Bix was Bix as Bix can be…the once and future uncrowned king of so many unrecorded moments. His reputation was legend and while Condon was hard to please in matters of Jazz fakery, his first encounter with Bix became a eulogy for this forlorn figure with the appearance of misspent youth. His initial comment when Bix played a few choruses on his horn – “it was like a pretty girl saying yes”.
‘Bix’ Leon Beiderbecke was possibly put on this earth to beguile and ultimately frustrate us ordinary foot soldiers. His was the mystery of genius, burning so bright in frustratingly uneven company and fashioned only to give glimpses of his full potential. For those fortunate few who were in attendance at killer-diller evenings where he played and endlessly mesmerized his audience, the message was clear, he was the real deal, stunning all with the bell like clarity of his horn and the sheer transcendental quality of his phrasing and timing.
He had an innocent worldly unworldliness that ensnared him in a farrago of futile booze related events, while attempting to catch a glimpse of his own potential musical muse. His ascent over his peers was as inevitable as sunrise, his descent fuelled by a lack of an internal compass was just as predictable as sunset. His European instincts matched his American temperament and for a while sparks flew and Jazz was the beneficiary.
Bix, was shaken by the cultural divide between the Modern Classical music of Debussy, Stravinsky, Dvorak and Jazz. He left a sparse set of piano compositions that portended a way that was never attained. The noonday sun of alcohol increasingly dulled the soul and blunted the will to thrive on these cerebral challenges. We poor mortals must make do with brilliant cameos of inspired playing in ’Singin’ the Blues’, ‘Riverboat Shuffle’, ‘In a Mist’ and those other passages snatched from less salubrious recordings.
Benny Goodman – a beady-eyed chieftain amongst the under-age ragamuffins of the South Side of 20’s Chicago. He worshipped his clarinet like a talisman to ward off evil and it was his constant companion. From the tender age of 13, he was on a mission as the sole income source for a fatherless family of 11 brothers and sisters.
Through endless start-ups and disbands he personified the old adage ‘when life is tough, the tough get going’. At last, live broadcasts on sponsored NBC radio spots launched his band on a wilderness tour of the mid-West, where unknown and unloved they were subject to one-night stands with endless requests for tin pan alley howlers, while the band busted and festered to romp and swing.
Finally fetching up in the Palomar Ballroom in LA, they were presented with a student crowd weaned on his hot numbers from the Trans- America broadcasts that came in on the 3 hour time difference, just ready for evening consumption. When mistakenly timid on tune selection, the crowd exhorted Goodman to drop the tea-room posing and cut up a storm, which was duly delivered with interest. Riots followed them all the way back to New York and lasted for 20 years.
All over the world, swing became a global phenomenon.
Through the attentions of guys like Benny Goodman, Jazz was changed forever. He personally led a vanguard of efforts in the music industry to change the make-up of Jazz, from music publishers, event organizes and recording producers. Personally committed to racial homogeneity in his own bands, his progressive use of small combos featuring Teddy Wilson, Milt Jackson, Cootie Williams and Charlie Christian pointed the way forward. Although flirting with the Classics, as a black stick swing artist, he still played rings around all comers well into his 70’s.