|
Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions and one of only two he recorded, mixed classical (Impressionist) influences with jazz syncopation. A native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering some critics have connected to his original sound. He first recorded with Midwestern jazz ensembles, The Wolverines and The Bucktown Five in 1924, after which he played briefly for the Detroit-based Jean Goldkette Orchestra before joining Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer for an extended gig at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette in 1926. The band toured widely and famously played a set opposite Fletcher Henderson at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City in . He made his greatest recordings in 1927 (see above). In 1928, Trumbauer and Beiderbecke left Detroit to join the best-known and most prestigious dance orchestra in the country: the New-York-based Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Beiderbecke's most influential recordings date from his time with Goldkette and Whiteman, although they were generally recorded under his own name or Trumbauer's. The Whiteman period also marked a precipitous decline in Beiderbecke's health, brought on by the demand of the bandleader's relentless touring and recording schedule in combination with Beiderbecke's persistent alcoholism. A few stints in rehabilitation centers, as well as the support of Whiteman and the Beiderbecke family in Davenport, did not check Beiderbecke's decline in health. He left the Whiteman band in 1930 and the following summer died in his Queens apartment at the age of 28.〔For summaries of Beiderbecke's life, see Lion, Sudhalter and Evans, and the documentary film ''Bix: Ain't None of Them Play Like Him Yet'' (1981), written and directed by Brigitte Berman.〕 His death, in turn, gave rise to one of the original legends of jazz.〔For a study of Beiderbecke's legend, see Perhonis.〕 In magazine articles,〔For example, see Ferguson.〕 musicians' memoirs,〔For example, see Carmichael, Condon, and Mezzrow.〕 novels,〔For example, see Baker and Turner.〕 and Hollywood films,〔For example, see ''Young Man with a Horn'', the 1950 Michael Curtiz film adapted from Baker's novel of the same name. See also the English-language, Italian-produced film, ''Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend'' (1991), from director Pupi Avati.〕 Beiderbecke has been reincarnated as a Romantic hero, the "Young Man with a Horn". His life has been portrayed as a battle against such common obstacles to art as family and commerce, while his death has been seen as a martyrdom for the sake of art. The musician-critic Benny Green sarcastically called Beiderbecke "jazz's Number One Saint,"〔Green, p. 19.〕 while Ralph Berton compared him to Jesus.〔Berton, p. xi.〕 Beiderbecke remains the subject of scholarly controversy regarding his true name, the cause of his death, and the importance of his contributions to jazz. ==Early life== Bix Beiderbecke was born on March 10, 1903, in Davenport, Iowa, the son of Bismark Herman and Agatha Jane (Hilton) Beiderbecke. There is disagreement over whether Beiderbecke was christened Leon Bismark (and nicknamed "Bix") or Leon Bix. His father was nicknamed "Bix", as, for a time, was his older brother, Charles Burnette "Burnie" Beiderbecke. Burnie Beiderbecke claimed that the boy was named Leon Bix〔Evans and Evans, p. 17.〕 and subsequent biographers have reproduced birth certificates to that effect.〔Evans and Evans, pp. 16–17; Sudhalter and Evans, p. 26.〕 However, more recent research—which takes into account church and school records in addition to the will of a relative—has suggested that he was originally named Leon Bismark.〔See Johnson; also Lion, p. 4.〕 Regardless, his parents called him Bix, which seems to have been his preference. In a letter to his mother when he was nine years old, Beiderbecke signed off, "frome your Leon Bix Beiderbecke not Bismark Remeber ".〔Evans and Evans, pp. 28–29.〕 Beiderbecke's father, the son of German immigrants, was a well-to-do coal and lumber merchant, named after the Iron Chancellor of his native Germany. Beiderbecke's mother was the daughter of a Mississippi riverboat captain. She played the organ at Davenport's First Presbyterian Church,〔Evans and Evans, pp. 5–10.〕 and encouraged young Bix's interest in the piano.〔Ward and Burns, p. 81.〕 Bix Beiderbecke was the youngest of three children. His brother, Burnie, was born in 1895, and his sister, Mary Louise, in 1898. Bix began playing piano at age two or three.〔Depending on the source. Feather and Gitler, p. 48, say age two; Fairweather, p. 125, says age three.〕 His sister recalls that he stood on the floor and played it with his hands over his head. Five years later, he was the subject of an admiring article in the ''Davenport Daily Democrat'' that proclaimed: "Seven-year-old boy musical wonder! Little Bickie Beiderbecke plays any selection he hears."〔Fairweather, p. 125; Ward and Burns, p. 81.〕 At age ten, his older brother Burnie recalled that he stopped coming home for supper, instead hurrying down to the riverfront and slipping aboard one or another of the excursion boats to play the Calliope. A friend remembered that the plots of the silent matinees Bix and his friends watched on Saturdays didn't interest him much, but as soon as the lights came on he would rush home to see if he could duplicate the melodies the accompanist had played during the action.〔Ward and Burns, pp. 81–83.〕 When his brother Burnie returned to Davenport at the end of 1918 after serving stateside during World War I, he brought with him a Victrola phonograph and several records, including "Tiger Rag" and "Skeleton Jangle" by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band.〔Lion, p. 12.