BIX BEIDERBECKE RESOURCES
A
BIXOGRAPHY
This is a satellite site for
Cradle of Love.
Bix on August 30, 1921 in Davenport
"Through his music, Bix is
alive."
BIX BEIDERBECKE RESOURCES
A
BIXOGRAPHY
This is a satellite site for
Cradle of Love.
Bix on August 30, 1921 in Davenport
"Through his music, Bix is
alive."
Guest Contribution by Brad Kay.
December 22, 1997
Dear Gene,
Just as sightings of Elvis, Bigfoot and UFOs are continuously reported, collectors of early jazz 78s are still keen on announcing new performances byBix Beiderbecke on previously overlooked records. The most recent such"discovery," published in this space as apparent fact, concerned an "unissuedtake" of the OKeh version of "Snake Rag" by King Oliver's Jazz Band. We were asked to believe that on this newly found item, Bix could be heard, many months before his first sides with the Wolverines, and that a cassette tape of it reposed with you, the editor. Never mind that a new take of "Snake Rag" would be sensational news all by itself, without any help from Bix! Never mind why King Oliver would want to add a third cornet (and a white guy, at that) to an already top-heavy ensemble! Never mind how the nimble-eared collector who submitted this gem could identify Bix, of all people, amidst this polyphonic forest of horns! The point is, we were asked to believe this, and so far in JJJ, no one has even raised an eyebrow! What is going on here? Have we lost our collective musical minds?
I dredge up this sordid matter because after thirty years of collecting andlistening to Bix, I wonder why I should bother, amidst such tabloid goings-on,to single out a record that I feel can withstand the closest musical andhistorical scrutiny, and may fairly be put forward as a previously unidentified Bix performance. Oh, well...
The record is "Cradle of Love," Brunswick 4233, by Ray Miller and hisOrchestra (not to be confused with "Rainbow of Love," by the Broadway Bellhops on Harmony). It was brought to my attention by Jim Lindsay of Indianapolis, who sent a cassette of it, and asked, "Do you think it might be Bix?"
Recorded in Chicago on January 24, 1929, along with "My Angeline" and "Mississippi, Here I Am," "Cradle of Love" (mx. C-2857) is an unpretentiousfox trot performance of a Wayne and Gilbert potboiler tune that sounds like a cheap knockoff of "Makin' Whoopee." There is an introduction and full chorus in B-flat by the band, then a sixteen-bar verse on open hot trumpet by the inimitable Muggsy Spanier. Next is a vocal refrain by the regrettable BobNolan. A four-bar trombone modulation leads to the key of A-flat and asixteen-bar hot cornet solo. The trombone takes the bridge, then the fullband comes in at the last eight to finish the chorus, and the record. It is that half-chorus of hot cornet that concerns us.
Rather than Muggsy coming back for another solo, it is another player. The sound is distinctly Bixian, with the correlated phrasing, careful choice ofnotes, sureness of pitch and loveliness of tone that we identify with him.There is also a tentative quality, a slight unsteadiness of beat, and seemingshortness of breath that could open the identity of the player to debate.Leaving musical analysis aside for a moment, the first logical question thatarises is: knowing what we do about Bix's activities at the time, can he bedefinitively ruled out as the performer?
Abstracting from Evans and Sudhalter's Bix - Man and Legend, we learn that toward the middle of December, 1928, Bix Beiderbecke's health had deteriorated to the point where he came down with pneumonia. He spent about a week in a New York hospital, during which time he was forced to quit drinking - an abstainance he voluntarily continued after being discharged. By New Year's, 1929, though weakened and irritable, he was back on the job with Paul Whiteman. The band played in New York for a couple of weeks, jumped to Cincinnatti for the week of January 13th to 19th, then arrived in Cleveland on January 20th. Bix didn't make the concert that evening. His frail condition combined with abruptly being on the wagon resulted in a sudden violent fit of delerium tremens. He smashed up a hotel room full of furniture, and on January 21st, a very concerned Paul Whiteman put him in the care of a male nurse, with instructions to send Bix home to Davenport as soon as possible. However, Bix did not go home. According to S. & E., he "escaped" his nurse, and the next time anyone saw him was on February 3rd, in New York, when he was found in his hotel room, beaten up and bleeding.
This unhappy period in Bix's life therefore includes a stretch of almost twoweeks when his whereabouts are unaccounted for - two weeks that includeJanuary 24th, the date "Cradle of Love" was recorded. On the basis of hardbiographical evidence, then, Bix cannot be ruled out as the cornetist on thisrecord.
Returning to
the music itself, the language used in the solo is consistentwith Bix's
vocabulary and syntax. The thinking correlates with many of hisknown
utterances. The accompanying transcription shows this pretty clearly.As
for the sound of the horn, I have taken fragments of solos from known Bixrecordings
such as "I'm Coming Virginia," "Loved One," "Lila" and others, and compared
them to similar moments from the "Cradle of Love" solo, and they match
uncannily in attack, tone and vibrato, though not in force orconfidence.
The slight shakiness and physical weakness evidenced in the solois completely
in accord with Bix's diminished condition at the time, andindeed, presages
his unhealthy state during the rest of the year. Although by1929
there were many Bix imitators, none of them came this close on record to
his actual sound, his musical "fingerprints." Maybe a voice print
analysis
would prove definitive.
Suppose it is Bix, then. It is easy to imagine how it might have happened:Following Paul Whiteman's directions, the nurse put Bix on an Iowa-bound train as soon as it could be arranged. Alone in the day coach heading west from Cleveland, the thought of returning to Davenport and his family in disgrace must have increasingly terrified him. When the train stopped in Chicago, Bix got off. Here, at least, he could temporarily forget his troubles and look up some of his old pals, like Muggsy Spanier. Bix would have been pleased to learn that Muggsy had recently joined Ray Miller's band. After all, it was Ray Miller who introduced Bix to Frank Trumbauer, back in '24.
Perhaps Muggsy took Bix to the Brunswick studio, where Miller and his boys would have greeted him as a celebrity, and maybe persuaded the still-shaky cornetist to play on one of the tunes. Cutting a sixteen-bar slot for Bix in the stock arrangement of "Cradle of Love" would have been no problem, although it resulted in the extremely unusual presentation of two hot trumpet soloists on one side of an ordinary dance record.
Playing my own
devil's advocate, some of the Whiteman musicians recalledyears later that
Bix stayed in his Cleveland hotel room the whole week theywere in town
- that is, until January 26th. However, I don't think Bix wouldhave
languished there for seven days when Paul Whiteman wanted to get him home
as quickly as possible. On the off chance that the "Cradle of Love"
cornetist might have been one of the regular players in the band, I closely
checked several other Miller sides from this period, but there was no audible
sign of him. If, in the end, this turns out to be some other musician,
he is, to my ears, altogether the most convincing player from the period
who "sounds like Bix." Right now, though, I'm in love with this scenario,
and I'll stick to
it.
