The Baboon Congress

Bix, R.I.P.

74 Comments

Today’s guest blog is by Steve Grooms

The first days of August in 1931 were so hot in New York City that people couldn’t sleep. The residents of a large apartment building in Queens had the additional problem that the man in room 1G was out of control, getting up at all hours to pound out bizarre melodies on his piano. On the evening of August 6, the musician went crazy, hallucinating that Mexicans with knives were lying under his bed. He suddenly pitched forward and fell dead. Bix Beiderbecke was only 28 years old.

The cause of death was listed as pneumonia, but that was probably a fiction to comfort Bix’s parents. Most scholars think he died of a seizure suffered during an attack of the “DTs.” Simply put, Bix had finally killed himself with Prohibition bootleg booze. Bix’s health also suffered because of the heavy work schedule of jazz artists. I could make the case that Bix was crushed to death by the conflict of high and low culture. Others have concluded that Bix died of humiliation. In the words of his friend Eddie Condon, “Bix died of everything.”

The body was shipped back to Davenport, Iowa, for a quiet burial. The family was ashamed of their alcoholic son. Even the jazz world failed to note the passing of the cornet player who was one of the giants of jazz’s formative years. Bix lay in obscurity for decades until later commentators rediscovered his work and created a new identity for him as jazz’s first “dead saint” and romantic cult figure.

Now, almost century after Bix’s tragically brief career, historians can’t agree about almost anything about his life. Battles are fought over his name, his sexual orientation, what made his music distinct, his musical legacy, why he died and many other issues. We know almost every movement he made in his short life, and yet Bix will forever be a mysterious figure wreathed in contradictions and conundrums.

What we know for sure is that Bix was a musical genius, born with perfect pitch and an almost mystical ability to think creatively during his solo improvisations. When he was a toddler he would stand below the piano, his arms stretched up to play keys he could not see. He acquired a cornet and taught himself to play it, and one consequence was that Bix learned strange fingering for producing some notes. His idiosyncratic fingering might account for the pure, sweet tone everyone tried in vain to imitate. A friend said the notes coming from Bix’s horn were as pretty as the “sound of a girl saying yes.”

While many early jazz players liked silly effects, such as barnyard noises, Bix was a purist who impressed audiences with the stunning creativity of his solos. In the early years of jazz, the cornet or the trumpet was the instrument that drove the group’s pace and presented the melody. The magic of Bix’s playing is his creative way of spraying pretty little notes in patterns that progress in a supremely logical and pleasing way. He proved that jazz tunes could be both hot and beautiful at the same time.

Bix came to the attention of the jazz world in 1924 when he was the boy wonder star in a band known as the Wolverines. He hit his peak in 1926 while playing in various groups. In 1927 he joined the most famous band of the era, the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Already by 1927 Bix began seeing himself as a musical ghost, a pathetic creature stuck playing in a style that had become outdated.

What we have of Bix today is a pathetically small body of recordings made between 1924 and 1930 . . . just six years. In addition to his cornet work, Bix wrote and recorded some odd piano compositions. The surviving recordings are a tiny percentage of Bix’s musical output. It is hard for the modern ear to pick out Bix’s playing in the ensemble sound, and it is even more difficult to appreciate how radically superior his playing was when compared to other cornetists.

As someone who has studied Bix for twenty years, I can only urge others to take the effort to become familiar with this tormented, inebriated genius from the earliest years of jazz. The best way to meet Bix now is through a documentary film produced by Playboy entitled “Bix: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet.” The film, which is sometimes sold by Amazon.com, is in the Netflix system. Electronically remastered versions of his recordings continue to be issued almost every year.

His most famous recording is “Singing the Blues.” Bix’s horn comes in at the one-minute mark:

“I’m Coming Virginia” captures Bix’s reflective, poignant side. Again, Bix’s horn appears one minute into the recording:

Have you ever grieved the death of a celebrity you didn’t personally know?

74 thoughts on “Bix, R.I.P.”

  1. jackson pollock, franz kline the hard drinking absract exressionists of the 60’s held a deep interst and while i felt remorse it was nothing like when jim henson died. i didn’t realize what a deep ie i had to him until i went into uncontrlled weeping upon the news. the hendrix joplin morrison trifecta in the 70s was a tough year but henson is the topper

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  2. bix was a player i learned about 40 year ago when art hicks who was one of my great mentors would talk about his days as a big band leader n the 20’s the chubb steinberg orchestra was his group named after a record store in nyc. he had the dorseys get started in his band but his great stories often revolved around bix who showed up for his tryout as an unknown and would sit in the horn section for the first time through a tune pretending that he was playig but in reality he was listening and deciding what harmony he would play. after listening one time e knew what his art would be. art knew he wasn’t reading the part but the harmony he ad libbed was so much nbetter why would you mess with it? he alays placed the charts in front of himself and turned the pages but couldn’t read a note. i have a couple of bix albums but the fav is a time life 6 album set from the late 60’s. good stuff
    ot// lucys 100th bd today

