Back when I was working on a masters in jazz history at Rutgers I had a semester studying with Dr. Kwami Coleman. I wrote a paper on Bix Beiderbecke, having always questioned the accepted narrative of his life. I wasn’t then, and I’m still not out to cancel Bix. I received an A on the paper, but the blocks came when I sent it out to jazz journals, where the shade was real. At first it was repeatedly ignored, intentionally I felt. After almost 2 years I did a follow up and got one response where it was red marked to oblivion. I was advised to redo the paper under the guidance of a professional. I noticed that whenever I questioned Bix in an academic setting or environment the vibe was “Don’t touch that.”
I decided to post the paper here, 7 years after I wrote it, editing it to a degree from a perspective in 2024. I never needed or wanted the academic sanction. In my musical life I have only hoped to earn the respect of the older masters I played with over the years. Some people never needed that, coming from a place of great inner strength and belief in themselves. You can hear that in their sound. Roy Campbell Jr comes to mind, though he did take lessons from Lee Morgan and Kenny Dorham through Jazzmobile. The extreme opposite is when people are opposed to your music. Ornette had to suffer attacks from all sides in pursuit of his own truth, partially due to his success, not just his different ideas. Born in 1970, I have had years of on the bandstand mentorship, an almost a lost aspect of the tradition in 2024. It took me a long time to actualize myself. Going back to the Jazz Age, it was impossible for Bix to have a direct mentorship with an African-American musician. Where and when you live cannot be separated from your music. Ornette told Ted Nash: “You can transcribe a solo but not an environment.”
What I have digested is that the narrative of Bix has been established as fact at this point. The ongoing narratives are based on it. Drilling down to the core, I believe the academic community wants to protect the notion that Bix and his music are a validation that white musicians belong to and are a part of jazz. My intention from the start was to get to the reality of Bix’s life and music. I’m not out to spill the tea. Part of my research contains the only validation Bix ever needed anyway: Louis Armstrong loved him.
So what went down?
My paper on Bix in 2017 below, with a 2024 edit:
The music of Bix Beiderbecke has now been impacting listeners and musicians for close to 100 years since his premature death. By way of his music and the life he led he has become an integral part of jazz history. The love of his music is genuine. Looking back however it’s clear that writers, some musicians and others, saw an opportunity to validate or destroy a white contribution and white authenticity in jazz. To consider such a sensitive subject, the foundations of Bix and his music must be examined with more scrutiny. He certainly was not the sole progenitor of the elements that he used to construct his style. His relationship with Louis Armstrong on a personal and musical level certainly had an impact on him, regardless of historians attempt to create a narrative of division. Bix was known for having a pure tone on the cornet, implying a sound free of “contamination.” What could these negative outside influences be? The piano was also an intrinsic aspect of the nature of his music. What were the sources of his inability to escape the exigencies of alcohol addiction? In the last several years, historians have presented evidence but have stopped short of deconstruction of the Bix narrative. Within all of these deeper realities is the real Bix Beiderbecke.
Leon Bismark Beiderbecke was born on March 10th, 1903 in Davenport Iowa. His parents were German immigrants who found success in the United States. His mother was the daughter of a riverboat captain and played organ in church. Even as early as five years old, his ability to create music at the piano while having no knowledge of it surprised people, leading to a story about him in the Davenport Daily Democrat at seven years old. The cornet made its first appearance when Bix shocked his parents and bought one when he was 15 years old after hearing Nick LaRocca and the Original Dixieland Jazz band on one of his brothers records. In 1921 a disturbing incident occurred in which Bix was held by the police for a lewd and lascivious act. He was accused of asking a 5-year-old girl to lift up her skirt after leading her to a garage. While the charges were dropped, Bix’s family sent him to the Lake Forest military academy in Chicago to be reformed. Only 35 miles from the Chicago jazz scene, Bix didn’t last long at Lake Forest and was expelled near the end of his first year. In 1923 Bix became the leading soloist in a band called the Wolverines recording on both cornet and piano on a song called Big Boy. On Cornet you can hear the influence of Armstrong clearly in his phrasing and syncopation, while on piano you can hear him not sure about what to do with his left hand, playing somewhat freely as a result. After the Wolverines, Bix struggled to improve his sight reading, eventually being able to play with the Jean Goldkette orchestra in 1926. In 1927 Bix recorded his most famous piece, Singin’ the Blues with his partner and famous C-melody saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer. That same year, Goldkette broke up, and after two months with the Adrian Rollini Orchestra, Bix and Trumbauer joined the King of Jazz, Paul Whiteman, the most popular dance band in the country. Bix’s daily inebriation resulted in him having a breakdown. In 1929, Whitman sent Bix home to Davenport to recover. While his mother had always supported him, she was deeply troubled by his condition. Numerous attempts to get his playing and health back failed, and he died at 28 years old on August 6th, 1931 in Queens.
