THE LITTLE MAN WITH A BIG SOUND

When i was young learning to play there where many names i hear my father take about one that always mystified me was the name of "BIX" this was a unusual name i had never hear of and still haven't hear many people call that today Bix Beiderbecke here is a brief description of one of the early jazz great trumpeters.

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 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. 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.

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. Whiteman's Orchestra was one of the popular bands of the

1920's and Bix enjoyed the prestige and money of playing with such a successful band. In 1929 Bix's drinking began to catch up with him. His trumpet playing suffered and then he had a nervous breakdown while playing. Thena eventually went back to Davenport, Iowa to recover. He kept paying long after his breakdown.

Bix was never the same again. He returned to New York in 1930 and made a few
more records with a friend and under the name of Bix
Beiderbecke and his Orchestra. He move into a rooming house in Queens, New York
where he worked on his beautiful solo piano pieces "Candlelight", "Flashes", and
"In The Dark" Bix never recorded them). He died at age 28 in 1931 during an
alcoholic seizure. The official cause of death was pneumonia .