The next recording
session by Ray Miller and his Orchestra took place in the same studio four
days later - January 28th, 1929 - still within this mysteryperiod of Bix's
life - and produced versions of "Some of These Days" and"Tiger Rag" (!)
both supposedly released on "Brunswick Special." I've neverheard
'em. Has anybody? Catch my drift? Now get out your shovels
and start digging!
July 25, 1998
Dear Gene,
Let us dispense with this "Snake Rag with Bix" item before it gets too ripe!Thanks (again) to Jim Lindsay, I have a tape of this "discovery" and now passit on to you. It was first heard on the April Fools (4/1/84) edition of "The Jazz Band Ball" on WPFW-FM, Washington, D.C. With tongue riveted to cheek, the show's host, Dave Robinson, coolly announced this "find," which turned out to be the usual (8391-A) take of the Oliver Okeh, with hot breaks cleverly spliced in from such Bix records as "Fidgety Feet," "Sensation" and the Tram "Riverboat Shuffle."
As an April Fools gag, it was a total hoot. But for Dan Mahoney, whom I have credited as a serious researcher - i.e., his "Columbia 13 - 14000-D" book - to insist and then to re-insist that this thing is real, is at least annoying andat worst misleading and irresponsible.
Dan also misread my letter about "Cradle of Love," so I have to clean up that mess, too.
My point in writing about "Cradle" was that it is still possible to hunt forsigns of Bix on obscure records without having to resort to outright fiction."Cradle of Love" may be controversial, but at least it is real.
I have suggested that a weakened Bix may be the author of the half-chorus of cornet after the vocal. I can support this contention musically by comparing fragments of the solo to similar fragments from known Bix records that match uncannily in attack, sustain, vibrato, pitch and rhythm - subtleties no imitator could have matched.
I can also support the idea of Bix being in Chicago on the recording date byciting the known facts of his whereabouts, which do not preclude this placeand time. I offered a hypothetical scenario that had Bix heading home toDavenport on a train from Cleveland (not from New York, Mr. Mahoney!). Any train between those two cities would have to at least pass through, and most likely stop in, Chicago. The rest of the story - Bix getting off, looking upMuggsy Spanier, ending up in the Brunswick studio, etc. - is not wild imagining, but a close-fetched extrapolation based on fact, deductive logicand the musically supportable notion that it is Bix on the record.
This is supposed
to be a "Jazz Journal," which I take to mean a forum forimprovisatory discussions
about our favorite music and musicians. I would welcome
any thoughtful remarks about "Cradle of Love." Anyone who wants to
hear "Cradle" and the musical analysis of the solo can do so if they send
me a blank cassette and a S.A.S.E.
August 15, 1998
Dear Gene:
Phil Evans' just-published
massively revised Bix biography has new
information that contradicts my
theory of Bix being in Chicago to record with Ray
Miller and his Orchestra.* According to Phil, on January 24, 1929, thedate
the Ray Miller "Cradle of Love" was recorded, with its astoundingly Bix-like
16-bar solo, Bix himself was in a Cleveland hospital under strictsupervision,
recovering from his spell of delirium tremens. While this newfact
dashes my pet scenario all to hell, it only enhances the mystery of thesolo
itself.
[*- this information did
not appear in the book. I got it from Phil himselfover the phone,
and assumed it would appear in print. It did not.]
Occam's Razor
cuts to the next probability: that one of the two trumpetsection men in
Miller's band - Max Connett or Lloyd Wallen - was able to dothe most uncanny
impression of Bix, right down to the terminal vibrato; thatthis record
is the sole document of the man's talent, and we never hear himimprovise
again. Didn't Ray Miller know a good thing when he heard it?
Why wouldn't Ray make better use of such a valuable man? And why
would his only feature spot come on a record where he had just been preceded
by another hot trumpet soloist? To me, this all seems even less probable
than Bix making a one-time guest appearance with the band.
January 24, 1999
Dear Gene,
The response to my letters about Bix Beiderbecke and Ray Miller’s “Cradle of Love” has been gratifying. Several readers have weighed in with thoughtful, well-considered opinions on the topic, with the votes evenly divided on the question of whether or not it’s Bix who plays the 16-bar cornet chorus after the vocal. I am still convinced it is he. To me, both the musical and historical evidence point clearly to him - even more so since I received a crucial bit of new information.
Of the countless
dance records made in the late ‘20s that contain Bix- inspired
solos, only a few are so persuasive that they raise the issue of
Bix’s actual participation. Most
can be dismissed on strictly musical grounds after
repeated hearings. The cornetist on the Pat Dollahan Gennett, mentioned
here last issue, is a good example. His entrance on “My Suppressed
Desire” is startling enough to cause one to ask, “Is it Bix?” But
his subsequent lead playing on this and the other side is wobbly enough
in pitch to make the answer a firm “no.” “Cradle of Love” leaves
the opposite impression: The solo seems tentative at first hearing,
but then it grows on you. Each subsequent play reveals more and further
musical characteristics that were Bix’s sole property.
Bix’s life is no longer the dim legend it once was. Thanks to Phil Evans and the global army of researchers, we now can trace his mundane doings almost day to day. There is no need to speculate about his presence on many a record imply because he is known to have been elsewhere at the time. The Dollahan Gennett can be dismissed by a quick look at Bix’s itinerary. That is not the case with “Cradle of Love.” The recording date (1-24-29) and the location (Chicago) actually fall directly in Bix’s path.
There is persuasive evidence that Bix was in Chicago on January 24, 1929. Certainly he was not recuperating from his D.T.’s in a Cleveland hospital, asthe new Evans book and I mistakenly reported. Correspondent Gil Erskineforwarded the text of a Cleveland Press interview with Paul Whiteman, published on January 25th, 1929. The interview was given a day or twoearlier. The writeup contains this critical news:
Paul Whiteman, at the Palace this week, hopes to have Bix Beiderbecke, his star hot cornet player, back in time for opening of Old Gold broadcast series Feb 5. Beiderbecke is recovering from an illness at his home in Davenport, Ia. (My italics.)
This proves that as of January 23rd or 24th, Paul Whiteman believed (and stated for publication) that Bix had been sent home. The other band membersbelieved this too, which is why they were all so surprised upon returning toNew York on February 3rd, to find Bix in his hotel room - surprised he was simply there, let alone injured and worse off than ever. They thought he was still convalescing in Iowa.
Therefore Bix was neither in Cleveland nor in Davenport that week. Somebody must have put him aboard a west-bound train in Cleveland around January 22nd or 23rd, but he never arrived in Davenport - his family didn’t see him until February 5th. Where could he have disappeared to? I believe that Bix, unable to work with Whiteman, and dreading to face his family in disgrace, having reached his limit of forbearance and sobriety, got off the train (and the wagon!) where else but in Chicago, his old stomping grounds. He was searching for escape, looking up old friends, and continuing a downward spiral that led him into even worse trouble. I believe this Ray Miller Brunswick, “Cradle of Love,” is a souvenir of that impromptu, unsanctioned visit.