For perspective on the environment, Jim Crow and Segregation were at full power during the time Bix was alive. Lynching was an understood part of American life. In 1922, a NAACP anti-lynching bill passed through the House but was defeated by southern democrats in the senate. In 1931, Southern Democrats filibustered another anti-lynching bill. Bix lived during a time when white people fought for their right to kill black people. Music was creating a bridge for Bix between two worlds that could not be further apart.
Part of the accepted narrative about Bix is that his music was the white alternative to Louis Armstrong. There’s more to it than that. In Leonard Feather’s Book of Jazz in an interview with Wilbur DeParis, a trombonist and band leader from Indiana, he discovered that the style we associate with Bix was popular with black musicians in the Midwest. DeParis names Charlie Hart, Frank Clay, Roy Hope, and the Wolfscale Brothers all playing with restraint. Bix was directly exposed to this style by way of his first true mentor, white cornet player Emmett Hardy.
Emmett Hardy (1903-1926) was playing professionally while Bix was still developing his early technique, and played in Davenport frequently with a reported soft and mellow tone indicative of the Midwest style. Hardy would let Bix sit in with him even though he wasn’t technically ready, and would practice with him, offering him tips and advice. During Hardy’s upbringing, his uncle taught him to embrace African-American culture, going so far as to deliver lectures and to sing spirituals. Hardy was deep in the culture of minstrelsy. Hardy further studied with a creole multi-instrumentalist. He worked in foundries by day, and then played music at night. a practice that may have been a factor in his demise. A rumor still circulates that he defeated Louis Armstrong in a jam session in 1921 though it remains unverified, and is most likely apocryphal. Hardy died in 1925 at the age of 22 from tuberculosis. Hardy’s mom is said to have received a postcard from Louis Armstrong after his death calling him the King, although it was never found. Confirmed is a letter from Bix to her saying “Emmett was the greatest musician I ever heard. If I can ever come near your son’s greatness, I’ll die happy.” No recording of Hardy is known to exist. We do however have recordings of the great African-American cornet player, Joe Smith.
Scott Yanow in his book Trumpet Kings goes as far as to call Joe Smith the unofficial founder of cool jazz. Smith, born in Ohio in 1902 was taught by his father who ran a brass band in Cincinnati. All six of his brothers played cornet, most notably Russell Smith who like Joe, played with Fletcher Henderson for extended periods. Joe Smith brought his sweeter, restrained, lyrical style to New York and was recorded extensively with blues singers such as Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, Mamie Smith, Clara Smith, and Bessie Smith. Bessie proclaimed Joe her favorite cornet player for accompanying her in a manner she preferred. Tiny Parham said Joe could quiet a noisy cabaret with his sweet sound. Parham adds that Joe’s tone was akin to a woman singing, a comment always associated with Bix, that his tone was like a woman saying yes. Fletcher Henderson said Joe was the most soulful trumpet player he ever knew, and Buster Bailey added that he had a pretty tone in the middle register, another Bix associated attribute. Leora Henderson added that had a big, yet soft tone. Coleman Hawkins made a revealing statement that Joe played pretty and quiet but was not a quiet man. Joe made it further then Bix but fell to tuberculosis and paresis, made worse by excessive drinking and life on the road, in 1937 at the age of 35.
An excellent recording to hear Joe is with Ethel Waters on the song I've Found a New Baby recorded in New York in 1925. On an extended solo, you can hear a big, clear sound and a vocal tone. Joe was not as adventurous as Bix harmonically here, but was concerned more with sound and expression, two core components of the Beiderbecke style. We don’t know how much Joe or Bix heard of each other. Had Joe had a white audience and been able to record as a leader, he might have had more to say about his place in jazz history. Not all jazz historians supported Bix as we shall see, but Joe Smith is largely unknown and unrecognized.
