Bix Beiderbecke

Happy Birthday, Bix Beiderbecke 1903-1931...Controversy swirls around some of the facts about Beiderbecke's life but there is no doubt about the influence he had on jazz. Louis Armstrong said about him in 1971, "Every note he blew was so beautiful--I like that "Singing the Blues." Nobody else gonna blow that like he did. I never did play that tune because of Bix. I didn't want nobody to mess with it. Tell the whole world there will never be another Bix Beiderbecke." His purity of tone, unique improvisations, struggles with family and jobs and early death by alcoholism made him one of the early legends of jazz.

As a child in Davenport, Iowa, he showed early promise on the piano. By the age of seven he could play almost anything he heard by ear and by the age of 10 he was slipping away to play the calliope on the excursion boats on the riverfront. When he was 15 his brother brought home a Victrola and several records including "Tiger Rag" by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and Bix was hooked. He taught himself to play the coronet by ear, adopting a non-standard fingering which some historians connect with his original sound.

When he was 18 he was sent away to boarding school. Until recently the standard take on that action was that his parents disapproved of his playing music, however, it has come to light that he was arrested on a charge of molesting the 5 year old daughter of a neighbor and his family may have sent him away to stay out of controversy. The charge was dropped but his biographer Jean Pierre Lion speculated that the arrest might have led to Beiderbecke feeling, "abandoned and ashamed...and a suspect of perversion." Other biographers and fans dismiss the importance of the event. Nevertheless, boarding school didn't suit him and he was soon thrown out for skipping class to go hear jazz bands and drink.

He joined and recorded with the "hot jazz" Wolverine Orchestra in 1923 and also began taking piano lessons from a young woman who introduced him to the works of Eastwood Lane whose style influenced Beiderbecke's only recorded piano piece "In a Mist." He joined Jean Goldkette's orchestra in 1924 but his "hot jazz" style of improvisation and inability to read music eventually lost him the job. That didn't stop him from recording on his own, putting out "Toddlin Blues" and "Davenport Blues" with members of Goldkette's band.

He joined Frankie Trumbauer's Orchestra in 1925 and for the rest of his career Beiderbecke and Trumbauer remained close, Trumbauer becoming a supporter and father figure to the younger man. It was during this time he recorded his solo masterpiece "In a Mist" as well as some of his best work with Trumbauer and guitarist, Eddie Lang. He brushed up enough on his sight reading to re-join Goldkette's band for another brief stint before signing up as a soloist with Paul Whiteman's Orchestra.

Whiteman's orchestra was the most popular band of the 1920's and Beiderbecke enjoyed the money and prestige of playing for such a successful outfit but it didn't stop his drinking. By 1929 his drinking began to catch up with him. He suffered from delirium tremens and had a nervous breakdown while playing with Whiteman. He was sent back to Davenport to stay with his family and was eventually placed in rehab with Whiteman continuing to pay him full salary with a promise to save his seat in the band for him. Whiteman famously kept his seat empty in Beiderbecke's honor but he never returned to play with the band again.

In 1930 he returned to New York to make a few recordings with his friend Hoagy Carmichael under the name Bix Beiderbecke and his Orchestra. But mainly he stayed in his room in a Queens boarding house drinking a lot and working on three beautiful solo piano pieces he would never record. He died at the age of 28 from an alcoholic seizure.