What matters most about Bix Beiderbecke, of course, is his music. There is much more to Bix than simply a “style” of playing. All on his own, hedeveloped a whole new musical language for jazz, famous for its cogency andbeauty. It is consistent and identifiable at every level of construction -from a whole three-minute side (when they turned him loose), to a 32-barchorus, to a phrase, to the placement and sound of individual notes. It iswhy we regard him as a composer. This language was so compelling that legions of cornetists dropped what they were doing and tried to “sound like Bix,” with varying degrees of success. But no one ever could get that exact sound, much less master the language, because it was all as uniquely personal to Bix as his own fingerprints.
What sets the 16-bar “Cradle of Love” solo apart from other contenders isthat it does, in fact, use that language, and it indeed has those Bixianfingerprints - so many and so often that imitation may be fairly ruled out. Iwill not try to prove this further with written words - the music must beheard first-hand. You can hunt for the record (Brunswick 4233) in thesepages, but I will still provide an extensive and amusing audio analysis toanyone who sends a C-60 cassette, $5.00 and an SASE.
Brad Kay
732 Superba Ave.
Venice, CA 90291
Readers' Comments.
Lino Patruno writes on 4/2/99: The solo is by a trumpeter in the mold of Bix, but without the attack and without the fire typical of Bix even when he was in imperfect shape. I'm listening to the cassette with Enrico Borsetti and he agrees with me. Addendum on 4/5/99: I want to add that it seems strange to me that a person in poor physical and psychological health conditions can catch a train (or a car) from Cleveland to Chicago, record 16 bars and then go back to Cleveland still in poor health conditions. Moreover, Bix was under contract with Paul Whiteman for Columbia Records and he was not supposed to cut records with other people. Finally, in order for a trumpet player to play his instrument, he must be in perfect shape, just as a trained athlete.
Richard M.
Sudhalter writes on 4/6/99: I've
now had a chance to listen to
"Cradle of Love," along with Brad
Kay's commentary. I'll readily
vouchsafe that he makes a compelling
argument.
There are indeed figure shapes and
other technical mannerisms -
articulation, vibrato, etc. - that
are immediately reminiscent of Bix.
Further, the few days during which
this record was made are among the
least exactly documented in Beiderbecke's
later life. Kay's scenario is
consonant with what we know of
Bix's personality, his sense of
humiliation, his chronic inability
to confront and deal with conflict.
Kay has clearly thought his argument
through, and makes good points -
even down to the unlikely occurrence
of two hot trumpet or cornet solos
on the same commercial dance record.
It's happened here and there, of
course: The Carolina Dandies' "Come
Easy, Go Easy, Love" and
Goldkette's "My Blackbirds Are
Bluebirds Now" (though the solos on the
latter are admittedly by the same
guy) come readily to mind. But it is
unusual.
There's clearly more to ponder here
than in such past false alarms as
the McDonough "Broadway Rose" and
the now infamous Marion McKay record.
And, lest we forget, there's the
ever-present question: if not Bix,
then who?
Still, some things bother me.
First, the matter of Bix's employment
with Whiteman. We know the
standard PW contract of the time stipulated
that orchestra members could make
freelance records only with other
Whiteman sidemen, and - presumably
- under conditions sanctioned by the
Whiteman management. This
is especially important in relation to the
orchestra's featured soloists,
all distinctive stylists in their
fields, and paid far above the
music business average.
Bix may have been a drinker and
a psychological mess, but he was a
conscientious man and not fool
enough to put all that at risk. The
idea of casually making a record
with another well-known band, for a
competing label - indeed, taking
a solo - taxes credibility. The
Armstrong "Drop That Sack" story
comes immediately to mind: but the
Louis of 1926 was still a country
boy, unschooled in the ways of record
companies and other big-city operations.
I can hardly imagine the Bix
Beiderbecke of 1929 being that
naïve.
Also, I don't know what instrument
Brad Kay plays, but any familiarity
with trumpet or cornet would have
told him that several figures he
identifies as characteristic Bix
are note combinations that just lie
easily and naturally on the horn,
especially in A-flat concert. The
sort of stuff any number of jazz
horn players, myself included, have
used countless times.
Also, there are places (bars 5-6,
for example), when the soloist's
rendering of eighth notes is rather
more stilted than anything I've
known Bix to play. Even at his
recorded worst - Louise, I'm In the
Seventh Heaven, et.al. - he never
lapses into anything like that.
Finally - and I have to heed this,
too - it just doesn't feel like Bix
to me. I clearly remember
the evening, many years ago, when I first
heard Loved One at the home of
the Ohio collector Bill Love. Two bars
into it I knew beyond doubt that
I was listening to a Bix solo, as sure
as hearing a voice I recognized
saying "hello" on the telephone. This
regardless of how well or not well
he was playing. I don't get that
sense of certainty here.
But that hardly constitutes evidence
in an "is it or isn't it?"
discussion, does it?
That Cleveland Press item Kay cites
in his letter of January 24 is
nothing new: I worked at the Press
for awhile, found it in the files,
and passed it on to Evans when
we were preparing Bix: Man and Legend.
It's at the top of page 376.
In all honesty, I'd have been surprised
had Whiteman told them anything
different for publication. What else
is a top orchestra leader going
to say when his star cornet soloist is
under restraint in a hospital,
suffering from DTs as a result of
excessive drinking? "Oh yes,
Bix went berserk last week, and is being
confined in a padded cell until
they can control him; then they'll
think about sending him home to
his family?" Really, now.
No, Whiteman was a humane man but
a savvy one. I'd have expected him
to tell the reporter just what
he told him: that he had already
implemented what he was planning
to do with Bix in the boy's best
interests. My, my - does anyone,
in our times, still set such exact and
utterly credulous store by what
he reads in a newspaper, even one of
more than seventy years ago?
In the end I have to say, simply,
"I don't know who plays the solo."
It's an interesting dispute, and
an intriguing record withal. Beyond
that - well, anybody's guess.
Tom Pletcher writes on 4/15/99: The mystery cornetist has a thin tone, not exceptional intonation and only a passable emulation of Bix's style. Brad's detailed oral and musical analysis is commendable, sincere, and interesting, but at least as good a "case" could be presented using Esten Spurrier's unissued recordings, or Norman Payne, Andy Secrest, Sterling Bose, or even McPartland on a good day. Then there was my father's Yale room-mate Bob Bruce who had many convinced they were hearing Bix on a Yale recording in 1930. Or how about Bill Priestley on the Monday Knights sides such as "I Only Want A Buddy, Not a Sweetheart"? ALL nice tries but not Bix! I would be very interested in an intrepid researcher like the late Warren Plath identifying the mystery player but alas .. it's getting late in the game.
Frank Youngwerth writes on 5/4/99. Ray Miller and His Orchestra recorded "Harlem Madness" in December of 1929 featuring what sounds like the same guy who does the Bixian solo on Miller's "Cradle of Love." On "Harlem Madness," you're not nearly so likely to believe it could be Bix, but there are enough similarities to convince me Ray Miller employed a trumpet player capable of emulating Bix, and that he solos on both sessions.
Hans Eekhoffwrites on 7/23/99: I'd like to point out that two takes of "Cradle Of Love" exist, both cornet solos are too similar for Bix in my opinion.
