![]() ![]() People think New Orleans or the Mississippi Delta or Chicago when they think about jazz, not Davenport, Iowa. A few years later, I wrote a piece about Bix for a weekly newspaper I edited, after which I received in the mail a letter to the editor-an angry letter to the editor, I think it's fair to say-that was signed "Bix Beiderbecke." That's really when the book began, but I'm going to leave that story for the book.Ģ. It's not a great movie, in my opinion, but it was a finalist for the Palme d'Or in 1991.Īnyway, I landed a bit part and fell completely head over heels for Bix's music. That's when two Italian brothers, a film director and producer, came to Davenport, purchased and renovated the Beiderbecke family home, and filmed a biopic. I never heard his music, though, until the summer after I graduated from high school. There's an annual Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, and a Bix 7 road race with tens of thousands of runners, Bix T-shirts, bumper stickers, bobble-head dolls, the whole works. We're from the same hometown of Davenport, Iowa, and his name and face are still a huge part of the city's identity. ![]() I grew up with Bix-or at least it feels like I did. Bix Beiderbecke was once a world-famous jazz legend, but he is less well-known today. Wolfe talked with The National about his new Bix Beiderbecke biography.ġ. writer, was intrigued by all of these things - and by the fact that Bix was, like him, a child of Davenport, Iowa, where he is still a revered figure. ![]() Having released more then 500 albums to date, the ACT label has written part of the continuing story of jazz by staying true to its mission of presenting music "in the spirit of jazz".Bix Beiderbecke is an iconic jazz figure, one of the greatest soloists of his era, and a figure of myth - a myth spread widely by the 1950 hit biopic "Young Man with a Horn." Bix has intrigued people for many reasons: being one of the few white jazz pioneers, rising from the Iowa cornfields to hit it big in a musical genre dominated by southerners, and - not least - for drinking himself to death by the age of 28.īrendan Wolfe, a Charlottesville, Va. Although the main focus of ACT is on European jazz, it has also played a significant role in the careers of US artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, David Binney, Vince Mendoza, Vijay Iyer and Rudresh Mahanthappa. This list includes the likes of Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Nils Landgren, Michael Wollny, Marius Neset, Lars Danielsson, Joachim Kühn, Youn Sun Nah, Leszek Możdżer, Vincent Peirani, Emile Parisien and many more. Over the years, ACT has championed an incredible array of jazz artists who are defined by their desire to push musical boundaries while reaching out to a wider audience with both authenticity and innovation at their core. In the years since its foundation in 1992, it has built a global presence and profile. With a roster that boasts a wide range of leading jazz instrumentalists and singers, ACT has released some of the most influential contemporary jazz recordings of the recent past. "Today ACT is considered one of the finest curators of progressive jazz and creative music.” DOWNBEAT. Russel Robinson / Joe Young / Sam Lewis, arr. by Shannon Barnett, based on Blue River)) 02:48Ĭon Conrad / J. by Mulo Francel based on Bix Beiderbecke) 06:07 by Bernd Lhotzky) 04:03ĭonald Heywood / Will Marion Cook, arr. Nick La Rocca / Larry Shields / Johnny Mercer, arr. Mulo Francel appears courtesy of GLM Music Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann, August 8 - 11, 2016 Recorded by Stefan Gienger at Mastermixstudio Unterföhring (Munich), August 1 - 3, 2016 Mulo Francel / c-melody saxophone & guitar In his short life-time, both musical colleagues and audiences respo. His particular combination of an immensely likeable character with a jaw-dropping talent was enough to ensure that doors would open for him. The more energetically and decisively a pioneer has broken with the past, the more he (or she) will have been mistrusted and cast aside in their life-times, and the more is required from the rear-view mirror of posterity before they can start to be treated with respect, let alone with honour.In the case of Bix Beiderbecke, however, we have a happy exception to this general rule. There may indeed be something of a paradox here, because the innovators of the past are often only truly recognized and appreciated by later generations. Our perceptions of major figures in music from previous epochs tend to change over the course of time.
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