{"id":8540,"date":"2011-11-23T07:30:50","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T12:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8540"},"modified":"2025-06-03T12:12:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T16:12:57","slug":"midweek-music-break-bix-beiderbecke-im-coming-virginia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/midweek-music-break-bix-beiderbecke-im-coming-virginia\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: Bix Beiderbecke, “I’m Coming, Virginia”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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J<\/span>azz cornetist Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke’s life sketched out the template for generations of stereotypical pop-music biographies to come: self-taught musician comes out of the suburbs of Nowheresville, remakes his chosen genre — wowing the pros — while laboring in the  chains of commercialism, and dies, in mysterious, seedy circumstances, before the age of 30… leaving behind a legacy of just one or two hours of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first heard his recordings, I didn’t know anything about that. I’m not sure what even led me to him in the first place (thirty-some years ago). My dad’s taste in jazz was formed in the mid-1930s and later; Beiderbecke’s career arc carried him through the mid- ’20s to 1931. So I’m pretty sure Dad’s jazz collection included nothing at all by Beiderbecke. (And Dad hated<\/em> the sound of bandleader Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, which was the last band Beiderbecke played regularly with.) I think what stirred the initial interest may have been that I kept coming across his distinctive name in context with other names I did<\/em> know: Benny Goodman, Jess Stacy, Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, Hoagy Carmichael…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beiderbecke played with all of those guys at one time or another. Songwriter Carmichael, especially, formed a sort of frame for Beiderbecke’s professional life: the two of them met in college, in Indiana, and Carmichael always lavished regard on Beiderbecke as an inspiration, if not exactly a mentor. (I’ve read one report that Beiderbecke deserves credit for pushing Carmichael into songwriting, at a time when the latter couldn’t make up his mind to continue his budding legal career. Beiderbecke, according to this account, said something like, Why don’t you write songs, kid?<\/em>) “Stardust,” supposedly, is an extended riff on a piano improvisation which Carmichael had first heard from Beiderbecke; and the very first recording of “Georgia On My Mind,” by Carmichael’s own ensemble, was one of the last recordings which Beiderbecke would sit in on.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

H<\/span>ugely influential among fellow musicians, Beiderbecke was pretty much unknown to the general public during his life. It’s hard to describe what about him so appealed to me. I’ve seen his improvisational solos described as warm, lyrical, introspective…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it’s that last one which got me. One account of his live playing style said that he tended to stand in one spot, looking down at the floor or his feet. (Contrast this with the showmanship of his “other half,” Armstrong, who had moved from the cornet up to the bigger, brasher, more sweeping sound of the trumpet.) Among those whom Beiderbecke influenced (at a distance of years, through a chain of associations): Miles Davis. I can just see Davis striking that pose, lost in the cool<\/a><\/em>. Introspection is virtually the cornerstone of the cool<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O<\/span>ne of Beiderbecke’s solos — in a number called “Singin’ the Blues (Till My Daddy Comes Home)” — is almost unversally cited as one of the best jazz solos ever put on record. For my (musically unsophisticated) taste, though, I much prefer his longest, on “I’m Coming, Virginia.” The song is undistinguished at the outset, with the rather corny-sounding ukulele-picking and dreamy running-on-autopilot ensemble playing that characterized jazz at the time. Suddenly, at about 1:29, that cornet chimes in. It reduces the rest of the band to little more than bystanders —  to sawdust under the shoes of a talented dancer — for the duration of the piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yes, it strikes me as warm, lyrical, and introspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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