On March 10, 1903, Bismark and Agatha Beiderbecke welcomed
a baby boy, Leon Bismark, into their home in Davenport, Iowa.
As the boy grew, he soon became known as "Bix."
In those years, every home had a Victrola stocked
with all kinds of music: opera,
popular,
comedy,
and, beginning in 1917, a new musical genre called "jazz." It was
this jazz,
particularly the records by the Original Dixieland Jazz
Band, that young Bix loved -- even
teaching himself to play the cornet. Davenport being a river town, Bix
supplemented his musical education by listening to the bands working on the riverboats
that traveled the Mississippi. He may or may not have met Louis Armstrong
in those days: Armstrong claimed the two men met then, but some scholars
disagree. Regardless, they definitely met -- and played together -- in Chicago in the 1920s.
Bix's love affair with music was permanent. He formed a band in high school,
and when it began to interfere with his studies, his parents moved him to a boarding school
near Chicago. It proved to be a mistake: he spent more nights in Chicago speakeasies than in his dorm, and was expelled.
Bix soon joined the Wolverine Orchestra, playing cornet by night and taking piano lessons by day,
specializing in the impressionistic music of composer Eastwood Lane,
whose work would inform both Beiderbecke's playing and composing.
In 1924, Bix and the Wolverines made a recording of "Jazz Me Blues"
that proved electrifying. Nothing like Beiderbecke's cornet had ever been
heard before -- not even from the pioneering Armstrong.
Beiderbecke spent the next few years shuttling between Jean Goldkette's band and freelancing, turning out such classic sides as "Singin' the Blues," "I'm Coming, Virginia," and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans." Goldkette's band went bust in 1927, though, and
its best players were quickly gobbled up by Paul Whiteman,
the "King of Jazz," for his own orchestra.
Bix completed his musical education in the Whiteman band. Whiteman demanded a
high level of musicianship, and while Beiderbecke sometimes struggled to keep
up with the complicated arrangements (he was a mediocre sight-reader), it was
in his solos that he shined,
literally stopping audiences from dancing as they listened to him play.
Unfortunately, such a success story has a tragic ending. Bix was a chronic
alcoholic, whose drinking frequently got out of hand: His 1929 stint in rehab
kept him from appearing with the rest of the band in the film King of Jazz,
a loss that haunts jazz fans (his only appearance on film is a brief snippet where he can barely be seen). His drinking may have been
exacerbated by his parents' disinterest in his career. On one occasion, he
returned home to Davenport to find that the records he had sent his
parents were carefully stacked in a closet -- all unopened.
His drinking continued to get out of hand, to the point where even the
supportive Whiteman had to fire him, and he died of either pneumonia, bad liquor or, most likely, delirium tremens, on August 6, 1931, at the age of 28.
In the decades since, Bix's life has grown into legend. His boyhood home is on the National Register of Historic Places, numerous jazz festivals are dedicated to his music (including the big annual one in Davenport), and his recordings are collected and
re-collected -- including records on which it's not even certain he appeared. His premature death
and prodigious talent make jazz fans long for what might have been, and made him jazz's first martyr.
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