Beiderbecke never knew the impact his music would have or how his story would be used by academics. His music brings strong emotional reactions from a white perspective. Here’s Otis Ferguson from a piece called “Young Man With A Horn” published in the New Republic in 1936:
“There is always this miracle of constant on-the-spot invention, never faltering or repeating, every phrase as fresh and glistening as creation itself.”
And from the Otis Ferguson Reader:
“To hear him is to have the feeling of being present at the original spring music comes from.”
In his writing on Bix, he points out that part of the joy of Bix’s music is that elements associated with blackness are not present, and are replaced with clarity and precision to which he feels an emotional connection. One of his quotes on Bix is well known:
“Bix never had to reach for the notes as they were all lying in a drawer before him.”
Next, we have Rudi Blesh and his jazz history book Shining Trumpets, published in 1946. Blesh, who was white, was pro-black and his take on Bix is both aggressive and raw. Like many writers, he dodged the issue at Lake Forest Academy most likely not knowing the reality of the situation. Blesh considered jazz to be black music, and openly stated that Bix playing with the Wolverines is simply not jazz. His reasons being the lack of tone and accent. He goes further writing that what he heard was a deformed rhythm that was merely an imitation of jazz, marking Bix as the father of a school of white pretenders. Blesh sums up Bix as having a weak life and playing weak music. Blesh offered a severe challenge to the idea of whiteness in jazz.
Sidney Finkelstein attempted to establish a balance of sorts in his book Jazz: A People Music, published in 1948, though his agenda is revealed to a degree. Finkelstein attributed the music of Bix to being an important historical step: the emergence of a creative white man’s jazz. He wrote that whiteness in jazz was not an improvement, but showed a debt that was owed. Perhaps Finkelstein has tasked himself with the education of white people. He was serious about the African-American contribution noting that jazz is a gift to white people so they could create music as well. He also stated that black people are the leaders of progress in the music. Finkelstein also makes an astute observation, that Bix is of the blues, but technically not playing blues. He draws the connection between Bix music and his cultural background. He writes:
“The music contains no lament, no bitterness, no proclamation, and no anger.”
Finkelstein states that for Bix to reach his style he had to study white players Nick LaRocca and Paul Mares as well as black musicians King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, and yes, Joe Smith.
Barry Ulanov was the next white academic trying to establish the jazz history narrative with his book A History of Jazz in America, published in 1952. Throughout the book, Ulanov focuses more on white players as key innovators. Emmett Hardy gets one paragraph before Ulanov reaches Bix. The Lake Forest issue is again circumvented. Ulanov claims that Bix primarily was influenced by Debussy from France, and Strauss from Germany. Ulanov goes as far as to say that had he lived, Bix might have invented bebop! His summation of Bix is where Ulanov gently unmasks his agenda describing Bix as having a beautiful tone that never accepted a distorted sound or a rough edge as real.
By 1956, another white academic, Marshall Stearns sought to define the narrative of jazz once and for all with his book The Story of Jazz. Distinctions between white and black are still made as Bix is lyrical and precise representing Davenport, while Louis Armstrong is wild and dramatic representing New Orleans. Stearns claims that Bix hit a wall trying to incorporate blackness, citing an example in a record called Flock of Blues, where Bix attempts Armstrong type playing without the urgency, weight, or risk. Stearns suggests that Bix would sanction the harmonic evolution in Bebop. Joe Smith gets one sentence in Stearns book described as the response to Bessie Smith call, an apt description but further regulating him to the role of blues singer accompanist historically.
Amiri Baraka cut down to the bone in his comparison of Bix and Louis in his book Blues People, published in 1963. Bix is a white middle-class emulator who by playing jazz was on some level rejecting the tenets of whiteness. Armstrong, by contrast, was not rebelling against his culture, as he was celebrated as an honored high priest. Whether due to cultural deviation, or racism, they both stood out by ways of their musical expression. While white jazz brings white people closer to blackness, he stresses that the music must be seen as a deviation. The Dixieland jazz band was a watered down imitation of King Oliver to such an extent that it could be questioned as a racial parody or a version of white minstrelsy. As Bix was the first accepted white musician to play jazz, that allowed the idea that jazz could improve and was an art, now validated by white participation. Jazz wasn’t considered a valid music until white people began an attempt to play it. White participation made black music an American music for better or for worse.
Later in the 60’s Don Heckman attempted to address white authenticity in jazz as being defined by containing melodic and harmonic innovations, but void of any innovation via rhythm, as whites are incapable in this area. Heckman, a white musician and writer himself feels white jazz musicians have a place on the periphery of the music.