〕 From these records, Bix first learned to love hot jazz; he taught himself to play cornet by listening to Nick LaRocca's horn lines. Beiderbecke also listened to jazz music off the riverboats that docked in downtown Davenport. Louis Armstrong and the drummer Baby Dodds claimed to have met Beiderbecke when their New-Orleans-based excursion boat stopped in Davenport.〔Dodds, p. 24; Armstrong, p. 209.〕 Historians disagree over whether that is true.〔While Armstrong and Dodds both claimed that they met Beiderbecke in Davenport, many historians argue it never happened. Berton (p. 24) writes there is "no evidence" the two met in Davenport, while Kenney (p. 123) writes that the two may have met in Louisiana, Missouri. Still, critic and Armstrong biographer Terry Teachout writes in "Homage to Bix" that Beiderbecke did, in fact, hear Armstrong in Davenport.〕 Beiderbecke attended Davenport High School from 1919 to 1921. During this time, he sat in and played professionally with various bands, including those of Wilbur Hatch, Floyd Bean and Carlisle Evans.〔Feather and Gitler, p. 48.〕 In the spring of 1920 he performed for the school's Vaudeville Night, singing in a vocal quintet called the Black Jazz Babies and playing his horn.〔Lion, p. 18.〕 He also performed, at the invitation of his friend Fritz Putzier, in Neal Buckley's Novelty Orchestra. The group was hired for a gig in December 1920, but a complaint was lodged with the American Federation of Musicians, Local 67, that the boys did not have union cards. In an audition before a union executive, Beiderbecke was forced to sight read and failed. He did not earn his card.〔Lion, pp. 21–22.〕 On April 22, 1921, a month after he turned 18, Beiderbecke was arrested by two Davenport police officers on a charge brought by the father of a young girl. According to biographer Jean Pierre Lion, "Bix was accused of having taken this man's five-year-old daughter into a garage and committing on her an act qualified by the police report as 'lewd and lascivious.'"〔Lion, pp. 25–26.〕 Although Beiderbecke was briefly taken into custody and held on a $1,500 bond, the charge was dropped after the girl was not made available to testify. According to an affidavit submitted by her father, this was because "of the child's age and the harm that would result to her in going over this case." It is not clear from the father's affidavit if the girl had identified Beiderbecke.〔Lion, p. 26.〕 Until recently, biographers have largely ignored this incident in Beiderbecke's life, and Lion was the first, in 2005, to print the police blotter and affidavit associated with the arrest. He dismissed the seriousness of the charge, but speculated that the arrest nevertheless might have led Beiderbecke to "feel abandoned and ashamed: he saw himself as suspect of perversion."〔〔Albert Haim published a transcript of the police blotter and affidavit even earlier, on (January 7, 2001 ), on the (Bixography Discussion Group ), an online forum owned and operated by Haim (retrieved September 27, 2010).〕 Beiderbecke fans and scholars continue to argue over this incident's relevance and importance.〔Beiderbecke scholars have long debated the significance of his arrest. While Lion argues for the psychological importance of the arrest, Johnson (pp. 438–454) hypothesized that the charges against Beiderbecke were politically motivated; he makes no suggestion that they affected the young musician's life in the long run.〕 Beiderbecke's parents enrolled him in the exclusive Lake Forest Academy, north of Chicago in Lake Forest, Illinois.〔Feather and Gitler, p. 49.〕 While historians have traditionally suggested that his parents sent him to Lake Forest to discourage his interest in jazz,〔For example, see Feather, p. 49.〕 others have begun to doubt this version of events, believing that he may have been sent away in response to his arrest.〔 Regardless, Mr. and Mrs. Beiderbecke apparently felt that a boarding school would provide their son with both the necessary faculty attention and discipline to improve his academic performance.〔Lion, p. 27.〕 His interests, however, remained limited to music and sports. In pursuit of the former, Beiderbecke took the train into Chicago to catch the hot jazz bands at clubs and speakeasies, including the infamous Friar's Inn, where he listened to and sometimes sat in with the New Orleans Rhythm Kings.〔Lion, pp. 39–40.〕 He also traveled to the predominantly African-American South Side to listen to what he called "real" jazz musicians. "Don't think I'm getting hard, Burnie," he wrote to his brother, "but I'd go to hell to hear a good band."〔Ward, p. 83.〕 On campus, he helped organize the Cy-Bix Orchestra with drummer Walter "Cy" Welge〔 and almost immediately got into trouble with the Lake Forest headmaster for performing indecorously at a school dance. Beiderbecke often failed to return to his dormitory before curfew, and sometimes stayed off-campus the next day. In the early morning hours of May 20, he was caught on the fire escape to his dormitory, attempting to climb back into his room. The faculty voted to expel him the next day,〔Ward and Burns, p. 84.〕 due both to his academic failings and his extracurricular activities, which included drinking. The headmaster informed Beiderbecke's parents by letter that following his expulsion school officials confirmed that Beiderbecke "was drinking himself and was responsible, in part at least, in having liquor brought into the School."〔Lion, p. 43.〕 Soon after, Beiderbecke began pursuing a career in music.〔Lion, 44–45.〕 He returned to Davenport briefly in the summer of 1922, then moved to Chicago to join the Cascades Band, working that summer on Lake Michigan excursion boats. He gigged around Chicago until the fall of 1923, at times returning to Davenport to work for his father.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bix Beiderbecke」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|