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    1. what a world . after years of wondering abot the chubb steinberf orchestra all i had to do today was google them and up popped a picture of the bad with my friend art hicks asa 20 year old band leader and a pretty good selection f thier tuns.with hrsey let you tail hang dow as the big hit art always spoke of. bix is not in the picture but wild bill davison and jack teagarden are. fun stuff the google search. thanks for the fun start to a saturday. off to barn fest is the plan for today

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  3. Morning all. Fabulous piece today, Steve… you are on a roll!

    I grieved for two folks that I never met. Helen Keller and Agatha Christie.

    I read “The Miracle Worker” before the movie came out and then after the movie, went on to a biography and autobiography of Helen Keller as well. I always thought that she was a remarkable woman who had what most of us would consider almost unsurmountable obtacles and certainly did not go the easy route. She died in the summer that I was 12 and I remember being sad and happy: sad that she had died but happy that we had at least shared 12 of the same years on earth.

    I’ve never been a good mystery reader. Most of the time, I figure out the mystery way too soon and then berate the characters because they’re not getting it. If the writer doesn’t give all the clues to get the mystery, that ticks me off as well. Sigh. Agatha Christie absolutely fell into the second category, springing one or two choice bits on you at the end that you really had to know to solve the mystery. But for some reason, with Agatha it didn’t bother me. I read every single thing she wrote, seen most of the movies made of work and even some of the things that people have “adapted” from her work. I don’t know if it was the exotic settings (I think I’ve seen Murder on the Orient Express 20 times) or just the way she hung the story together. I was a sophomore in college when she died and all of my friends thought I was an uber-geek to be unhappy about it (shades of my uber-geekness to come).

    Teenager and I are taking off in a couple of hours for our “exactly the same as always” vacation which includes no computer… have a fun few days… see you later next week!

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  4. Interesting comments, tim and verily sherry. I don’t have a lot of patience with people who get terribly emotional over the death of a person they’ve known only in the media . . . and I think particularly of Princess Di in this sense. Some people totally lost it when she died, and they knew her only as a sort of media presence.

    And yet I have been surprised to find that the deaths of some performers moved me powerfully. I’ll be brief about them. First was Buddy Holly, who cracked up not far from my home in a small plane in a blizzard. I wept when Frankie Kennedy died, Frankie who was such a vital force in the Irish super group, Altan. I’d seen him twice in concert. And the third one to hit me really hard was Jim Henson (yes, tim!).

    tim’s paragraph about how Bix was poor at reading music and yet could fake it is exactly right. Thanks, tim. I’d like to point out one of the curses of being terribly gifted. Things can come so easily to you that you never learn how to do them the right way, which in the case of Bix meant he was so spectacular in improvisation that he didn’t learn to read music . . . and then that contributed to his downfall. If you get my point, you’ll see why I could compare Randy Moss to Bix. Being super-gifted isn’t always a blessing.

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      1. Music came so easily to Bix that he didn’t learn the basics of reading music. That killed his career later on when he moved into an orchestra (from a hot improvisational band). Randy Moss was a freakishly gifted athlete who could outrun defenders and make impossible catches. He never learned the discipline of running routes, which is how most receivers get to spots where they will not be covered.

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      2. I see. I think of Moss as a gifted athlete with an inflated ego who never learned how to conduct himself off the field.

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  6. Yes, I grieved over Michael Hedges and Dave Carter. I thought both of them were phenomenal musicians and songwriters and the world of music would be incomplete without them

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  7. Another nice piece, Steve. I didn’t know much about Bix, thanks for filling in the gap.

    The first person that comes to my mind, though I think he would have cringed at being called a celebrity, is Steve Goodman. I’ve was lucky enough to hear Goodman in person several times, the last time in a joint performance with John Prine in MInneapolis. Though best of friends, they struck me as such an odd pair. Don’t know why his death struck such a chord with me, other than I loved his music and his wit, he seemed like a genuine mensch. Unlike some of the artists named in the other posts above, Goodman knew for a good many years that he was living on borrowed time, but was determined to make the most of his journey. Hearing him perform “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request” in concert was bitter sweet knowing that he was battling leukemia, but his sense of humor about his impending demise was with him to the end. I’ve heard Prine tell of visiting him in the hospital shortly before Goodman’s death. Goodman was fully aware, and appreciating the irony of the Cubs being in the race to win the pennant of the Eastern Division of the National League for the first time ever. They won it four days after his death. His ashes were ultimately scattered over Wrigley Field. I miss him still.

