Leon Bix Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist and composer, as well as a skilled classical and jazz pianist.
In his short life, Bix Beiderbecke left a legacy of recordings of his beautiful cornet sound, his impressionistic piano playing, and the most influential alternative to Louis Armstrong's approach to jazz cornet. His solo playing was supremely melodic, phrased slightly after the beat, and with such clarity of sound that one contemporary described it as 'like shooting bullets at a bell', while guitarist Eddie Condon likened his tone to 'a girl saying 'yes'.  |
Davenport High School show, circa 1920. Front right is Bix Beiderbecke. |
Bix Beiderbecke was one of the great jazz musicians of the 1920's; he was also a child of the Jazz Age who drank himself to an early grave with illegal Prohibition liquor. His hard drinking and beautiful tone on the cornet made him a legend among musicians during his life. The legend of Bix grew even larger after he died. Bix never learned to read music very well, but he had an amazing ear even as a child. His parents disapproved of his playing music and sent him to a military school outside of Chicago in 1921. He was soon expelled for skipping class and became a full-time musician.
In 1923 Beiderbecke joined the Wolverine Orchestra and recorded with them the following year. Bix was influenced a great deal by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, but soon surpassed their playing. In late 1924 Bix left the Wolverines to join Jean Goldkette's Orchestra, but his inability to read music eventually resulted in him losing the job.
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Bix's Rhythm Jugglers at Gennett Recording Studio in Richmond, Indiana, 1925 |
In 1926 he spent some time with Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra where he recorded his solo piano masterpiece “In A Mist”. He also recorded some of his best work
with Trumbauer and guitarist, Eddie Lang, under the name of Tram, Bix, and Eddie. Bix was able to bone up on his sight-reading enough to re-join Jean Goldkette's Orchestra briefly, before signing up as a soloist with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra.
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Jean Goldkette's Band. 1926. Bix seated with cornet. |
Whiteman's Orchestra was the most popular band of the 1920's and Bix enjoyed the prestige and money of playing with such a successful outfit, but it didn't stop his drinking. In 1929 Bix's drinking began to catch up with him. He suffered from delirium tremens and he had a nervous breakdown while playing with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and was eventually sent back to his parents in Davenport, Iowa to recover. It should be noted that Paul Whiteman was very good to Bix during his struggles. He kept Bix on full pay long after his breakdown, and promised him that his chair was always open in the Whiteman Orchestra, but, Bix was never the same again, and never rejoined the band.
Bix returned to New York in 1930 and made a few more records with his friend Hoagy Carmichael and under the name of Bix Beiderbecke and his Orchestra. But mainly, he holed himself up in a rooming house in Queens, New York where he drank a lot and worked on his beautiful solo piano pieces "Candlelight", "Flashes", and "In The Dark" (Bix never recorded them).
Beiderbecke's last performance was at Princeton University. He had been ill in bed, suffering from a bad cold, but he didn't want to disappoint those counting on him to play. A week later, Bix died in his apartment, No. 1G, 43-30 46th Street, in Sunnyside, Queens, New York on August 6, 1931. The week had been stiflingly hot, making sleep difficult. Suffering from insomnia, Beiderbecke played the piano late into the evenings, both to the annoyance and the delight of his neighbours. 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.“His whole body was trembling violently, he staggered and fell, a dead weight, in my arms.” The official cause of death was lobar pneumonia and oedema of the brain.
Beiderbecke's originality made him one of the first white jazz musicians to be admired by black performers. Louis Armstrong recognized in him a kindred spirit, and Rex Stewart exactly reproduced some of his solos on recordings. Beiderbecke's influence on such white players as Red Nichols and Bunny Berigan was decisive. Although he was largely unknown to the general public at the time of his death, he acquired an almost legendary aura among jazz musicians and enthusiasts.
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On account of such popularized tales as Dorothy Baker's novel Young Man with a Horn (Boston, 1938), based very loosely on his life and career, he soon came to symbolize the "Roaring Twenties" in the popular imagination. Only in recent years have legend and fact become clearly separated and Beiderbecke's career and achievement has been seen in a true perspective.
On account of such popularized tales as Dorothy Baker's novel Young Man with a Horn (Boston, 1938), based very loosely on his life and career, he soon came to symbolize the "Roaring Twenties" in the popular imagination. Only in recent years have legend and fact become clearly separated and Beiderbecke's career and achievement has been seen in a true perspective.
(info edited from Wikipedia & red hot jazz)