Guest
Contribution by Brad Kay. Part
2.
Brad sent me
a copy of his letter to the editor of Joslin's Jazz Journal. It follows
here in its entirety, together with transcriptions of Muggsy Spanier's
solo and of the two takes by the "Mystery Cornetist" on Cradle of
Love. I invite readers to give their opinion on this subject
and will collect their letters below. Send your letters to [email protected]If
the images of the transcriptions are not sufficiently discernible on your
screen, send me an e-mail message with your address and I'll be glad to
send you printed copies of Brad Kay's transcriptions.
August 6, 1999
Dear Gene,
This “Cradle
of Love” story refuses to die. Instead, it gets better.
The big news this time is that
improbably, beyond all hope or expectation, an alternate take of “Cradle”
has turned up!
After I spoke on this topic at Phil Pospychala’s Bix Bash in Libertyville last March, John Wilby, of the Canadian dad & son collecting team of Ross and John Wilby, told me that while they were junk shopping in Illinois, his father turned up two clean copies of “Cradle,” and gave one to John. Comparing these, they were surprised to find two different performances! Ihad seen four or five examples of this not-too-common record (Brunswick 4233), but they were always the same take. In due course, a tape of this new side arrived from Ross, and what a surprising thing it is.
This is unquestionably the same band (Ray Miller’s Orchestra) in the same studio (Brunswick, Chicago) on the same date (Jan. 24th, 1929) using the same arrangement, personnel and order of solos. Taken at the same tempo, the playing is looser, a little less buttoned-down. Bob Nolan, the singer, stumbles over a word or two. It has a preliminary feel, which leads me to think of this new side as “Take 1,” and the familiar side as “Take 2.” (No tell-tale numbers actually appear in the wax.)
The two jazz
soloists appear in the same slots: Once again, Muggsy
Spanier plays an un-muted 16-bar
verse; the Mystery Cornetist takes the first half (16 bars) of the out-chorus
following the vocal. With two takes to compare, we now have
the luxury of tracking the creative processes of these two players.
I have provided transcriptions of both takes of each solo, giving, I hope,
a graphic illustration of those processes. The solos are written
on parallel staves, so even if you don’t read music, you can still see
the difference in the patterns from moment to moment (each bar is numbered).
I suppose that
each musician had the straight melody on a page in front of him - Muggsy,
the verse; Mystery Cornetist, the chorus - from which they
could extemporize. This was standard
practice in the ‘20s. Bix’s solo part in the Whiteman arrangement
of “’Tain’t So, Honey Tain’t So,” for instance, shows just the plain melody,
and the instructions: “Solo - improvise.” Today’s arrangements usually
show chord symbols and slash marks when jazzing is called for.
Muggsy’s new
verse is largely identical to the other take. Right up
through bar 9, he plays mostly
the same notes in much the same way as before. 
Starting at bar 10, he loosens up a little, giving some nice variations.
He finishes this new take with a ‘tip ‘o the hat’ flourish, (bars 15-16)
characteristic of his best work. The swaggering attitude of his open
horn contributes greatly to the “jazz” feel.
At first listen,
Mystery Cornetist’s new half-chorus sounds, dismayingly, even less “like
Bix” than on take “2.” His sound is more tentative and weak even
compared to take “2,” let alone to the great Bix of 1927. But as
is the case with take “2,” repeated listening reveals more and more surprises,
until, as the transcription makes clear, we realize we are in the presence
of an exceptional musical imagination. The differences are startling.
Only bars 2 and 16 contain the same exact notes as the corresponding spots
in take “2.” A fresh idea in take “1” involves climbs to successively
higher notes (G - Ab - C - Eb over bars 6 - 8), which later is correlated
and expanded (C - Db - Eb - F over bars 10-15). The
running sawtooth idea we have heard in take “2” (bars 5-7)recurs twice
in take “1,” but in a different harmonic location (bars 3-4 and 11-12).
Each is markedly different from the others in attack and rhythm.
Since in the original melody, bars 3-4 and 11-12 mirror each other, we
actually have four different versions of the same little figure.
As played by Mystery Cornetist, each repetition is quite distinctly different
from the others, and equally entertaining. There are even a couple
of places where the two lines, when played together, actually blend in
harmonious counterpoint (bars 7-8; 13-16). In short, the whole
conception of this solo changes from take to take. The “feel” of take
“1” is tentative and a little busy. By take “2,” the elements have
been rearranged, recomposed and edited, and new elements added, to make
a much more coherent statement.
Assuming that
all these changes took place extemporaneously over a matter of minutes
between waxes, here, then, is evidence of a restless musical creativity
of the highest order. Need I churlishly suggest whose
musical/creative process this all
so strongly resembles?
The new take
fits perfectly into the scenario I’ve already built. I
speculated that Bix was brought
to the session by Muggsy, to the surprise and delight of all present.
He was likely cajoled into playing - his unwillingness to disappoint anyone
temporarily eclipsing the “moonlighting” clause of his Whiteman contract.
So he took a whack at a solo, despite his recent illness and not having
practiced for at least a week, and maybe borrowing a horn. This take “1”
plainly shows his “green” embrochure and unsteadiness. The ideas
come out in what would have been for him a disappointing jumble (but a
masterpiece for anyone else!). It sounds as if he decided this solo
was a cropper, so he determined to do something different and better
on the next take. Of course, every alternate take of Bix’s whole
career shows that same restless, searching quality. Muggsy Spanier,
by contrast, was content to follow the same pattern on each take.
I hope this discussion
of “Cradle of Love” we’ve been having in these pages for over a year has
done more than just drive up the price of the record. Whether or not you
believe the Mystery Cornetist on “Cradle of Love” actually is Bix Beiderbecke
is beside the point. For me, the chief joy of collecting 78s is in
the continual unveiling of new and unexpected facets of the music I love.
In this case, I’ve been privileged to tell a fascinating story, share a
batch of wonderful music and take a rare glimpse into the very heart of
the creative process, as expressed by two of my all-time favorite musicians.
Being a dedicated musician myself*, I cannot fail to learn from this.
I hope that’s also true for you.
Brad Kay
732 Superba Ave.
Venice, CA 90291
*Piano and cornet, Mr. Sudhalter.
Discussion of Cradle of Love in the Bixography Forum
Cradle of Love
by Albert Haim
On August 8, 1999,
I posted Brad Kay's analysis of an alternate take of "Cradle of Love".
This essay and his previous one (March 27, 1999) pose an extremely important
question: is Bix Beiderbecke the mystery cornetist in Ray Miller's recordings
of Cradle? Several readers provided important critiques to Brad's first
analysis. Unfortunately, except for a general comment by Trevor Rippindale
of The New Wolverine Orchestra, I have not heard a bip from
readers in response to Brad's second
installment. Are we so blase that a possible new recording by Bix leaves
us unfazed?
I have not yet heard
the second take of Cradle. However, after repeated listening to the first,
I am convinced that the mystery cornetist is indeed Bix. At this point,
I will simply say that the level of creativity and inventiveness in the
solo is very high, as we expect form Bix.