The story of Bix Beiderbecke was featured in part three of Ken Burns documentary Jazz released in 2001. The segment begins with writer Gary Giddins, calling Bix an unmistakable genius who proved that whites can make an original contribution to jazz. Burns addresses the Lake Forest issue by saying Bix was sent there for drinking, which probably was a contributing factor. Margo Jefferson stated that Bix suffered because he couldn’t play with musicians better than he was, which is what all jazz musicians need. Another segment describes Bix writing his brother about talking his way into black clubs. Wynton Marsalis notes that all musicians must hear other musicians playing the instrument they play, and through Bix hearing Louis Armstrong, he was forced to experience his humanity. Marsalis then describes Bix story as an American tragedy. Placing himself in Bix’s shoes, Marsalis believes that Bix’s encounter with the reality of American racial division at the time broke his heart and was a contributing factor to his demise.
In 2005 white writer and author Terry Teachout weighed in on Bix pointing out that Bix had earned the respect of black musicians, Rex Stewart and Lester Young in particular. Doc Cheatam, a great trumpet player born in 1905, confirmed Bix harmonic innovation saying nobody played such beautiful changes back then. In 2008 Krin Gabbard adds that Bix had no reason to play the blues, as his manhood was not in question because he was white.
An important factor to consider here is that three biographies have been published on Bix, exhaustively written and with a great deal of love for the subject by three white scholars. Richard Sudhalter published Bix: Man and Legend and Ralph Berton published Remembering Bix: AMemoir of the Jazz Age, both in 1974. Bix the definitive biography of a jazz legend was published by Jean Pierre Lion in 2005. These books contain an epic amount of detail about his life with a narrative of Bix being mostly accepted by that point. Both Sudhalter and Lion prominently feature quotes by Louis Armstrong praising Bix in the openings of their books before they begin the actual text. The respect level of Armstrong is such that it validates the books being written, and allows one to accept Bix’s life without examining the more hidden aspects.
The personal relationship between Bix and Armstrong is the key to Bix’s narrative from my perspective in 2024. According to Hoagy Carmichael, Louis Armstrong had a particular fondness for him. While Bix was living a pampered young life, young Louis Armstrong made the news in New Orleans for being sent to a reform school after shooting off a revolver in 1912. After the reform school Louis had a job working a coal cart while Bix was in school. All evidence points to their first meeting coming from Bix seeking Louis out in August 1919 when the riverboat Armstrong was working on with Fate Marable docked in Davenport. Armstrong recalled him as a cute little boy who tried to practice what he heard the guys playing. They became instant friends, and Armstrong noted that from the beginning to the end, Bix was never satisfied with his playing. As Bix progressed, Louis is noted for observing that Bix was as serious about music as he was, an interesting take that gives respect for Bix and also shows that music was a connection between them that transcended racial division. In Chicago, Louis and Bix had a genuine musical exchange.
Armstrong went out of his way to hear Bix with Paul Whiteman at the Chicago theater, wondering how different he would sound in a larger ensemble. Bix took a solo on a tune called From Monday On whereas Louis describes, the notes went all through him. Later on in the program, in a bombastic version of the Overture of 1812 with the whole ensemble playing loudly, Louis pointed out that with his distinct tone, Bix could still be heard within the large ensemble. After the Chicago theater, Bix and white musician Esten Spurrier would be in the audience at the Sunset cafe to hear Louis, studying his solos and being flabbergasted by a technique of his they coined the correlated chorus. The technical aspects included relating phrases to one another and including goal related details, all attempted through improvisation that swings. Armstrong may have been playing the earliest form of thematic development. Bix went a step further, partaking in legendary after hours closed door interracial jam sessions where as Louis described, everybody was trying to feel the right note or chord. Armstrong’s description was that the goal was to blend and see how good they could make the music sound, and afterward, Bix would play piano as everybody rested, playing his piece “In a Mist.” Louis elaborated further on Bix in a telephone interview in 1970 with Jim Dover doing a broadcast series on Bix called Bix, A Biographical Radio series. He said he decided never to play Singin’ the Blues out of respect for Bix famous statement, which he considered a triumph of phrasing and tone. Under Armstrong’s influence, Bix tried to add more blue notes and syncopation, including a rip of one note to the same note an octave higher near the top of the staff. I have discovered Bix playing a slight variation of a scat syllable that Louis sang on Heebie Jeebies. The phrase is identical except Louis uses an E-flat as a blue note where Bix uses a ninth. Armstrong believed Bix to be superior to every musician around him, saying records were meaningless unless he was on them, declaring him a genius who never got to make the records he wanted to make. Armstrong additionally thought that Bix was too timid to handle the gangster ridden environments he had to deal with. In regards to his demise, Louis placed blame on the people in Bix’s life who disregarded his inability to say no and didn’t look out for someone with a lack of control over their life. People that used Bix as a celebrity of sorts, never letting the party end and never allowing him any privacy, are taken to task. He singles them out saying that was what killed him, that they killed the goose that laid the golden egg. In Armstrong’s autobiography Swing That Music, Armstrong lists Bix amongst the dedicatees. Certainly, at this point we can discount a story told by Barry Ulanov in his book of jazz history, of a jam session where Bix defeated Louis who placed his horn down crying, saying I’ll never be able to play like Bix.
