew Brown. The most popular 1928 recording of the song, by Paul Whiteman, with Bix Beiderbecke on cornet, was a #1 hit for two weeks....
, recorded on January 21, 1928 in New York and released as Victor 35883-A. #1 for 2 weeks - "Mississippi Mud" [Take 3] / "From Monday On" [Take 6], with vocals by Bing Crosby, recorded on February 28, 1928, in New York and released as Victor 21274
- "My Angel", recorded on April 21, 1928 in New York and released as Victor 21388-A. #1 for 6 weeks
- "My Melancholy Baby", recorded on May 15, 1928, in New York and released as Columbia 50068-D
- "Sweet Sue", recorded on September 18, 1928, in New York and released as Columbia 50103-D
As Bix Beiderbecke and His Orchestra:
- "I Don't Mind Walking in the Rain" / "I'll Be a Friend with Pleasure", recorded on September 8, 1930, in New York and released as Victor 23008
With Hoagy Carmichael and His Orchestra:
- "Barnacle Bill, the Sailor"Barnacle Bill (song)"Barnacle Bill the Sailor" is an American drinking song adapted from "Bollocky Bill the Sailor", a traditional folk song originally titled "Abraham Brown"....
/ "Rockin' Chair", with vocals by Carson RobisonCarson RobisonCarson Jay Robison was an American country music singer and songwriter. Although his impact is generally forgotten today, he played a major role in promoting country music in its early years through numerous recordings and radio appearances. He was also known as Charles Robison and sometimes...
, recorded on May 21, 1930, in New York and released as Victor V-38139 and Victor 25371 - "Georgia on My MindGeorgia on My Mind"Georgia on My Mind" is a song written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell . It is the official state song of the U.S. state of Georgia. Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy's sister, Georgia Carmichael. However, the lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or...
", with Hoagy Carmichael on vocals, recorded on September 15, 1930, in New York and released as Victor 23013
Honors
- 1962, inducted into Down BeatDown BeatDown Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...
s Jazz Hall of Fame, critics' poll - 1971, Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society established in Davenport, Iowa; founded annual jazz festival and scholarship
- 1977, Beiderbecke's 1927 recording of "Singin' the Blues" inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
- 1979, statue presented at LeClaire ParkLeClaire ParkLeClaire Park is a public park located along the Mississippi River in downtown Davenport, Iowa, United States. It is situated between two other riverfront parks: Centennial Park on the west and a new park that is being developed to the east. The park includes monuments, a bandshell. a baseball...
, in Davenport, Iowa - 1979, inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame
- 1980, Beiderbecke's 1927 recording of "In a Mist" inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
- 1993, inducted into the International Academy of Jazz Hall of Fame
- 2000, statue dedicated in Davenport
- 2004, inducted into the inaugural class of the Lincoln Center's Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame
- 2007, inducted into the Gennett Records Walk of Fame in Richmond, Indiana
See also
- The Beiderbecke TrilogyThe Beiderbecke TrilogyThe Beiderbecke Trilogy refers to three television serials written by Alan Plater and made by Yorkshire Television for the ITV network in the United Kingdom between 1984 and 1988. Each serial centres around schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne who work at a rundown comprehensive...
, a three-part 1980s British (Yorkshire TelevisionYorkshire TelevisionYorkshire Television, now officially known as ITV Yorkshire and sometimes unofficially abbreviated to YTV, is a British television broadcaster and the contractor for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network...
) television series (The Beiderbecke AffairThe Beiderbecke AffairThe Beiderbecke Affair is a television series produced in the UK by ITV during 1985, written by the prolific Alan Plater, whose lengthy credits to British Television since the 1960s included the preceding 4 part mini series Get Lost! for ITV in 1981...
, The Beiderbecke TapesThe Beiderbecke TapesThe Beiderbecke Tapes is a two-part British television drama serial written by Alan Plater and broadcast in 1987. It is the second serial in The Beiderbecke Trilogy and stars James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne...
and The Beiderbecke ConnectionThe Beiderbecke ConnectionThe Beiderbecke Connection is a four part British television serial written by Alan Plater and broadcast in 1988. It is the third and final part of The Beiderbecke Trilogy and stars James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as schoolteachers Trevor Chaplin and Jill Swinburne...
) with a jazz soundtrack in the Beiderbecke stye performed by Frank RicottiFrank RicottiFrank Ricotti is an English jazz vibraphonist and percussionist.Ricotti played in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra while a teenager, then attended Trinity College of Music...
and cornetist Kenny BakerKenny Baker (trumpeter)Kenny Baker was born on 1 March 1921 in Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire and died 7 December 1999. He was an accomplished player of jazz trumpet, cornet and flugelhorn, and a composer.-Biography:...
, as the hero is a Beiderbecke fan.
External links
- Bix Beiderbecke Resources: A Bixography
- Bix Beiderbecke Resources: A Creative Aural History Thesis – A series of nineteen one-half-hour radio programs from 1971. Includes interviews with Frank Trumbauer, Louis Armstrong, Gene Krupa, Eddie Condon, Bing Crosby, Hoagy Carmichael, and Bix's brother Charles "Burnie" Beiderbecke
- "Davenport Blues" – An mp3 of Beiderbecke's first recording under his own name.
- "Bixology" (an excerpt) by Brendan Wolfe, Jazz.com.
- Twelve Essential Bix Beiderbecke Performances by Brendan Wolfe, Jazz.com.
- The Beiderbecke Affair, a blog by Brendan Wolfe concerned with Beiderbecke and his legend
- Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society