In the August 1999
issue of Joslin's Jazz Journal, Phil (Tribute to Bix) Pospychala writes
"Who around the world, doesn't think it's Bix? The clincher, other than
musically, for me was in the USA rail system, then and now."
I mailed Richard Sudhalter a copy of Brad Kay's second article about Ray Miler's recording of Cradle of Love. Dick's answer was: "I don't think the Brad Kay business deserves more scrutiny. The second take only reinforces my conviction that he's chasing a will-o'-the-wisp."
#############################################################
Cradle of Love
by Michael May
I have heard the "Cradle
of Love" track, and I think that Bix was a big influence on other cornetists/trumpeters
of the time: to my ears, the cornetist on "Cradle of Love" was an avid
Bix fan.
The exclusive contract
Bix had with Paul Whiteman is the item that solves the mystery for me.
Some sides by
Oreste's Queensland Dance Orchestra, Edison recordings from the late '20s,
feature a cornetist/trumpeter who sounds uncannily like Bix, but the recording
dates place him at other locations. Cornetist Fred Rollison, on "Cataract
Rag Blues" as performed by Hitch's Happy Harmonists, sounds a lot like
Bix. I think Bix's influence amongst fellow musicians was more pervasive
then, than we now realize.
####################################################################
Bix Emulators and "Wild Cat" Recordings
by Albert Haim
I agree that many (if
not most) cornetists contemporaries to Bix attempted to emulate him, witness
the album "It Sounds Like Bix' and countless other recordings. Several
of the cornetists succeeded in reproducing some of the more superficial
aspects of what we think is Bix's cornet work, but not the essence. The
mystery cornetist in "Cradle of Love" has a complex and
sophisticated compositional style
not found in the work of most emulators.
I am not persuaded
by the argument that Bix, being under exclusive contract with Paul Whiteman,
would comply with the requirement that he could only record with Whiteman's
musicians. Read what Irvin "Izzy" Friedman had to say about this: "Regarding
"wildcat recordings", yes, on many occasions while I was with the band,
Bix, Tram, Venuti, Lang, and myself would do recordings with different
groups. We would not let them use our names for the "Old Man" would really
raise hell".(Evans and Evans, Bix, The Leon Bix Beiderbecke Story". p.
426).
####################################################################
Additional information
I think I need to hear
the second take! I'll contact either John Wilby or Brad Kay for a copy.
I listened to the first take again, through headphones during the weekend,
and to be honest, it sure does sound like Bix.
Also, the "Biltmore
Hotel Orchestra" track on the "It Sounds Like Bix" album is "Cataract Rag
Blues" by Hitch's Happy Harmonists. When I first heard this, on the "It
Sounds.." album, it sure was a chilling experience! I really thought it
was an outtake from the Wolverines!!!
###################################################################
Cradle of Love: Not Bix to my ears!
by Chris Tyle
After giving
a listen to these takes, I felt compelled to give a few
comments. Firstly, I really doubt
that this is Bix. This player shows none
of the rhythmic assurance that
Bix had. Even when Bix was having an "off"
day in the studio, his rhythm is
always strong. There is also the slur to
that high note on take one. My
belief is Bix would've popped that out
rather than slur. Also, Bix tended
to strongly tongue his notes rather than
the soft tonguing done here. To
me this is someone trying to sound like a
combination of Bix and Red Nichols.
Secondly, I don't believe there's any
strong evidence that Bix and Muggsy
were buddies. From all accounts Muggsy was a jealous kind of guy, and as
I recall at some point made some rather disparaging remarks about Bix.
Lastly, I think a lot of people romanticize the event of a recording session.
Most musicians avoid the recording studio like the plague unless they're
hired to be there. I have a hard time believing a not-too-well Bix would
go into the studio for fun.
#####################################################################
Muggsy and Bix
by Brad Kay
Part of my "Cradle
of Love" scenario has Bix running into Muggsy Spanier, and Muggsy inviting
him to come to the Brunswick studio to at least greet the boys in the Ray
Miller Band. First Phil Evans, and now Chris Tyle have called that into
question. Phil once told me flat out that such a friendly meeting was impossible
because Muggsy actively disliked Bix, and was jealous of him.
Chris essays the same opinion.
I would almost be willing to accept that, based on some of the general
scuttlebutt about Muggsy, if it weren't for the testimony of Muggsy Spanier
himself!
In April, 1939, Muggsy
was interviewed in Chicago by a W.P.A Federal Writer's Project worker named
Sam Ross. In reminiscing about his career, Muggsy had this to say about
Bix:"I met Bix at the Friar's Inn where the New Orleans Rhythm Kings were
and we both came down to listen to them. We met in a funny way, sort of
unconscious. We'd sit around and listen to the boys and then one day Bix
said, 'I'm a cornet player.' And I said, 'I'm one, too.' After that we
went out to the south side together and there was one place we dropped
in at where there was a piano and a drum and we sat in with our two horns
and we played together so well we decided we'd be a cornet team. Always
we met at Friar's Inn and then we'd knock around together."
Sounds to me
like they got along quite amicably! Maybe later in life Muggsy had some
bitter words about Bix, but at least as late as 1939, he was still waxing
warm and fuzzy about his late pal. The complete interview can be found
online at http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amhome.html - which is the
"American Memory" site for the
Library of Congress. Click on the search engine and type "bix". There are
two other interviews that mention him. I don't think any of these have
been noticed by jazz researchers.
#####################################################################
At the 2000 Tribute,
Brad suggested Bix would have headed straight for the Three Deuces had
he stopped in Chicago in time to cut "Cradle" with Ray Miller. Has anybody
wondered like me what Bix's immediate financial situation could have been
at the time? Might that nurse in Cleveland have skipped off with the money
Whiteman left with an out-of-it Bix? Did Bix have only enough to go to
Chicago, then hit up Spanier for a loan at the Deuces? And might Spanier
have suggested Bix instead come with him down to Brunswick, and maybe work
out a deal to do a solo for cash on the spot from Miller? Bix may well
have broken his agreement with Whiteman not to make outside recordings
this time because he needed money there and then. And he might have sworn
all participants to secrecy so that it wouldn't get back to
Whiteman.All of this is speculation
of course, but it might knock down a few objections forum participants
and experts like Sudhalter have raised against Brad's scenario.
More Ray Miller's Recordings
Posted on Feb 15 2000, 05:18 PM
On 5/4/99 Frank Youngwerth
raised the possibility that the mystery cornetist in "Cradle of Love" is
the same musician as the one featured in Ray Miller's "Harlem Madness",
recorded in December of 1929. Frank said "On "Harlem Madness," you're not
nearly so likely to believe it could be Bix, but there are enough similarities
to convince me Ray Miller employed a trumpet player capable of emulating
Bix, and that he solos on both sessions." On 2/8/00, Hans Eekhoff revived
this question by writing "if you play "Harlem Madness", from roughly the
same period, there IS a trumpet player not unlike the one on "Cradle" and
definitely NOT Muggsy."
