Bunny Berigan & His Orchestra Bix Beiderbecke In The Dark (1938) VICTOR 26122A
Bunny Berigan And His Orchestra Bix Beiderbecke Candlelights (1938) VICTOR 26122B
Bunny Berigan & His Orchestra Bix Beiderbecke Davenport Blues (1938) VICTOR 26121B
Bix Beiderbecke (piano) Bix Beiderbecke In A Mist (1927) OKeh 40916
Bix Beiderbecke and His Rhythm Jugglers Davenport Blues Bix Restored, Volume 1 (Origin Jazz Library BXCD 01-03 )
Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Tommy Dorsey (trombone), Don Murray (clarinet), Paul Mertz (piano), Tommy Gargano (drums)
Recorded: Richmond, Indiana, January 26, 1925 This is Bix’s first recording under his own name and includes musicians from the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, an organization that had just given Bix the boot for his poor sight-reading skills. On this date, though, sight-reading wasn’t even an option. Bix was composing the piece as he went along and his friends did their best just to keep up. Although Bix’s long, laid-back solo boasts nothing of the martial precision that would mark his best years, his grasp of melody is perfect. Even while improvising, he lends the tune wonderful shape and clarity. Don Murray provides effective counterpoint and, unfortunately, Tommy Dorsey doesn’t have much to do. Still, the dreamy swing of Bix’s playing undoubtedly helped to shape the Sentimental Gentleman’s future.
Jean Goldkette (with Bix Beiderbecke): My Pretty Girl
Jean Goldkette Orchestra (with Bix Beiderbecke)
Bix Restored, Volume 1 (Origin Jazz Library)
Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Frankie Trumbauer (reeds), Joe Venuti (violin),
Fred Farrar, Ray Lodwig (trumpet), Bill Rank, Spiegle Willcox (trombone), “Doc” Ryker, Danny Polo (reeds), Eddy Sheasby (violin), Paul Mertz (piano), Howdy Quicksell (banjo), Steve Brown (bass), Chauncy Morehouse (drums)
Recorded: New York, February 1, 1927 Jean Goldkette had fired Bix for his poor reading skills, but later rehired him, forming the hottest white dance band of its day. After a nationwide tour, the “Famous Fourteen” squared off against Fletcher Henderson’s post-Satchmo outfit in a legendary battle of the bands at New York’s Roseland Ballroom. Henderson’s cornetist Rex Stewart called the experience “humiliating,” and it was partly due to audience favorites like “My Pretty Girl,” which the band recorded a few months later. Bix retreats to the background as Polo on clarinet and Trumbauer on saxophone take a scorching lead, bowing out only briefly for Venuti’s two fiddle breaks. The action, meanwhile, is driven by Brown’s incomparable slap bass. “You know, Steve was even better known to more people at that time than Bix was,” saxophonist Doc Ryker remembered.
Bix Beiderbecke Feat. Adrian Rollini (Baritone Sax) At The Jazz Band Ball (1927) OKeh 40923
Bix Beiderbecke and His Gang Jazz Me Blues Bix Beiderbecke (c), Bill Rank (tb), Don Murray (cl), Adrian Rollini (bsx), Frank Signorelli (p), Chauncey Morehouse (dr) October 5, 1927 Bix recorded most of his best stuff in 1927. This is the height of his playing. “Jazz Me Blues” was one of the very early jazz standards (its name derives from the origins of the word jazz as an unmentionable act). Bix’s solo was so definitive, it became difficult for musicians afterward to perform the number without imitating it.
Bix Beiderbecke and His Gang Sorry – same as above
Marty Grosz & His Honoris Causa Jazz Band Sorry –Marty Grosz (g), Carl Halen (c), and Tut Soper (p) 1957
A Good Man Is Hard to Find – Frank Trumbauer and His Orchestra Bix Beiderbecke (c), Bill Rank (tb), Frank Trumbauer (cms), Pee Wee Russell (cl), Adrian Rollini (bsx), Joe Venuti (v), Eddie Lang (g), Frank Signorelli (p), Chauncey Morehouse (dr) October 25, 1927 Frankie Trumbauer was a part-Indian saxophone player from Carbondale, Illinois. He befriended Bix, becoming not only a musical collaborator but almost a kind of father figure. He was stable and responsible in ways that Bix could never be. Bix’s musical adventurousness, meanwhile, always brought out the best in Trumbauer. (Trumbauer didn’t have much of a career after Bix died.) Pee Wee Russell was a notoriously eccentric, melancholy, tall & angular, heavy-drinking, squeaky-sounding clarinet player who lived long enough to give a young Billy Crystal lessons. Joe Venuti & Eddie Lang were both Italians from Philly (Lang’s real name: Salvatore Massaro). Lang died very young, in 1933, of a botched tonsillectomy. Venuti was one of the great practical jokers in jazz history. Their collaborations anticipated Stephane Grappelli and Django Reinhardt, who created a famous ensemble called the Hot Club of France. When Goldkette’s band broke up after their NYC gigs, Bix, Trumbauer, Venuti, and Lang formed a band led by Rollini, but it only lasted a week or two. Then Bix & Tram joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the biggest, most famous, best-paying band in the country.
