Finding Bix

Finding Bix
Author :
Publisher : University of Iowa Press
Total Pages : 246
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781609385071
ISBN-13 : 1609385071
Rating : 4/5 (071 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Finding Bix by : Brendan Wolfe

Download or read book Finding Bix written by Brendan Wolfe and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bix Beiderbecke was one of the first great legends of jazz. Among the most innovative cornet soloists of the 1920s and the first important white player, he invented the jazz ballad and pointed the way to “cool” jazz. But his recording career lasted just six years; he drank himself to death in 1931—at the age of twenty-eight. It was this meteoric rise and fall, combined with the searing originality of his playing and the mystery of his character—who was Bix? not even his friends or family seemed to know—that inspired subsequent generations to imitate him, worship him, and write about him. It also provoked Brendan Wolfe’s Finding Bix a personal and often surprising attempt to connect music, history, and legend. A native of Beiderbecke’s hometown of Davenport, Iowa, Wolfe grew up seeing Bix’s iconic portrait on everything from posters to parking garages. He never heard his music, though, until cast to play a bit part in an Italian biopic filmed in Davenport. Then, after writing a newspaper review of a book about Beiderbecke, Wolfe unexpectedly received a letter from the late musician's nephew scolding him for getting a number of facts wrong. This is where Finding Bix begins: in Wolfe's good-faith attempt to get the facts right. What follows, though, is anything but straightforward, as Wolfe discovers Bix Beiderbecke to be at the heart of furious and ever-timely disputes over addiction, race and the origins of jazz, sex, and the influence of commerce on art. He also uncovers proof that the only newspaper interview Bix gave in his lifetime was a fraud, almost entirely plagiarized from several different sources. In fact, Wolfe comes to realize that the closer he seems to get to Bix, the more the legend retreats.


Finding Bix Related Books

Finding Bix
Language: en
Pages: 246
Authors: Brendan Wolfe
Categories: Music
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-05-15 - Publisher: University of Iowa Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Bix Beiderbecke was one of the first great legends of jazz. Among the most innovative cornet soloists of the 1920s and the first important white player, he inve
Finding Bix
Language: en
Pages: 246
Authors: Brendan Wolfe
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2017-05-15 - Publisher: University of Iowa Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Brendan Wolfe's Finding Bix is a personal and often surprising attempt to connect music, history, and legend. A native of Bix Beiderbecke's hometown of Davenpor
Bix
Language: en
Pages: 390
Authors: Jean Pierre Lion
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2005-01-01 - Publisher: A&C Black

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Bix Beiderbecke is a figure of legend: the white cornetist's short life (1903-1931) fit the myth of the tragic artist, surrounded by the nostalgia of an era (P
Bix
Language: en
Pages: 256
Authors: Scott Chantler
Categories: Comics & Graphic Novels
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-04-28 - Publisher: Gallery 13

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the acclaimed Eisner Award–nominated creator of Two Generals and Northwest Passage comes a gorgeous and spare illustrated exploration of the rapid rise a
Half a Million Strong
Language: en
Pages: 217
Authors: Gina Arnold
Categories: Music
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-11-15 - Publisher: University of Iowa Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From baby boomers to millennials, attending a big music festival has basically become a cultural rite of passage in America. In Half a Million Strong, music wri