Bix Beiderbecke in the Jazz Age

Bix Beiderbecke in the Jazz Age

Erica Ramsey

Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke was one of the greatest and most tragic figures on the jazz scene during the 1920’s. Born to a middle class family in Iowa in 1903, Beiderbecke grew up in a very conservative household. However, Beiderbecke’s life was forever changed when his brother returned back from World War I with recordings of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.  Beiderbecke became obsessed with the band, and it was not long before he taught himself to play the cornet by ear. By 1923 at age 20, Beiderbecke was making professional recordings. Because he was mostly self-taught, Beiderbecke had a distinctive tone that was particularly crisp and clear in part due to his unorthodox style of fingering.  The Wolverines, his first band, was considered to be “the only non-New Orleans jazz band which really captured the mood and spirit of the original” and was even thought of as “an improvement over the white New Orleans bands” (Perhonis 32). Beiderbecke went on to play for many other bands before he was invited to join the prestigious Paul White Orchestra. He remained with them for several years, until his alcoholism and depression became too much. Although he sought out treatment, Beiderbecke eventually died penniless and alone in 1931 at age twenty-eight.

In less than ten short years, Beiderbecke was able to make a lasting impact on the jazz world.  Bix was able to take authentic jazz style and make it able to “function within the dominant culture” (Perhonis 35).  Beiderbecke took jazz and pointed it in a different direction, incorporating more impressionist elements into his improvisations. Many of his own works, such as In a Mist and Davenport Blues, feature “an ascending whole-tone scale” which was a unique departure from the “pentatonic, diatonic, and blues material normally found in jazz improvisations of the early 1920’s” (Haydon 102-103). Beiderbecke’s smooth, sophisticated harmonies, unique for his day, have had a lasting impact on the jazz world as later artists continue to use his technique in their improvisations and compositions.

Works Cited

Haydon, Geoffrey Jennings. "A Study of the Exchange of Influences

between the Music of Early Twentieth-Century Parisian Composers and Ragtime, Blues, and Early Jazz." The University of Texas at Austin, 1992. United States -- Texas: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 19 Nov. 2012.

Jazz. Dir. Ken Burns. PBS, 2001. DVD.

  

Perhonis, John Paul. "The Bix Beiderbecke Story: The Jazz Musician

in Legend, Fiction, and Fact. a Study of the Images of Jazz in the

National Culture: 1930-the Present." University of Minnesota, 1978. United States -- Minnesota: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT). Web. 17 Nov. 2012.