Jazz’s start can not be summed up with any big bang theory. A more accurate image would be a pebble thrown into a lake, concentric circles branching out from the initial impact, all the generations of composer/players and their contributions.
While who was jazz’s “all father” is a subjective issue which can make for some interesting debates, more easy to agree upon are the first waves of composer/musicians who midwived this art form in its naissance.
Along with Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) Jazz’s other initial great horn soloist, was Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931). Their styles were drastically different but both paved the way for generations of Jazz musicians and soloists to come. Louis Armstrong had a more direct effect on soloists while Bix, once memory of seeing him perform live began to fade, seemed to influence more through a sort of sonic osmosis.
Too often represented by apocryphal tales, Bix’s real life reads very much like something from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s oeuvre. It makes for perfect symmetry as Bix supplied the soundtrack for this era whose list of tragic anti-heroes he would join.
As a child Bix took piano lessons, a few years later he started playing coronet on which he was self taught. Bix possessed an amazing natural ear which made him initially not bother to pick up the ability to read music. Once he started playing coronet, his school work began to flounder. His parents decided to send him off to Lake Forest Academy in Illinois. The nearness of Chicago proved too great a temptation and Bix soon found himself sneaking into late night speakeasies which affected his marks. His nocturnal explorations and playing music for local and school functions caused his grades to further slide. Getting more absorbed in the jazz life, Bix would eventually wash out.
Bix would now become a professional musician. He split his time up amongst several bands including The Wolverine Orchestra, which was named after Jelly Roll Morton’s (1890-1941) “Wolverine Blues.” It was with this orchestra that Bix’s reputation began to be made with their 1924 recordings of “Jazz Me Blues” and “Fidgety Feet.”
Throughout Bix’s short career he would have several friends/peers who would collaborate and inspire him. Hoagland “Hoagy” Carmichael (1899-1981) met Bix when he was in the Wolverines. His composition “Freewheelin” was in their book, renamed by Bix “Riverboat Shuffle.” He also acted as a sort of unofficial manager/booking agent, getting them dates around the University of Indiana. Later, Bix would be the catalyst for one of Jazz’s most often performed songs and one of Hoagy’s best known, “Stardust.”
Frank Trumbauer (1901-1956) had studied both piano and violin as a child and at the age of eleven switched to C-melody saxophone. He served in World War I playing in army bands. Once he was demobilized he stared playing in dance bands and was one of hot jazz’s early great soloists. He had initially heard Bix with the Wolverines and admired a musical kindred spirit.
They finally got to play together in an early incarnation of one of Frank’s bands (1925). Bix had been freelancing and recording small group sessions as a leader during this time and Frank’s simpatico attitude and musical sophistication held appeal for him.
The logistics of leading a band made it difficult even for the most talented leader/musicians. He would lead large ensembles again, but Frank had to break up this incarnation of his band. The silver lining though was that they were able to continue their musical partnership, playing together in Jean Goldkette Orchestra.
This was actually Bix’s second time in this band. His first run was short lived as his reading skill at that time was non-existent and the band played their songs not from memory like The Wolverines but from scores. With Frank’s help and wood shedding it, Bix was able to read, although his ability still largely stemmed from his ear. It probably did not hurt that by this time both he and Frank had established themselves as key soloists which made their inclusion in the group have added appeal. This second residency proved a much smoother run and also afforded him the cache to do some small group dates as leader.
The other important thing to happen for Bix during this time was his introduction to Bill Challis (1904-1994). He was the arranger for Jean Goldkette’s band and then later Paul Whiteman (1890-1967). He would also help Bix with his own small group sessions done at this time. Bix was an admirer of Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg and Maurice Ravel. He began composing for piano again, influenced by the emotional and technical possibilities which he gleamed from their music. Bill Challis helped transcribe his songs, which were all piano pieces. “In a Mist” (1928) was his most popular and shows a definite influence of the French Impressionistic composers.
As would often happen in the early days of jazz, the bottom line eventually would cause the Goldkette Orchestra to have to fold, going out though on a high note with a final recording session which included the song “Clementine.”
After this, Bix was still able to find work, leading small sessions and participating in projects with other musicians. Bix, still teamed up with Frank Trumbauer would next find themselves in Paul Whiteman’s (1890- 1967) orchestra.