At the time Frank
had written, I had no space for audio files in the original Bixography
site. Since then, I have secured web space for audio files in a couple
of auxiliary Bixography sites. With Hans's reminder, I decided to make
available to Bixophiles the "Harlem Madness" recording by Ray Miller and
his orchestra. This posting may catalyze some additional discussion of
Brad Kay's important analysis of "Cradle of Love". Since uploading two
files does not take that much more time than one, I also uploaded "Angry",
another Ray Miller's recording from January 3, 1929. There is a trumpet
or cornet solo that is highly experimental in its musical construction
and I thought it would be worth listening too. Hans tells me "Forget about
"Angry" that is Muggsy and no one else."
Please go to http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/rage/721/index.html
and then post your views and opinions
about this issue in the Bixography Forum at http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/27140
Thank you.
Albert Haim
###########################################################
Ray Miller tracks
Posted on Feb 18 2000, 01:17 AM
The Cradle of love
soloist is certainly tantalising. After repeated listening I am reluctantly
forced to the conclusion that it isn't Bix, although I am not 100% certain.
If he had not been laying for a bit and if he had to borrow an instrument
and maybe even a mouthpiece, that might explain the tonal differences.
However it is the odd phrase that disturbs me more. In both takes there
are is least one instance of an un-Bix like phrase. One of the phrases
put me in mind of one of the Lou Raderman sides, which seem to be now acknowledged
to be Mannie Klein. I consulted Rust's American Dance Band Discography
and found that three titles wererecorded at the Ray Miller 24/1/29 session.
They are:
Matrix C-2856 My Angeline
Brunswick BR 4233
2857 Cradle of Love
4233
2858 Mississippi here
I am 4194
Presumably the first track has
been listened to as it is on the same disc as Cradle of Love. Has anyone
a copy of the third track and is the mystery soloist in evidence ?
##########################################################
Ray Miller/Bix
Posted on Feb 18 2000, 05:00 AM
Hello Malcolm,
I have Mississippi
Here I Am, but our mystery man cannot be heard.
However,I believe
the same man can be heard on Harlem Madness (december 21, 1929). A fine
trumpeter but not Bix.
Rust mentions two
more trumpet players: Max Connett and Lloyd Wallen probably it's one of
these guys.
It would be worth
listening to other Ray Miller records of that period.
I don't hear Bix on
Cradle but the second take is more convincing.
Hans Eekhoff
################################################################
"Harlem Madness" vs. "Cradle of Love"
Posted on Mar 23 2000, 03:07 AM
Several Forum contributors have mentioned Ray Miller's "Harlem Madness," recorded in December of 1929, as containing solo work by the same "mystery cornetist" who plays on "Cradle of Love." I listened to this record and played it on different occasions for a half-dozen discerning listeners here in Los Angeles. This is what we heard:
The "Harlem Madness"
soloist is also the first chair trumpet, and leads the brass section throughout
the record, as well as doing his solo bits. He is a strong, punchy player
with an intense vibrato, coming off a lot like Jimmy McPartland. He trades
fours with other orchestra members, so his solo space is broken up. He
gets off three four-bar slices which show no compositional connectedness
either to each other or to what the other soloists are doing. He
sounds brash, harsh and rather
haphazard. He seems to be a crackerjack lead player, but only a journeyman
soloist.
The "Cradle of Love" mystery cornetist, on the other hand, appears ONLY during his 16-bar half-chorus, taking no part in the overall brass section work. He sounds rather weak and tentative, with occasional vibrato. However, he plays with nuance, inventiveness and compositional coherence. The quite different solos on each take betray a restless spontaneity.
The half-dozen listeners and I all instantly concluded that these are two different players.
########################################################
Oddly enough, at Brad's presentation in Kenosha, the soloist on "Harlem Madness" sounded closer to Bix to me than the one on "Cradle"--I didn't think about what was being played, just how it sounded.We're probably talking about two different players.
##############################################################
Bix sound alike contest
by Hans Eekhoff
Posted on Apr 01 2000, 10:58 PM
I hear the same trumpeter on "Cradle" and "Harlem" but I agree that the latter side sounds more like Bix.
################################################################
Many Ray Miller Recordings
by Albert Haim
Posted on Feb 18 2000, 08:48 AM
The Red Hot Jazz web
site, run by Scott Alexander, is a fantastic resource to listen to recordings
from the 1920's on demand. He has collected about 3000 (yes, no error in
the zeros, three thousand!) recordings and, as long as you have Real Audio
Player, you have the three thousand records at the tip of your mouse.
You will find a good
collection of Ray Miller's recordings. Here are the ones from 28 and 29.
Is She My Girl Friend?
I Wish I Could Shimmy
Like My Sister Kate
My Honey's Lovin'
Arms
Sorry
Ain't you baby
Angry
Harlem Madness
Mississippi here I
am
No one in the world
but you
That's a plenty
Who wouldn't be jealous
of you.
Unfortunately, except for Harlem Madness, the others do not help much with the Cradle of Love problem.
##########################################################
Ray Miller recordings
by Hans Eekhoff
Posted on Feb 18 2000, 03:22 PM
The first four titles
from the list are actually by the Andy Mansfield Orchestra that Ray Miller
led for a brief period.
They made a few Gennett
recordings earlier; great jazz (as are these four "Ray Miller" Brunswick
records) but don't look for our mystery cornetist on these sides!
Hans Eekhoff
#################################################################
Yves Francois writes on 03/28/00:
I was not present on 3/11/00 for Brad Kay's lecture on the alternate take
of Cradle Of Love. Brad did give myself and two other members of my band
a detailed presenation of all the points about Cradle Of Love and the stereo
bixes. After transcribing the solo last fall, I strongly suspect the solo
to be Bix-there may not be the tone we associate with Bix (the question
I would ask other fellow trumpet players is that how well would you play
after not playing for the better part of a week, with what may be a borrowed
horn and after suffering from a relapse of dt's?) but the notes are. Ok
if it isn't bix, who? Fred Ferguson (Lyman's trumpeter of the late
20s could do a fair Bix-Harold Gast played us a good test pressing of Mississippi
Mud that's Bixian from 1928-but the vibrato doesn't quite match), certainly
not any of the other usual cornetists kicking around Chicagoin 1929 that
I can think of, and besides, the transcription of both takes works like
many another Bix alternate. As I voted in both 1999 and this year's
presentation, I believe the
soloist is Bix (and besides it's a fun solo to
boot).
I am also involved in figuring
out other horn player mysteries(my favorite is Frankie Newton on a blues
date in 1938 that he is not listed on, also like general 1920s-1930s blues,
jazz dance and territory bands)
PS agree with Brad on Baby...the
mute is Bix, open is Andy (maybe we should take another peek at Raderman's
Old Man River?)
##########################################################
The June 30, 2000 issue
of the Chicago Reader published the following article by Frank Youngwerth.
It is reprinted here with permission from the author.
With daylight fading, the oversize bus turns into Woodlawn
Cemetary in
Forest Park and rolls slowly up a narrow one-way lane.
