Bix Beiderbecke

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Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was a notable jazz cornet player, as well as a very talented and gifted classical and jazz pianist.

[edit] Early life

Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa to a middle-class family of German origins. As a teenager he would sneak off to the banks of the Mississippi to listen to the bands play on the riverboats that would come up from the south.

Partially due to frequent absences due to illness, Beiderbecke's grades suffered. He attended Davenport High School briefly, but his parents felt that sending him to the exclusive Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois, just north of Chicago, would provide the attention and discipline needed to improve his schooling. The change of scenery did not improve Beiderbecke's academic record, as the only subjects he showed avid interest in were music and sports. Bix soon began going into Chicago as often as possible to catch the hot jazz bands of the day at the clubs and speakeasies around Chicago, and too often did not return in time or was found out the next day.

Beiderbecke was soon asked to leave the Academy due to his academic failings and extracurricular activities in Chicago, and began his musical career in earnest.

[edit] Influences

Bix Beiderbecke and his Rhythm Jugglers, a pickup band formed, and dissolved, in 1925. From left to right, Howdy Quicksell (banjo), Tom Gargano (drums), Paul Mertz (piano), Don Murray (clarinet), Beiderbecke (cornet), and Tommy Dorsey (trombone).

Beiderbecke's early influences were mostly New Orleans jazz cornetists. His first big influence was Nick LaRocca of the Original Dixieland Jass Band; the LaRocca influence is evident in a number of Beiderbecke's recordings (especially the covers of O.D.J.B. songs.) Other influences included Joe "King" Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and clarinetist Leon Roppolo. The influence of older New Orleans players such as Freddie Keppard shows up on Beiderbecke's famous two note interjection on "Goose Pimples."

According to many contemporaries Beiderbecke's single biggest influence was Emmett Hardy, a highly regarded New Orleans cornetist of whom there are no extant recordings; several fellow musicians said that Hardy's influence is very evident in Beiderbecke's early recordings with The Wolverines. New Orleans drummer Ray Bauduc heard Hardy playing in the early 1920s and said that he was even more inspired than Beiderbecke.

Bix was also influenced by music that had hitherto been far removed from jazz, such as the compositions of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and the American Impressionists, notably Eastwood Lane.

[edit] Career

Beiderbecke first recorded with his band the Wolverine Orchestra (usually called just The Wolverines, named for "Wolverine Blues" by Jelly Roll Morton because they played it so often) in 1924, then became a sought-after musician in Chicago and New York City. He made innovative and influential recordings with Frankie Trumbauer ("Tram") and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. When the Goldkette Orchestra disbanded after their last recording ("Clementine (From New Orleans)"), in September 1927, Bix and Trumbauer, a 'C' Melody and alto saxophone player, briefly joined Adrian Rollini's band at the Club New Yorker, New York, before moving on to the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the most popular and highest paid band of the day.

Beiderbecke also played piano, sometimes switching from cornet for a chorus or two during a song (e.g. "For No Reason at All in C", 1927). He wrote several compositions for the piano, and recorded one of them, "In a Mist", after it was transcribed from his improvisations by the Goldkette/Whiteman arranger Bill Challis). His piano compositions include "In A Mist", "Flashes", "In The Dark" and "Candlelights." These were later recorded by (amongst others) Jess Stacy, Bunny Berigan, Jimmy and Marion McPartland, Dill Jones and Ralph Sutton.

[edit] Death

Beiderbecke suffered health problems from an early age, though the relentless schedule of the road and heavy drinking leading to alcoholism began to contribute to and exacerbate a decline in his health. Bix suffered from severe pain in his legs and other ill effects of prohibition era alcohol and with declining work around the New York City area, he took a turn for the worse.

Though his death certificate described the cause of death as (lobar) pneumonia, and he was in seriously ill health, the circumstances immediately surrounding his death are still unclear. He died at the age of 28, in his apartment at 43-30 46th Street, Sunnyside, Queens, within the confines of the City of New York on August 6, 1931. Beiderbecke is buried in a family plot in Oakdale Cemetery in Davenport, Iowa.