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  9. I was shocked when Stan Rodgers died in that airplane fire. I was also shocked when I first learned about Bix dying the way he did, mainly because he was from Iowa. When I was a kid, I thought everybody who came from Iowa was as straitlaced and conservative as my Dutch Reformed relatives and acquaintances who lived just across the border from my town in northwest Iowa.Nice German boys from Iowa just didn’t act like that, I thought.

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    1. Sometimes our response is conditioned by odd facts. The death of Stan Rodgers was all the more painful if you knew how terrified he was of airplanes. All I had to do to feel miserable about Frankie Kennedy was to think of the pain of his beautiful wife, Maeiread. She later recorded a farewell melody called “A Tune for Frankie,” and it just destroyed me each time I heard it.

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  10. Morning–

    Very interesting Steve, Thanks. I had heard of Bix but really didn’t know anything about him.
    Remember Samantha Smith? She wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov in 1982 when she was 10 yrs old and became a rather informal ambassador. Then died in a plane crash with her father and others in 1985.

    Local news anchor Jodi Huisentruit, the KIMT news anchor? Abducted in 1995 and never found.

    The space shuttle astronauts especially the Challenger incident.

    I played trumpet through high school and a little beyond. Maynard Ferguson was my trumpet hero… I was sad about his death.

    Learned yesterday a neighbor was killed when the tree he was cutting down fell on him. Too sad.

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  11. Thanks, Steve, for introducing me to Bix. I knew of him, would hear Dale and Jim Ed say his name, which I thought by only listening was Bick Spiderbeck. (My excuse is at the time, there was a lot of Spiderman going on around me.)

    Kate Wolf – I still listen to the couple of albums, love her voice and her songs, thoughts.
    Jerry Garcia – I wasn’t a deadhead per se, but his death really jolted me into realizing how old we all were getting.
    John Lennon, I couldn’t believe it for a while.
    And in the writers vein, Molly Ivins – I still miss her voice.

    I imagine I’ll think of more throughout the weekend.

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    1. Me too on Molly Ivins.

      An old friend, Roy McBride, passed away on July 29th. We used to hang out together more than 30 years ago, so he doesn’t really fit the category. He would also have aghast at being categorized as a celebrity. I mention him here, because I wouldn’t be surprised if some baboons knew him, or least knew of him. Here’s a link to his obit: http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/126641858.html

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  12. Another performer in the non-celebrity category whose passing saddened me was Townes Van Zandt. Towns, gifted with a genius IQ and a huge talent for song writing, had many demons. He was diagnosed with manic depression and struggled with heroin addiction and alcoholism most of his adult life. Treatment for depression included insulin shock therapy that wiped out much of his long-term memory; in my mind a travesty. Yet he wrote songs, the beauty and poignancy of which move me deeply. I saw him perform only once at an outdoor music festival arranged by Red House Records. By the time Townes took the stage, it was pouring rain and only a few die-hard fans remained to hear him. Somehow that seems fitting as a last memory of him.

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  13. this might be just the group.
    my dad had a group of buddies who played golf together and got together yearly for a card weekend at a lake place. was a 30 year tradition when the most interesting of the group suggested that they buy a 5000 dollar life insurance policy on each member of the group and throw a party in their honor the year of the passing. .everyone thought that was a terrible idea and highly irreverent. just a couple of years later the guy who suggested it died and from that point on they thought what a great idea that would have been a party to remember the good old days as a celebration of life in honor of the dead.
    any takers? we can start putting together the yearly event as a part of the blog. not required but there to put an x on the calandar for.

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  14. Good mid day to all,

    I tried to enter a comment earlier and lost it due to my own mistake. Here it is. I could mention a long list of musicans that have died that I like. I will stick with three authors thart died fairly recently that I miss: Bill Holmes; Carol Bly; and Studs Turkel. These three were all social critics pointing out problems in our society each with their own unique voice and skillful writing. I liked Bill’s essays about Western Minnesota, Iceland, and China. Carol put together a book about the role of bullies in society and how to deal with them that I like and I also like her fiction writing. Studs’ many interviews with all kinds of people, painted a picture of the problems we face and how some people have been able to deal with them.

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  15. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    I took Lou to the airport this a.m. for his Washington State Motorcycle Extravaganza, then did not get to the computer until this minute.

    Stan Rogers: Airplane crash in Chicago in the ’80s.
    Ditto to Molly Ivins
    TLGMS
    There are others. Now that I read this I’ll think about it more and some later.

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    1. Correction, Stan Rogers didn’t die in a airplane crash. The plane caught fire on the ground at the airport in Cincinnati. I can only imagine the horror of that scenario. I agree, a great loss.