The driver stops, and our sprightly tour director jumps off to search the
desolate rows. Minutes pass. He can’t find what he’s looking for. He motions
to the driver to back up a hundred yards or so, and after more futile exploration,
waves him back again. We peer out impatiently at his flashlight beam dancing
across a sea of engraved anonymity. Then, finally, paydirt. About half
the group--about 20 people, mostly couples in their 40s, 50s, or 60s--disembarks
to join him and read the stone’s inscription: Frank Teschemacher, 1906-1932.
Hours earlier, we’d visited the corner of Magnolia and Wilson, where Tesch,
of the famed Austin High Gang, met his demise in an auto accident, thrown
from a car driven by Wild Bill Davison.
This might sound like a stop on one of those Untouchable
Gangster Tours you
see around town, but though Tesch and Wild Bill both
did some work for
Capone and his cronies during Prohibition, it was only
in the capacity of
playing hot music in gangster-run speakeasies. The Austin
High Gang , a
loose collective of jazz talent responsible for establishing
what’s known
as “the Chicago style,” also included future big names
like Bud Freeman,
Jimmy McPartland, Gene Krupa, and Eddie Condon.
Without exception the gang idolized self-taught cornetist
and pianist Bix
Beiderbecke, who died of pneumonia in 1931 at age 28,
and so does our
gravestalking guide, Libertyville resident Phil Pospychala.
This tour of
historic 20s and 30s jazz sites around Chicago kicked
off his 11th annual
Tribute to Bix, held in March--the month of Beiderbecke’s
birth--and
headquartered at the Holiday Inn Express in sleepy downtown
Kenosha. The
location holds no special significance: he held the first
ten Bix tributes
at a Best Western near his home in Libertyville, but
differences with the
management of the restaurant there persuaded him to relocate
the festivities.
Less well known and more sparsely attended than the Bix
Beiderbecke
Memorial Jazz Festival, which goes on every summer in
the musician’s
hometown of Davenport, Iowa, Phil’s tribute attracts
between a hundred and
two hundred record collectors and traditional-jazz enthusiasts
from across
the country and overseas with three days of concerts,
vintage films,
seminars, and late-night record-spinning sessions. Tribute
participants
treat the jazz of Bix’s era not like relics you might
stumble over in your
grandma’s attic or even just as some of the most exciting
and innovative
music of its day, but as music still worth listening
to, getting excited
over, and debating about.
Bix, one of the earliest in a long line of self-destructive
jazz giants,
pioneered a lyrical style that’s been cited as a formative
influence on
Miles Davis. His life was the loose premise for Dorothy
Baker’s 1938 novel,
Young Man With a Horn (made into a Hollywood movie starring
Kirk Douglas and Lauren Bacall in 1950), and his playing inspired his friend
and fan Hoagy Carmichael to compose pop standards like “Stardust” and “Skylark,”
whose melody lines at many points recall Bix’s distinctive approach to
lyrical improvisation. Despite the brevity of his career, Bix is one of
the most heavily researched figures in early jazz. In their landmark 1974
biography, Bix: Man & Legend, authors Phil Evans
and Richard Sudhalter
provided an almost day-by-day account of his whereabouts
and activities.
One of the most perplexing episodes in Bix’s life occurred
in early 1929,
while he was on the road with the hugely successful Paul
Whiteman
Orchestra, also featuring nascent crooner Bing Crosby.
Only three months
earlier, the band had given a concert at New York’s Carnegie
Hall, where
Bix had performed his own piano composition “In a Mist.”
In an era when
every musician dreamed of someday making it to Carnegie
Hall, he arrived on
his own terms--a well-paid jazz musician playing original
material to boot.
But in a nasty turn of events brought on by his alcoholism,
he suffered a
violent mental and physical breakdown in his Cleveland
hotel room. Whiteman left him behind under a nurse’s care, giving him leave
to return home to Iowa and recover. But he didn't go home, and two weeks
later, the band returned to New York to find their star cornetist at the
hotel and in a
miserable condition, beaten up and slashed.
Nobody has ever figured out where Bix went or what he
did during the days
bookended by these two tragic incidents. But a couple
of years ago, a
California collector named Brad Kay found an obscure
dance-band record made in Chicago’s Brunswick studios on January 24, 1929--exactly
when Bix was MIA. And curiously, it includes a 16-bar cornet solo that’s
got a familiar ring.
While it’s no masterpiece, this mystery solo on “Cradle
of Love” by Ray
Miller and His Orchestra is big news for collectors.
Though Bix recorded
frequently between 1924 and 1930, he rarely got a chance
to stretch out in
the studio, even to play a full-length solo. The record
business at this
time operated under a kind of reverse racism. Labels
would encourage black
jazz musicians to play without restraint and solo liberally
on record, to
appeal to the tastes of the “race” market, but typically
demanded that
white musicians like Beiderbecke keep it buttoned up,
playing pretty,
peppy, and polite for the white audience. On occasion
Bix managed to find
his way around these barriers and cut loose for posterity,
but not nearly
often enough to satisfy his admirers.
At Phil’s 1999 tribute, Kay had introduced “Cradle of
Love” as a candidate.
He analyzed the mystery solo in detail, breaking it down
into short phrases
and comparing these to similar runs from other known
Bix passages. Kay’s
analysis was interesting, but skeptics pointed out that
under close
scrutiny the solo really didn’t sound so convincingly
like Bix, and that by
the time the record was cut, it had become fashionable
among horn players
in dance bands to imitate him, which could explain the
similarities. Kay
argued that while the playing might be shaky in spots,
the solo’s
construction revealed an unusually high degree of creativity,
beyond the
capabilities of a mere imitator of that period. But over
the months
following his presentation Kay failed to win over Evans
(who died last
year), Sudhalter (who maintained that the solo just didn’t
sound like Bix),
or any other recognized expert.
For this year’s tribute Kay returned with more and better
ammunition,
though at first it didn’t seem so. Another collector
had found and
forwarded to Kay an alternate take of “Cradle of Love”
from the same
session. Now there were two examples of the mystery cornetist’s
playing.
The new one sounded less like Bix than the original,
but rather than get
discouraged Kay got an idea. Years before he had stunned
the jazz
collecting world after noticing that two different takes
of a Duke
Ellington medley recorded in 1932 sounded like they might
be the same
performance captured with two different microphone setups.
He synchronized
the two takes, and presto, he had an astonishing true
stereo recording of
the revered Ellington band, made a quarter century prior
to the commercial
introduction of stereo.
With his “Cradle of Love” takes, Kay realized he had
two different
performances of the same arrangement and solo lineup,
but he didn’t see any
reason not to try synchronizing them anyway, just to
see what would happen.
When he played the results at the tribute, using a minidisc
player, the effect on the audience was electrifying.
First, though, he
played a combination of two solos Bix was known to have
recorded with Paul
Whiteman’s band on the song “From Monday On” in 1928.
Ever since jazz records started getting reissued, alternate
takes have been
offered, allowing the listener to compare a player’s
different attempts at
the same solo passage. But as far as I know, nobody’s
ever thought of
playing the solos simultaneously. I’d heard the two “From
Monday On” solos
countless times before, but they never sounded like this.
