 | ||||||
| ||||||
Bix Beiderbecke
Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke
March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931
Davenport, Iowa
"Through his music, Bix is alive."
-Unknown
Beiderbecke first recorded with his band The Wolverines in 1924, then became a sought-after musician in Chicago, Illinois and New York City, New York. He made innovative and influential recordings with Frankie Trumbauer ("Tram") and the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. He and Trambauer, a saxophone player, joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the most popular and highest paid band of the day.
Beiderbecke also played piano, sometimes switching from cornet for a chorus or two during a song. He wrote several compositions for the piano, and recorded one of them, "In a Mist".
It was widely believed, for many years, that Bix's real name was Leon Bismark Beiderbecke. It is now known that this -like so many other myths about Bix - is untrue. His real name was Leon Bix Beiderbecke. Bismark was a family name, reflecting the family's German origins, but it was not given to Bix.
Louis Armstrong once remarked that he never played the tune "Singin' the Blues" because he thought Beiderbecke's classic recording of the song shouldn't be touched. As he later said, "Lots of cats tried to play like Bix; ain't none of them play like him yet".
Bix was also the inspiration for a popular novel of the late '30s, Young Man With a Horn, and the 1950 movie by the same title starring Kirk Douglas. He has been the subject of a steady stream of critical assessments, a full-scale biography, a 1990 feature film and a 1994 film documentary.
| ||||||
An eighteenth-century German named Matthew Birchinger, known as the little man of Nuremberg, played four musical instruments including the bagpipes, was an expert calligrapher, and was the most famous stage magician of his day. He performed tricks with the cup and balls that have never been explained. Yet Birchinger had no hands, legs, or thighs, and was less than 29 inches tall.
|