Paul started out as a viol player for the San Francisco Symphony. Like many of his peers he would play in armed forces bands joining the world of working musicians after the war. A residency at the still existing Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco helped him put into practice ideas he had about music. Paul wanted to mix the entertainment aspect of what was popular in music, the dance components with the virtuosic soloing of hot jazz’s improvisers and aspects of classical or concert music.
He had many of the great players who were to transition from the hot jazz to big band era. Aside from many of the great soloists of the day, Paul also sometimes featured vocalists in his band too. Among the band’s singers, Bing Crosby got his start with the orchestra.
Paul was by all accounts very fair in the treatment of his musicians and is said to have paid the highest salary of the day. He would try helping Bix whose health was on steady decline from years of alcohol abuse. After a nervous breakdown in 1920 Paul would pay for Bix’s trip home to recuperate. Bix did regain his health and moved back to New York. Although no longer touring with Paul, he participated in some radio broadcasts with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and led small group sessions under his own name and with Hoagy Carmichael. Bix resumed his drinking which once again affected his health. He would participate in sessions with artists who would usher in the swing era and worked once again with Bill Challis in transcribing more of his piano music (“Candlelight,” “Flashes,” “In the Dark” 1931). He would die of an alcohol seizure leaving behind a body of work which influenced players and composers in various ways for generations to come.
We are going through a sort of renaissance of important early jazz reissues. There is Fats Waller’s (1904- 1943) If You Got To Ask You Ain’t Got It (2006), Louis Armstrong’s The Complete Hot Five And Hot Seven Recordings (2006), and Jelly Roll Morton’s The Complete Library Of Congress Recordings (2005).
Quietly starting this reissue revolution was Bix Restored (Sunbeam Records, 1995). This is a five volume set which began coming out in 1995 (Volume 1). Each set is sold separately, containing three CDs and a liner note book. While the packaging is not as “fancy” as some of the other boxed sets out there, it is actually more practical for easy and repeated listenings without risking tearing any kind of cardboard accoutrement or scratching the CDs when taking them from retro looking cardboard sleeves. As it should be, these are made first and foremost to be listened to and enjoyed. The liner notes, written by different experts on each volume are very informative but never dry. The back of each liner note booklet reproduces original ads for various records by Bix and his peers.
Volume Five is a single CD which contains alternative (previously un-issued) takes of Bix, his immediate peers and others playing music which Bix made famous. In keeping with the drama of Bix’s life, new Bix recordings were discovered as Volume Five was being put together and are included too.
The sound quality is very good. There are some slight hisses and clicks here and there but nothing distracting and considering that it is truly music of another time, amazingly little of it. Throughout the collection the remastering is of the highest quality. When dealing with old recordings, the process is truly an art unto itself. Michael Kieffer and John R.T. Davis did the remastering for the entire collection save Volume Five, which John passed away before being able to start. Volume Five was done by Michael with Seth Winner helping to dramatically clean up the newly discovered Bix; which had been a test printing (“Futuristic Rhythm”).
Throughout the collection the producers and engineers show a profound knowledge and deep affection for both Bix and the music of his time.
As much as what cuts should make it into an anthology, the choice cuts, is subjective an interesting aspect of this collection is lack of dead space. Often with large collections there are certain CDs I reach for first; perceiving some of the others in the collection to not be as “strong.” The way this collection is set up, that is completely avoided as each volume presents a wide cross section of the various ensembles Bix appeared in. This phenomenon is rarer than it should be and here occurs from the intuitive track organization of the producers. The other common sense aspect to the tracks/packaging is how the discs are numbered. Each CD has the volume number printed on it along with the track titles and also which disc it is in the anthology. The first disc in Volume Two is not numbered as “1” but being as there are three discs per volume, “4”. It makes for an easier task when searching for specific tracks and is not as typical a practice as one would think.
To be sure there are some novelty tunes which have not aged well, but such pieces can be found in any pre-bop anthologies. While I am not a fan of some of these songs, the amount of music in each volume and in the entire anthology makes them in the extreme minority. At their worst, the vocal novelty tunes sort of come across like pre-Carl Stalling (1891- 1972) Looney Tunes soundtracks. And even some of these tracks offer up hidden gems of musical moments. On Volume 4, CD #12 , “Barnacle Bill the Sailor” finds Bix performing with Hoagy Carmichael and Orchestra (1930). This short lived version of his band featured many up and coming kings of swing including Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Gene Krupa. Affected vocals aside, there is a bright percussive horn break by Bix which makes it all worth while.
