I made a search and didn´t find any specific thread on BIX.

One of the most appreciated treasures in my collection are the Sunbeam four box-sets (3CD each) "Bix Restored" with their marvellous sound (JRT Davis remastering).

I had some Columbia releases (Bix and his Gang, Goldkette orchestra, Trumbauer Orchestra and even some Paul Whiteman), a King Jazz CD with all his Wolverines output, and a couple of mixed compilations, but these box-sets are caviar for me!

You can hear the sound of his cornet like never before!

I like his phrasing, his emotional quality, his unexpected notes... but what I´ve always loved is his sound, his full, "rounded" and "golden" chime-like tone. Some scholars and Bix´s friends ascribed his tone to his frequent use of the horn´s third valve, not an orthodox technique among schooled brass playerss in that era. This was highly refuted in an AAJ thread.

Many Bixophiles have tried to describe his tone: Eddie condon said it was "like a girl saying yes" and Ralph Berton described his tone and beautifully clean articulation as "like shooting bullets at a bell".

Again: put your thoughts on BIX here.

Bix in January, 1927

Photograph of the Rhythm Jugglers taken on January 26, 1925 in the Gennett Recording Studios in Richmond, Indiana.

From left to right: Howdy Quicksell, Tommy Gargano, Paul Mertz, Don Murray, Bix Beiderbecke, Tommy Dorsey.

Maybe I should go to AAJ and put my response there on this thread?

Bix was a great player. I don't idolize him, but I really enjoy his music, and every time I hear someone playing in an attempted Bixian manner I realize how influential his sound and his work and the mystique has been for decades!

I have all his known recorded appearances. Looking forward to the Sunbeam/Bix Records "sounds like" release. . . .

Yeah, well I agree with PD ultimately about the influence, but it certainly was there during his lifetime and diminished in importance afterwards.

Sunbeam/Bix is going to eventually, they say soon, release a single cd of tracks featuring trumpeters that were at one time or another considered to have been Bix by some collectors. Actually, I probably have most of the selections, but it will be a fun release.

EKE BBB, cool photos!!! I thought at first I had not seen the second photo, but then as I scrolled right, it looks familiar...was Bix slightly toasted????
Do you have the Mosaic set of Bix ,Tram and Tea???

No, I don´t have the Bix, Tram and Tea Mosaic. It was in my wish-list, but when I picked those Sunbeam sets, I forgot about it...

...as far as I remember (Mosaic website is down right now) they included some sides without Bix that I don´t have (my Trumbauer without Bix is very, very, very short)

...if it´s so, I´ll put it there again!

I'm also a big Bix fan, with the complete Sumbeam set. Bix just has a wonderful tone, and is able to have a great flow of amazing ideas coming out of his trumpet. Too bad there is also a lot of pure crap in the set. I think the one about "driving in my Cheverlot" has to one of the worst things ever on record -- and three, or is it four takes of the thing??!! All in all though, the set is a very interesting window to popular music in the 20 - early Thirties, even in those moments when Bix disappears completely in the mix in the lumbering Paul Whiteman's Orchestra (boy are those cuts an aquired taste, even though Lon enjoys them )

I tend to collect stuff primarily from the 50s to the present day, but I do like Bix and Pops.

My problem with these earlier recordings have to do with complaints over the sound quality. Maybe I should check out tht "Bix Restored." Have to wait till I get enough coin. How much does it go for?

The Mosaic and the Bix Restored series both have excellent sound. It's sort of apples vs. oranges as to which is best or better. . . depends on your taste and system, but both are produced with quality, accurate sound as the standard they shoot for and hit.

Heard a report on ATC yesterday about a new album by Geoff Muldaur called Private Astronomy, featuring the music of Bix. Sounded really good to me.

Speaking of recent tributes or treatments of Bix items, this is a splendid cd:

I'm not a Bix completist so the 4 CD JSP set is just fine for me.

I'm a Bix completist, but I'm already complete!

Nine to twelve, depending on whose series you grab and how full the cds are.

I will be picking this last(?) disc up when it comes out. I've come this far with the Bix Restored series...I can't stop now!

Speaking of Bix related music, I highly recommend Davenport Blues by Dill Jones. I have the LP but just noticed Chiaroscuro reissued the original LP + much more on a double CD.

Speaking of Davenport Blues: one of my favorite versions is Gil Evans's. He playes the last refrain first-- as does Gerry Mulligan, who I presume had heard the Evans version. (Ooops I should check out the chronology-- I'm not sure Gil's version was earlier than Gerry's.) Regarding that refrain-- which begins about 1 monute before the end of Bix's version-- I've heard it on many other numbers from the era and later (usually as a coda). Did it actually originate with Bix? I don't think I've heard it on any thing recorded earlier.

Listening to that Dill Jones now. . . WOW. EXCELLENT!

Yes, that Dill Jones was a great pianist. This is one of those records I find myself going back to more and more often. Do you have the double CD? If so, how are the duets with Willie The Lion Smith?