Bix’s piano playing was an important aspect of his relationship with music. Having played piano since he was young, his style was based on chord experimentation. Bix would improvise to compose on the piano, but he could not write the music down which he had to have transcribed. His recording of the “In a Mist” (inspired by Debussy) is well known. In his final year, he constructed two more pieces, “Flashes,” and “In the Dark.” Bix played them for Bill Challis who transcribed them for Jack Robbins to be sold, and Bix was never recorded playing them. Another piece exists titled “Candlelights” that uses whole-tone scales, also possibly transcribed by Challis. Bix was heard playing piano late into the night in his final year, having stopped playing his cornet. A surviving copy of In the Dark has a written inscription on the cover from Bix that says To Les, musically and personally, thanks for saving my life on the camel hour (a radio broadcast with Paul Whiteman). While Bix piano playing was not a full double as he rarely played it with ensembles, it was part of his musical process and how he delved into extended harmony. His level of knowledge of theory remains unknown. His piano playing development was truncated by his death.
Finally, the deepest of Bix realities. His quote on himself is well known, and featured in the intro to the segment on him in Ken Burns Jazz: “I’m a musical degenerate.” While this could be his self-awareness and admission of his technical development, there may be more to it than that. He was unable to overcome severe alcoholism, and perhaps he had accepted this part of himself on some level. What was he trying to escape? In regards to his sexuality, Ralph Berton writes of a man who claimed to have had an affair with Bix, who explained that Bix simply could not say no to anything, including sex, though it meant nothing to him. There are mentions of occasional girlfriends throughout the available research on Bix, though none of them could compare to his love of music. He seems to prefer the company of men, having spent much of his time with them on and off the bandstand, often in one on one friendships. Thomas Brothers goes further than anyone in his book on Louis Armstrong in 2014, suggesting that Bix was involved in pederasty, though he provides no evidence. More striking is his idea that Bix was masochistic. The sexual aspects of music in regards to the musicians making it are a case for further study. In an extreme look at the life of Bix, his astrology chart provides more insight and validation of everything examined thus far. In essence, he lacked inner-harmony, and was disillusioned during his life, engaged in a search for the unattainable. Certainly, Bix was the original tragic white martyr in jazz before Chet Baker.
My own take on Bix is he could sing through the horn. That sound he got is what’s it’s all about. What he did with it at that time is what he did. Having a sound that personal is what unites all the greats. I don’t think it’s learned, it’s nature. As to the cultural aspects, it’s so important to see the reality of America. The fact that the music labeled as jazz to be owned and sold came out of such a twisted, painful environment is a testament to the brighter side of what the human being is capable of, even under such adverse circumstances. The music has always been about life, and all of the both negative and positive aspects of it. It’s like a flower growing with the worst soil and almost no water but still summoning a bright color and saying “Look at me! I’m here!”
While white academics tried to use Bix, the musicians never needed academic sanction of their core reaction to each other. Louis Armstrong loved and respected Bix with music as their shared common bond. Lost in all of this was Bix Beiderbecke himself, who as Louis Armstrong said, just wanted to make music. He never knew the appreciation his music would receive during his lifetime. Now in pursuit of the deeper realities of Bix Beiderbecke, we can see more of the humanity inside of his music, as well as the on-going battle to control the story of jazz in America.
For Joe Smith
Bibliography
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