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This first novel was inspired by the music but not by the life of Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, a Davenport, Ia. boy who played the trumpet in Paul Whiteman's band, became one of the greatest of jazz musicians and died in 1931, leaving devotees of swing music to collect phonographic records of his art as reverently as art collectors gather the works of Old Masters. In Young Man with a Horn, the hero is called Rick Martin, and he is presented as a good-natured, hardworking, colorless individual, an orphan who learns to play the piano...
...sang blues songs long before the War brought the blues (and jazz) north, lived to see strict blues singing yield popularity to the sophisticated torch singing typified by the art of Ethel Waters. But Bessie Smith left her mark on jazz. Hot instrumentalists like Benny Goodman and the late "Bix" Beiderbecke, listening to her in Chicago night clubs, never forgot the mood and timing of her songs, or the way she taught her accompanists to perform...
Last winter Victor repressed a series of early jazz masterpieces, sold them as the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Album. The late great Trumpet Player Leon Bismarck ("Bix") Beiderbecke's effortless glissando, accompanied by various old bands, was to be heard sprinkling graceful, spontaneous melody through all twelve sides of the set. Two non-commercial enterprises, the Hot Club of France and the New York Hot Club, have repressed a few scarce swing classics for their members. But the commercial record companies are chiefly interested in making and selling new records, and the hot clubs are composed of amateurs uninterested...
...jealous genius, for although practically all the top swingers of today recognize him as their leading tutor, he had nothing but praise for his tutees. He talked long about the various hot artists playing here and there. Sad and sentimental over the death of his friend, the immortal Bix Beiderbecke. Louis waxed enthusiastic about Benny Goodman. He admires him not only as a clarinet player but as a white band leader who has had the courage to hire Negro artists such as the pianist Teddy Wilson and the vibraphonist Lionel Hampton, who are to be heard in the superb recordings...
Chief interest in this revival of twelve old Victor recordings on which the late great Leon Bismarck ("Bix") Beiderbecke plays trumpet with such bands as Whiteman's and Goldkette's is that Victor has. wherever possible, made the records from masters not originally used. Like most great jazz musicians, "Bix'' seldom played the same chorus the same way twice...