Lost History – The unforgettable brilliance of Bix Beiderbecke

A hundred years ago, a peculiar pupil called Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke was caught climbing up a fire escape at his prestigious boarding school in the middle of the night. He was trying to get back into his bedroom before dawn, but having had too much to drink during his escapade off campus, his housemaster easily heard his clumsy efforts to gain entry to the locked school. 

This was the final straw for his teachers as Bix’s indecorous behaviour had become a persistent issue. Beiderbecke was expelled for this final misdemeanour (a verdict that greatly pained his traditional and fustian family). Still, the young man’s extraordinary career as a jazz performer of genius was only just beginning. 

Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1903. Displaying an unusual proficiency for music in his infancy, Bix’s parents paid for regular private tutorials. Learning the rudiments of the piano at the age of five, the brilliant little Beiderbecke was able to casually outplay his tutors by the time he was eight. A local newspaper understandably hailed him as a Hoffman-like prodigy, but Bix didn’t pick the piano as his primary instrument. 

His father and mother sought to inculcate their German and Austrian musical heritages into their gifted son’s repertoire. However, Bix had different artistic aims from the ones his parents preferenced. When his older brother returned to Davenport at the end of First World War, he brought back a bundle of pieces of vinyl for his family. 

One record, in particular, transfixed the young Beiderbecke above all others. It was a recording of Tiger Rag by The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, an ensemble that stylistically anticipated the advent of the jazz age. 

After this experience, Bix borrowed a neighbour’s cornet and started teaching himself the tunes he heard The Original Dixieland Jazz Band play. He was soon as capable on the cornet as he was on the piano and began carrying his small brass instrument in a brown paper bag wherever he went. 

By all accounts, the white, middle-class child became possessed by the spirit of jazz and started seeking out the exquisite sound that stimulated him so intensely. He overcame any obstacle that prevented him from hearing this mesmerising music and said in a letter to his brother, “I’d go through hell just to hear a good band play”.

He reportedly snuck out to listen to a nearby jazz group in Chicago when he was caught on his return conspicuously clambering up the fire escape on that fateful night. 

Indeed, his overbearing father had shipped off the troublesome Bix to the illustrious school to occlude any further exposure to the music that had become increasingly commonplace in Davenport. 

After his expulsion and despite his parents’ disapproval, Bix began his musical career in earnest. The work of emerging Jazz performers like Louis Armstrong established jazz as a soloist’s genre, and Bix’s self-taught technique and characteristic improvisations thrilled young audiences and impressed acclaimed players. 

Louis Armstrong himself said “Ain’t none of them play like him yet” after jamming with the bourgeoisie cornetist during an early morning session behind closed doors. 

Due to segregation, Bix was unable to play with black musicians in public, a fact of the time that arguably stunted his musical development. Black jazz players were undoubtedly the most skilled and creative in the early twenties, but Bix’s axiomatic genius proved that jazz was not solely an African-American art. 

He showed his contemporaries that it could be embraced and expressed by anyone. Galvanising other aspiring white jazz musicians to push the limits of their newfound style, figures like Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw set out to emulate Bix’s inventive and unique input to pieces that became national hits. 

He recorded celebrated tracks such as Riverboat Shuffle, and Copenhagen with The Wolverines in 1924 and in 1927 joined Paul Whiteman’s famous orchestra.

Whiteman’s orchestra was one of the most popular acts on the road in America at the time, and Bix’s inimitable swing attracted attention nationwide. Unfortunately, ailed by his dangerous dependence on alcohol, his natural gifts started to wane more and more. 

Years after Bix’s premature death from alcohol abuse, one cornetist, working off old score sheets from the Whiteman orchestra, discovered a note from one member of the band to another. It read: “wake up Bix!” The master cornetist must have nodded off mid-performance. 

Bix died alone in New York at the lamentable age of twenty-eight, having worked with and inspired revered composers and musicians like Hoagy Carmichael and Frankie Trumbauer.

Luckily, his brief but brilliant career overlapped with the dawn and development of recording technology, so we have numerous examples to prove the glowing testimonies from people who heard him play in person. 

Though the primitive pressings of those old pieces of vinyl are extremely scratchy and grainy compared to today’s pristine productions, Bix’s remarkable artistry and compelling aptitude still shines through.