Topic: Bix Beiderbecke

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist and composer, as well as a skilled classical and jazz pianist.

One of the leading names in 1920s jazz, Beiderbecke's career was cut short by chronic poor health, exacerbated by alcoholism. Critic Scott Yanow describes Beiderbecke as the "possessor of a beautiful, distinctive tone and a strikingly original improvising style. Beiderbecke's chief competitor among cornetists in the '20s was Louis Armstrong, but (due to their different sounds and styles) one really could not compare them." Bix Beiderbecke recorded many jazz standards during his career in the 1920s and early 1930s, including "Riverboat Shuffle", "Copenhagen", "Davenport Blues", "Singin' the Blues", "In a Mist", "Mississippi Mud", "I'm Coming, Virginia", and "Georgia On My Mind".

Bix Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, the son of Bismark and Agatha Beiderbeckes, both natives of Iowa. He was the youngest of three children in the middle-class family of German origin. As a teenager he would sneak off to the banks of the Mississippi to listen to bands play on the riverboats arriving from the south.