Played together
they meshed so well, in counterpoint rhythm and harmony,
that it was as if
a three-dimensional image of Bix’s spirit had materialized
in the room.
But Kay meant for this to be more than a party trick.
As he played more
pairs of Bix solos, a pattern emerged: the cornetist
apparently never
repeated himself, even when the takes were recorded only
minutes apart. Yet
he inevitably remained true to his inner conception of
the piece and its
chord structure--that’s what made the different lines
so congruent when
played simultaneously.
Next, Kay juxaposed pairs of alternate takes by other
famous jazz soloists
of the 20s-- Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Jimmy
Dorsey, Muggsy
Spanier, Red Nichols, Frank Trumbauer, and others. Together
these suggested that it was not unusual at the time for even the greatest
jazz musicians to stick with pretty much the same solo, phrase by phrase,
from take to take.
Then Kay played the two “Cradle of Love” solos. And though
they still
didn’t shine like Bix in top form, they combined much
the way his other
alternate pairs had--enough so to make a decent case
that either an
inspired unknown imitator worked a lot harder that he
had to to come up
with two distinct Bix-like solos for an indifferent dancing
public or
“Cradle” was the real thing. A few audience members still
grumbled their
disapproval, but most said they were persuaded.
Weeks ago, Bixography, a Web site devoted to Beiderbecke,
reported the
discovery of evidence that a third take of "Cradle of
Love" was recorded,
sans vocals, for foreign markets and was released in
Germany; collectors
are now hot on its trail. Meanwhile, Pospychala has put
himself at Kay's
disposal, assembling old train timetables, hotel registers,
and
recording studio ledgers to help determine a chain of
events that might
have led Bix to Chicago and then into the studio. For
next year's tribute,
Pospychala hopes to take his tour group on an approximation
of Bix’s possible trail, from the old LaSalle Street train station to the
Hotel Sherman (on the site of what’s now the James R. Thompson Center)
, a popular place with musicians where he might’ve run into members of
Miller’s band, to Brunswick (in what's now a Columbia College building
on South Wabash).
Unless someone actually finds studio documents that list
Bix as a guest
musician, Kay will probably never prove beyond a shadow
of a doubt that he played on “Cradleof Love.” But Kay's presentation did
offer a novel way to look at--or rather listen to--the creative process
in jazz.
February 15, 2000
On 5/4/99 Frank Youngwerth raised
the possibility that the mystery
cornetist in "Cradle of Love" is
the same musician as the one featured in
Ray Miller's "Harlem Madness",
recorded in December of 1929. Frank said
"On "Harlem Madness," you're not
nearly so likely to believe it could be
Bix, but there are enough similarities
to convince me Ray Miller
employed a trumpet player capable
of emulating Bix, and that he solos
on both sessions."
On 2/8/00, Hans Eekhoff revived
this question by writing "if you play
"Harlem Madness", from roughly
the same period, there IS a trumpet
player not unlike the one on "Cradle"
and definitely NOT Muggsy."
At the time Frank had written,
I had no space for audio files in the
original Bixography site. Since
then, I have secured web space for audio
files in a couple of auxiliary
Bixography sites. With Hans's reminder, I
decided to make available to Bixophiles
the "Harlem Madness" recording
by Ray Miller and his orchestra.
This posting may catalyze some
additional discussion of Brad Kay's
important analysis of "Cradle of
Love". Since uploading two files
does not take that much more time than
one, I also uploaded "Angry", another
Ray Miller's recording from January
3, 1929. There is a trumpet or
cornet solo that is highly experimental in
its musical construction and I
thought it would be worth listening too.
Hans tells me "Forget about "Angry"
that is Muggsy and no one else."
Please go to http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/rage/721/index.html
and then post your views and opinions
about this issue in the
Bixography Forum at http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/27140
Thank you.
Albert Haim
March 19, 2000
The yearly Tribute to Bix organized by Phil Posphycala
took place on March 9-12 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. On March 11, Brad Kay presented
his second analysis of Ray Miller's recordings of Cradle of Love. What
follows is an excerpt of the report I wrote on the Tribute.
Sales of records continued on Saturday, March 11. In
the afternoon, we were treated to Brad Kay's analysis of Ray Miller's recording
of Cradle of Love. This was a scholarly and stimulating presentation which
consisted of facts, interpretations and deductions. In his analysis of
the solos by the mystery cornetist in the two takes of Cradle of Love,
Brad discussed several
characteristic features of Bix's extemporaneous improvisations-compositions
and illustrated them by playing Bix's solos from several
of his recordings.
Some of the discussion is available in a series of letters
from Brad to the
Editor of Joslin's Jazz Journal. The text of the complete
letters has been
posted and can be read below. The lecture was presented
with flair
and a sense of humor which did not detract from the high
intellectual content
of the lecture. In fact, it helped people keep their
concentration on the intricate details of Brad's masterful analysis. The
piece de resistance in Brad's lecture was his novel approach to record
simultaneously two different takes of the same recording in perfect synchronization.
The two takes were recorded
simultaneously, one dubbed to mini-disc and the other
on the turntable. Brad
adjusted the speed of his turntable up or down in increments
of .1 per cent,
enabling him to keep the synchronization. Brad presented
examples from solos by Louis Armstrong, Frankie Trumbauer, Jack Teagarden
and, of course, Bix. In this manner, differences between solos in alternate
takes are clearly
discerned. It was apparent that solos from different
takes by Trumbauer and
Armstrong were mostly the superimposition of identical
notes. In contrast,
Bix's solos in different takes are never the same. Although
we knew this all
along, Brad's technique brought out the differences in
a dramatic manner. Of
course, the solos from different takes harmonize with
each other because they are constructed over the same set of chords.
But there was even more to
learn about Bix's solos: they complement each other.
It was as if Bix was
listening to the first take when he was recording the
second and
"accompanied" himself. With the two solos coming separately
in the two
speakers of the sound system, on occasion, it sounded
like Bix was doing a
"chase chorus" with himself. According to Bray, the only
other musician who
came close to what Bix was doing in different takes was
Jack Teagarden. The
important lesson to be learned from this interesting
and novel technical
analysis, as far as the identity of the mystery cornetist
is concerned, is that thesolos are not only different, but they complement
each other in certain
sections, just as Bix's authentic solos. This finding,
when combined with all
the evidence presented previously (see below), provides
a compelling case in favor of the hypothesis that Bix is indeed the mystery
cornetist. However, I must point out that Brad clearly emphasized that
the main purpose of his previous and present analyses of the two takes
of Cradle of Love is not to find the identity of the mystery cornetist.
Rather, Brad feels that the most important contribution of his analysis
is to obtain an insight into the creative process in general and Bix's
compositional genius, in particular.
After Brad's presentation, Phil asked for a show of hands
about the identity
of the mystery cornetist. In an audience of nearly 100
people, three did not
think the cornetist was Bix (interestingly, the three
were professional
musicians), six could not make up their mind, and the
remaining, including
myself, believed that the mystery corrnetist is Bix.
For comments or questions contact [email protected]
This page was launched on 11/19/99 by Albert Haim.