Bix’s Fellow Musicians – Eddie Lang

Eddie Lang Eddie Lang was born Salvatore Massaro on October 25, 1902, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Eddie Lang, in the words of Richard Hadlock (Jazz Masters of the Twenties, Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1965), “working without precedent or predecessors, virtually wrote the book on jazz guitar in the twenties.” Eddie’s association with Joe Venuti […]

Items of Special Interest

Bix’s House and the NRHP The National Register of Historic Places, a branch of the Department of Interior, is the Nation’s official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. Among the 80,000 properties listed in the Register, are National Historic Landmarks, Lighthouses, Libraries, Schools, and Mills. The National Register also includes about 15,000 houses across […]

Museums

The Louisiana State Museum Jazz Collection The museum is located in New Orleans. The collection includes three items related to Bix: a cornet that he may have used as a student; the piano that he used during 1930 and 1931 when he lived in room 605 of the 44th Street Hotel, New York City; and […]

Bix’s Musical Genius

What places Bix apart from – and above – most jazz musicians? What is therein Bix’s cornet playing that elicits in fans such admiration and devotion? What distinguishes Bix’s style from that of so many other cornet or trumpet players? These are difficult questions to answer. Fortunately, many of Bix’s contemporaries have described Bix’s cornet […]

Video Tapes

At the Jazz Band Ball Yazoo 514. This videotape represents a transcription of original film masters from 1925 to 1933. It includes clips of the Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, the Boswell Sisters, Louis Armstrong, Bill Robinson, Charlie Wellman, Bessie Smith, Tessie Maize, Tommy Christian, Ben Bernie, Ruby Darby, and, last but not least, Paul Whiteman […]

Scholarly Dissertations

Dissertation and other scholarly works   The Bix Beiderbecke Story: The Jazz Musician in Legend, Fiction, and Fact. A Study of the Images of Jazz in the National Culture: 1930-the Present A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota by John Paul Perhonis In Partial Fulfillment of the […]

Biographies of Bix

“Bugles for Beiderbecke” by Charles Wareing and George Garlick. Sidgwick and Jackson Limited, London, 1958. Description: 333 p.; one photograph; one poem (Trumpeter, by Herbert Corby). The book is divided into three parts: the man, the musician, and his music (a discography). This is the first of all biographical books about Bix. The book is […]

Chapters in books

CHAPTERS IN BOOKS AND RELATED BOOKS   “Twelve Lives in Jazz” by Duncan Schiedt Delta Editrice, Parma, Italy, 1996. Description: oversize book; 176 pages; hundreds of photographs.  This beautifully produced and printed book provides biographical information on twelve jazz musicians using mostly photographs, interspersed with a limited amount of text. One of the lives included […]