[edit] Later influence

Louis Armstrong once remarked that he never played the tune "Singin' the Blues" because he thought Beiderbecke's classic recording of the song should not be touched. As he later said, "Lots of cats tried to play like Bix; ain't none of them play like him yet".

The character Rick Martin in the novel Young Man With a Horn (1938) by Dorothy Baker was a work of fiction partially based on Beiderbecke's life. It was later made into a movie (1950) starring Kirk Douglas as Martin (with horn playing dubbed by Harry James after first choice Bobby Hackett - according to some sources - blew the job because of unreliability). It was later parodied in the BBC radio series Round The Horne as "Young Horne With a Man", featuring "Bix Spiderthrust".

The most obviously Bix-influenced follower was cornetist Jimmy McPartland, who replaced Bix in the 'Wolverine' Orchestra in late 1924, and continued to pay tribute to Bix throughout his long career (McPartland died in 1991). Bix's influence was most noticeable amongst white musicians, but there were also black players who fell under his spell, notably trumpeters and cornetists John Nesbitt (of McKinney's Cotten Pickers), Rex Stewart (Fletcher Henderson's Orchestra, Duke Ellington's Orchestra), and Doc Cheatham (Cab Calloway's Orchestra).

In the 1930s Bobby Hackett was widely billed as the "new Bix", especially after he reprised Bix's "I'm Coming Virginia" solo at Benny Goodman's famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert.

Later Bix-influenced trumpet/cornet players have included: Ruby Braff, Dick Sudhalter, Warren Vache, Randy Sandke and (perhaps the closest to capturing Bix's elusive tone and phrasing), Tom Pletcher.

Miles Davis was fascinated by Bix's playing, and sought out people who had known and played with him. Miles's silvery tone and understated, "cool" phrasing clearly hark back to one aspect of Bix's playing.

Beiderbecke's music features heavily 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).

[edit] His name

There has been much debate regarding the full name of Bix Beiderbecke: was he baptized Leon Bix or Leon Bismark (Bix being simply a shortened form of the latter; a name that also his father had)? At least from the early 1960s onwards, Bix' living relatives (noticeably his brother Charles "Burnie" Beiderbecke) forcefully claimed that his actual name had always been Leon Bix, and this was accepted as a fact by Bix researchers Phil and Linda Evans. Other researchers, including Rich Johnson, have however presented several documents showing the real name to be Leon Bismark. These documents include church records from the Early First Presbyterian Church which the Beiderbecke family belonged to and records from Tyler School which Bix attended. There is also the will of a relative, Mary Hill, which included young Bix as a benefiter and which his mother signed for him writing "Leon Bismark Beiderbecke". There are however also several indications that Bix himself already at an early age did not like the name Bismark. For example: in a letter to his mother written when he was nine (1912) he signs it "frome [sic] your Leon Bix Beiderbecke not Bismark Remeber [sic]" (this letter is re-printed in Evans & Evans pp 28-29). Also the German name may have been regarded a bit uncomfortably during and after World War I, which might explain the wish of the Beiderbecke family to claim Bix as the real name. (This question has recently been discussed in the Bixography Discussion Group:

[edit] References

• Bix: Man and Legend by Richard M. Sudhalter & Philip R. Evens (Quartet; 1974).
• Bix: The Definitive Biography of a Jazz Legend by Jean Pierre Lion with the assistance of Gabriella Page-Fort, Michael B. Heckman and Norman Field (Continuum, New York / London; 2004).

[edit] 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 and Bix' brother
• The Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society, Davenport, Iowa
• Davenport Blues - An mp3 of Beiderbecke's first recording under his own name.
• "Celebrating Bix" - A tribute album created to commemorate the centenary of Bix's birth by some of the world's finest traditional jazz musicians.