Bunny Berigan & His Orch Bix Beiderbecke Flashes (1938) VICTOR 26121A
Bix Beiderbecke And His Orch Maceo Pinkard I'll Be A Friend With Pleasure (1930) VICTOR 26415
Bix Beiderbecke & His Gang Howdy Quicksell-ray Lodwig Since My Best Girl Turned Me Down (1927) OKeh 41001
Bix Beiderbecke & His Gang Razaf-Schafer-Johnson Louisiana (1928) OKeh 41173
Singin’ the Blues – Frank Trumbauer and His Orchestra Bix Beiderbecke (c), Frank Trumbauer (cms), Jimmy Dorsey (cl/as), Paul Mertz (p), Chauncey Morehouse (dr), Eddie Lang (g), Miff Mole (tb) February 4, 1927
Bix’s most famous and important recording. His solo, though improvised, feels like a perfectly finished composition. Trumbauer’s sax solo is great, too (Trumbauer directly influenced the great, unbelievably cool tenor saxophonist Lester Young). “Singin’ the Blues” is considered the first jazz ballad, and it shows how Bix invented the “cool” style of jazz playing that contrasted sharply with Louis Armstrong’s more dominant and flamboyant style. (In many ways, they were on different planets stylistically, but all evidence suggests that Bix & Louis really respected and liked each other.) Bix always stayed in the middle register occupied by the human voice, playing the minimum notes necessary.
Singing the Blues – Sol Ho‘opi‘i’s Novelty Trio March 27, 1928 Ho‘opi‘i (1902–1953) was born in Honolulu, the youngest of 21 children. He was known as the master of the Hawaiian guitar, and his trio often adapted blues and jazz standards of the day.
Singin’ the Blues – George Gershwin Gershwin recorded this (and many other popular tunes) on a piano roll in the 1920s.
Singin’ the Blues – Geoff Muldaur’s Futuristic Ensemble 2003 Geoff Muldaur is an important folk and blues singer who grew up listening to Bix records. Here, he arranges a version of “Singin’ the Blues” that dispenses with Bix’s solos, but adds vocals courtesy Martha Wainwright (daughter of Loudon Wainwright III, one of the many “next Dylans”).
Pops McGonigle read this story while he was down at the Bid-A-Wee-Wee Day Care Center.
While the town of Hawley, PA was suffering from a rat infestation, a man dressed in pied clothing appeared, claiming to be a rat-catcher. His name was Ignaz Poniatowski He promised the townsmen a solution for their problem with the rats. The townsmen in turn promised to pay him for the removal of the rats. The man accepted, and played a musical pipe to lure the rats with a song into a van that would take them and release them in Arizona. His first batch of rats was mostly female rats who were dressed in little blue jeans with raised paws and they kept chanting and screaming as they went along: " Take Back the Cheese!" His second group of rats was mostly male rats who were dressed in tight little blue jeans with red bandanas in the back pockets with raised paws and they kept chanting and screaming as they went along: " Take Back the Fudge!" Despite his success, the people reneged on their promise and refused to pay the rat-catcher the full amount of money. Poniatowski left the town angrily, but vowed to return some time later, seeking revenge. On a Sunday while the inhabitants were in church, he played his pipe yet again, dressed in green, like a hunter, this time attracting the politicians of all parties in Hawley. One hundred thirty politicians followed him out of the town, where they were lured into a cave and never seen again. The deed had the opposite effect. The people of Hawley cheered him for his good deed and he was elected the next mayor of Hawley and they all lived happily ever after.
Johnny:"Is this another one of your thinly veiled socio-political allegories?"
I restrained myself this time.