There´s a new Bix (& Gershwin) tribute on Arbors, by Dick Hyman & Tom Pletcher:



Dick Hyman and Tom Pletcher: If Bix Played Gershwin

Dick Hyman piano, Tom Pletcher cornet, Dan Levinson clarinet & C-Melody saxophone, David Sager trombone, Vince Giordano bass saxophone, Bob Leary guitar & banjo, Ed Metz Jr drums

Description (from Arbors website)
"Bix Beiderbecke and George Gershwin were musical geniuses. Both admired and greatly benefitted from hearing the works of the early 20th century European impressionist composers...Whole tones, the keystone of impressionis, gave jazz a very important ingredient which innovators like Bix and George used to great advantage." -

Tracklist:
Somebody Loves Me, Oh, Lady Be Good I Got Rhythm, But Not For Me Kongo Kate, I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ I’ve Got a Crush On You, Rialto Ripples, The Half Of It Dearie Blues, S’Wonderful, Yankee Doodle Rhythm, Embraceable You, Sunny Diposish, In A Mist

Already available through Arbors website (for $15)

The duets are quite nice indeed!

How is the JSP Bix and Tram box set, is it a reasonable "Best of"?

I was listening to some Bix records last night, and I was marveling at how BAD some of those records really are. Not Bix's performances...but the records themselves. Bad arrangements, bad sound, BAD VOCALS. But when Bix solos, he cuts through all of it. It's like finding a diamond in a pile of garbage. It's amazing how you'll find yourself sitting through two minutes of crap (and I was often laughing at how bad some of those songs were) just to hear fifteen or twenty seconds of absolute perfection...

I should add that there are plenty of wonderful records that Bix played on (great clear through). Didn't mean to imply that all of Bix's records were bad, just that some of them (all side-man appearences, I'm pretty sure) are awful.

The JSP box is probably a good way to go to get a nice slice of Bix all at once.

I haven't heard it or even touched the box! I've had all that stuff for so long. . . I love that stuff.

There´s a complete Bix on-line discography (with images and sound) coming:

BIX BEIDERBECKE DISCOGRAPHY
Created by Jean Pierre Lion
Amended, expanded, and reformated by Hans Eekhoff and Albert Haim

To obtain the complete discography by Jean Pierre Lion in word and pdf versions, click here


There´s a site (a satellite site to the bixography.com) with another on-line discography by Joel Vanwambeke and reformated by Albert Haim:

http://bixography.com/recordingsjoel/index.html



--Edit in bold letters--

Malcom Merriwether won that contest fair and square.

DAMNED STRAIGHT!

Has Bix Restored: Volume 5 come out yet, or did life just pass me by yet again?

At Origin Jazz Library it still appears as "Coming in Summer 2004":

I heartily recommend Ralph Berton's book REMEMBERING BIX. A Memoir of The Jazz Age to Bixophiles. How much of it is true I can't say, but it a lovely book about a lost time. You can find copies here: http://www.bookfinder.com/

A fun read indeed!

Though, if I remember correctly, a lot of Bix fans didn't even want to think of the possibility of Beiderbecke having a one night stand with Berton's brother. A book that I really like on Bix, though it goes into excruciating detail, is Bix: The Leon Bix Beiderbecke Story by Philip R. Evans, Linda K. Evans. Everything you ever wanted to know about Bix is in this book -- kind of expensive though.

The Evans book is indeed a great book. I conversed with Evans once on the phone and several times by email before he died, and he was furious with Sudhalter for misrepresenting some items in the earlier bio they did together as authenticated fact when they weren't. . . . He was determined that this book contain only hard data that was verified, authenticated, documented, etc. And it is a rather dry read as a result, but a fascinating collection of information and photos!

The recent Dill Jones two cd set (reissue of an lp, expanded) has some interesting piano performances of the piano pieces and a few other Jones compositions that are in that mode. . . recommended.

I like "Private Astronomy" a lot as well. Also highly recommended for the jazz group pieces recreated is Bix Centennial All-Stars "Celebrating Bix."

There is a song for female vocalists that goes "I danced with a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales."

I once met a man who played with Bix.

But Lloyd-George didn't know my father.

The one thing that stands out for me about Bix(besides his playing) is the story of when he was recovering from an illness at his parents house not too long before he died. One day he was bored and he looked in a closet and found all of the records that he had sent home for his parents to listen to - unopened!!!

Ugh!

But I'm not sure that story is TRUE! His mother was supportive of his music.

Hey Ken Burns told it so IT MUST BE TRUE!!

No comment!

Okay comment: I don't think it's true. . . despite Ken Burns. His mother traveled to see him perform on more than several occasions if I remember correctly from the Evans book, and this myth about the unopened records is another that I think Sudhalter didn't verify that Evans later found to be romantic BS. . . .

The thing that strikes me about the unopened records story is that these were 78s not LPs, i.e. they wouldn't have been shrinkwrapped so you couldn't tell for sure if they had been out of their covers or not. In other words, this story doesn't even make sense to me.

I like Bix, to me the sad thing is that he doersn't need to be romanicized, what's really there in his music and life is more than interesting enough. As a C-melody player I, of course, like Tram too!

I think the records were supposed to have been wrapped in paper and string for mailing, which would account for them being "unopened". I agree, the story sounds a little too "romanticized" to be true.

Dang, now I'm going to have rent the Burns DVD's