In our time Bix is not known or heard as much as he should be by the more casual listener. Aside from people with a profound knowledge of jazz or those who specialize in music of a specific era, Bix’s influence seems on the wane. One of the reasons for this is the dichotomy of a modern listener’s expectation versus the reality of listening to one of his recordings. When reading some of the myriad text about Bix, the first thing always mentioned was his tone. Hoagy Carmichael likened it to “A bell being hit with a mallet.” Bix did truly posses a warm mid-range tone but what the modern day listener may not be prepared for is that the experience of listening to one of his recordings is different from listening to one of Miles Davis (1926-1991), or any modern horn players’ oeuvre. Bix’s solo statements are briefer than what would come after him and often occurred at the very start or end of a song. Like a musical truffle, sometimes these rich sonic treasures must be hunted for within a song.
Part of this had to do with the then technical limitations of recording; part of it was the time Bix was living in. Records needed to make a return on investment and this often meant leaning towards the music’s more populist aspects which did not include overly long solos. Personal tastes aside it is not a case of “better” or “worse;” it is just that Bix’s was often a briefer beauty than later day players.
Some of my favorite tracks in the collection are only tenuously “jazz” pieces. There was a brief time as jazz slowly morphed from “hot” to swing and then close on its heels, the big band era; that progressive charts could be played and recorded without worry that they be palatable to casual listener, people who needed music in back ground or that just wanted to dance. Paul Whiteman envisioned a new art form, an American music which embraced its European classical roots plus the caffeinated vernacular of this brave new world. Although he had some definite misfires, he was serious about pursuing his vision. It was he who had commissioned George Gershwin (1898-1937) to write his “American Rhapsody” (1924) which would be renamed “Rhapsody In Blue.” For the premier, George Gershwin would play the piano backed by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra in a night billed as “an experiment in modern music.” Paul Whiteman’s visions of this future music were in keeping with some others’ ideas of mixing the high and low to create a new art. In 1928 Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) had composed “Tahiti Trot” which was basically “Tea for Two;” a favorite starting point for jazz improvisation to this day. Charter member of France’s Le Six, Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) used jazz elements in his 1919 ballet music Le Boeuf Sur Le Toit. There would be further ripples of this idea felt in, among others, the music of Stan Kenton (1911-1979), Claude Thornhill (1909-1965) and the third stream/chamber jazz music which would also take inspiration from some of these ideas of musical merging.
These mini suites lean more towards their classical forefathers than something that Duke Ellington would later try. The sonic cadence is very much like that of some of the old RCA/HMV classical records made by Bruno Walter or Otto Klemperer.
“Tchaikowskiana” (Volume 4 CD 10) starts with a statement from the brass before the strings and reeds take over. Several times the piece switches gears, but the ambiance overall seems nocturnal and dream like as if Little Nemo is about to take stage in the mind’s eye. There are several Tchaikovsky melodies played and the piece as a whole is structurally a fantasia. There are no big Bix solo moments but even to someone without an over familiarity of Tchaikovsky, it is all very enjoyable. The reeds achieve a deep woody sound and the violins have a different sound than modern classical music listeners are used to; clarity in some sections missing but not an ambient warmth.
“Concerto in F” (Volume 4 CD 10) was written by George Gershwin. Unlike “Rhapsody in Blue” he did all the orchestration himself. While both works are enjoyable, this one has a greater complexity and somewhat more subtlety. This 1928 recording was its first appearance on record. At this time there was beginning to be even more of a cross pollination between American and European artists. There are some great solo horn parts to be heard. This is more or less straight out classical piece although it does not give off a whiff of museum dust nor does it trap the listener in any type of genteel stillness. This piece is successful because it does not seek to merely ape or simplify a concerto piece. Instead it offers up a (then) new way to create an older art form.
With the hindsight of time it is easy to say Bix spent a life in rebellion to his straight laced upper middle class roots; that he only ever sought his parents’ approval which, even once he was famous he never received. It is never that simple though, to be sure those things figured into how he lived his life. With every great artist regardless of medium, there is that “X” factor, the unknown ingredient which makes them great. To try to explain a magic trick is to potentially rob it of its magic. With this collection here is magic, spell unbroken waiting for all to discover and enjoy.
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