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  16. Another person who died fairly recently and was a great loss is Howard Zinn. He is best know for his people’s history of the United States which gives a more complete picture of our history than we are given most of the history books used in schools. He was very active in the civil rights movement, and anti war movements and had a lot to say about political issues right up to the end of his life late last year.

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  17. I grieved for days when Randy Pausch passed away. His Last Lecture was an inspiration. I grieved for his wife and two children, but celebrated his courage and determination to live life to the fullest, and setting a very powerful example of how to do that. http://www.cmu.edu/randyslecture/

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  18. Two people I wept openly for when they died: Jim Henson and Paul Wellstone – never met either of them, but they were powerful influences on my life in many ways. I cannot imagine my childhood without Kermit to teach me letters and Big Bird to teach me about friendship and belief in the unbelievable (with an assist from Snuffleupagus with the latter). Will probably cry again when Carroll Spinney joins Mr Henson. I saw Paul Wellstone once when he was out for dinner with his wife – it was clear that he was in pain as he walked, but he moved with such grace and determination, which spoke to all that he was as a person and a statesman. While I was shocked and saddened when John Lennon was shot (I remember my mother waking me up with the news), and sorrowful at the loss of Douglas Adams (and any future work he may have produced), neither affected me the way losing Wellstone and Henson did. I still get teary thinking about Henson. And might have to explain why I am crying when I go see the new Muppet movie this fall…

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    1. Wellstone was a huge loss. For us it hit particularly close to home as his campaign manager, married to a close friend, also perished in the crash.

      Mr. Rogers was another sad loss.

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      1. Another of those moments that you remember where you were when you heard the news. I recall being stunned, numb as the details became available.

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    2. Thanks Beth-Ann. I’ve been debating whether or not to go with my 88 year old friend, Eleanor. You tipped the balance in favor of going.

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      5. The link only takes me to a login page for Gmail. I would enjoy a trip to the Guthrie — I’ve dearly missed going to the theatre. PJ – can you double check your link to the special ticket prices?

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  20. I still miss Warren Zevon and Steve Goodman, too. Those were two losses I felt keenly for months and even years afterward.

    I also distinctly remember hearing of Ronnie Lane’s death, more than ten years ago now – I was in the airport about to leave for Chicago and saw the obituary in the newspaper. Conincidentally, Jeff Buckley died at about the same time, and I think the two obits appeared side by side. Although Buckley was a wonderful talent, it was harder to hear about Ronnie Lane. He was the bassist for the band Small Faces (later just Faces) in the sixties, but stepped away from the glitz and glamor to form a more acoustic band called Slim Chance in the 70’s. Slim Chance had a loyal following and was known for quirky touring styles, at one time appearing with a traveling carnival, tents, barkers, concessions and all, and later with a sort of gypsy caravan.

    I looked on YouTube and there are numerous videos there, but when considering Ronnie Lane’s musical catalog, I always think that trying to pick out a single song is like trying to show someone a single square of a patchwork quilt and asking them to appreciate the whole.

    Netflix has a documentary about his life calling The Passing Show. He was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when he was about 30 and died at 51.

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    1. I’m not familiar with Ronnie Lane. Will definitely have to check him out. Thanks for the tip, Linda.

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      1. Ronnie Lane with Pete Townshend and their recording ‘Rough Mix’ is one of my favorites…

        Let’s not forget Clarence Clemons from the E Street Band who just passed over recently…

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  21. And Freddie Mercury of Queen. I saw them in ’82 or ’83. Got me hooked on lighting; I remember their lighting rig better than the music. My brother saw Queen open for Chicago when Bohemian Rhapsody was just coming out.

    And Les Paul. I always hoped I’d be able to see him him in concert. Same with Chet Atkins…

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  24. Oh my! I hate to admit it, but I had never heard of Freddie Mercury, Gram Parsons or Lowell George. I must have been on a completely different wavelength. I have, of course, Googled them now, and found some clips on YouTube. Will have to investigate further.

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    1. Freddie Mercury was a unique talent – I think I started to miss his voice and his artistic sensibility more after he had been gone a few years and it really set in that there was no more Freddie Mercury.

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      1. “Barcelona” by Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury and operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé is one of my favorites.

        Not the best video but an amazing song…

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  25. The musicians usually come to mind first, since music is so central in my life, but I also remember being devastated when John Belushi died. It just seemed so wrong.

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  27. As I look through the people, celebrities or no, mentioned in this list, I think it fair to say that our individual lives have been enriched and inspired by them. Perhaps grief isn’t the correct term for what I felt at the passing of Jacqueline Dupree, it was more a passing pang of sadness. Young and talented and struck down in her prime by MS. Here’s link to fun YouTube link with Itzak Perlman, Jacqueline Dupree, Daniel Barenboim and Zubin Mehta:

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