10 minute read
The Final Resting Place Bix Beiderbecke
from On Air March 2025
by wkcrfm
by Ted Schmiedeler
The brisk Midwest air fills my lungs as I step outside the Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh with a single rose in my hand. It’s Thanksgiving, but we’re not going to Grandma’s just yet. I get back into the minivan with my mom at my heels; the rest of the family is waiting. My sister cracks a smile and locks eyes with me as if to emphasize my ridiculousness.
My brother continues to lightly protest what he sees as foolishness, exclaiming, “He has never met him!” to the entire car while my other sister slumps back, admitting defeat. This detour is happening whether they like it or not. Earbuds back in. “Ostrich Walk” slides through the queue and into my ears, and I let it wash over me.
schedule right before I got the new job, which—”
“Who cares?”
“Based on the emails I was getting, a lot of people.”
“Interesting.”
“So pretty much immediately after I got the job we were in crisis mode trying to save this broadcast. I didn’t even know who Bix Beiderbecke was beforehand. Then he became the most important thing in my life for a week. Now, I have a deep, almost spiritual, connection to him.”
Since March I have been explaining myself to the uninitiated:
“So, there's this cornet player that was born in 1903.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And WKCR does a birthday broadcast for him every year.”
“Okay…”
“And last year it was removed from the
“With a cornet player around in the 20s?”
“...Yes.”
Finally, explanations no more! Left we turn, and left again. I roll down the window and am greeted with the only two words in the world I want to read: “Bix’s Gravesite.” Two hours from Chicago, Illinois and three hours from Waverly, Iowa sits the Oakdale Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Davenport, Iowa—my destination for the next 15 minutes.
Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke was born on March 10, 1903, in Davenport, and picked up music at a young age. He started as a pianist but later found love for the cornet, teaching himself by listening to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band records he found on his brother’s Victrola phonograph. During his teenage years, he was sent to Lake Forest Academy, about 30 miles north of Chicago, where he was exposed to the Chicago jazz scene. In 1923, after getting kicked out of school, he joined the Wolverines, a Chicago-based hot jazz septet, and launched his performing career. Throughout his life, Bix played with other stand-out musicians, including the Jean Goldkette’s Victor Recording Orchestra, Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra, and legendary performers like Louis Armstrong and King Oliver. Today, Bix is known as one of the most important cornet players in jazz history and an influential innovator in the genre’s early record.
I could not have told you any of this before March of last year. I joined WKCR as a New Music programmer and, upon being licensed, gradually began building my jazz repertoire. Over the past three years, I have learned a lot about the station, radio, music, and jazz. However, though my love for WKCR is as endless as the surface area of a fractal and could be numbered only by counting points of color on a Seurat painting, I never pushed myself to learn about Bix. Ellington’s swing grabbed me. Holiday’s voice soothed me. Mingus's bass reverberated in my soul. Charlie Parker seeped into my brain through Schaapian osmosis. Heck, the Sun Ra Arkestra is still performing (under the leadership of the great Marshall Allen)! Remnants of these greats surround us. The Ellington stands tall right next to Smoke Jazz Club. Billie Holiday records can be found in just about every used record store in America. But Bix, O my Bix, where are you?
One answer is Davenport, Iowa. A stone’s throw from the Mississippi River sits the Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archive, run by The Bix Beiderbecke Society. The Society takes great care of Bix’s historical legacy through the preservation of his museum, jazz education programs, and their annual weekend-long jazz festival, transferring the music and spirit of Bix to future generations. When asked about what Bix means to Davenport, Hal Smith of the Bix Beiderbecke Society wrote in a comment to WKCR: “Bix’s musical accomplishments cemented Davenport’s ties to the world of jazz. Even while he was alive, Bix was considered to be both a ‘favorite son’ and a ‘distinguished resident’ of his hometown.” Smith also stressed the importance of bringing Bix to life through performance: “When an audience—especially young listeners—hears Bix’s music played live, in an authentic style, the performances are always enthusiastically received. Hopefully, the live music will encourage the listeners to seek out Bix’s original recordings for further enjoyment.” Jim Petersen, also on the Board of the Bix Beiderbecke Society, stressed the importance of the museum itself, writing “The ‘physical space’ of the Bix museum is important to the Bix story. People who haven't been fans of Bix are impressed with the fact that only Bix, Louis Armstrong, and Glenn Miller have their own museums. Bix's life story is told through a timeline and with artifacts of his and his contemporaries.” As a caring steward of Bix’s memory, the Bix Beiderbecke Society displays the profound importance of maintaining Bix's legacy in an intentional, active way. In Chicago, nobody I spoke with had ever heard of Bix. Even after my emphatic rant, nobody really seemed to care. But in Davenport, for the dedicated, Bix is their lifeblood.
However, Davenport is not the only place keeping Bix’s legacy alive. Bix Beiderbecke is exactly the type of musician you should expect to hear on WKCR: obscure and overlooked despite being massively influential. WKCR has honored Bix for over 50 years with an annual birthday broadcast and his music can be frequently heard on our regular jazz shows. WKCR stands as a bastion against the grain of a shifting music industry. The Internet and streaming services have led to a flood of new music being created and published; content is outpacing consumption at a rate never seen before. How can you even find music these days?
When there is too much content, curation becomes important, but streaming services are poor curators when left to their own devices. Generated playlists and algorithmically based recommendations provide a technical solution to a human problem, through which innovation and historical greats can get left behind. After all, why would an app disrupt your comfortable listening with something potentially offputting? If you're a happy consumer, what’s the incentive to push your boundaries? There are none. This is precisely why human curation is so vital. Bix pushed my boundaries. Actually, WKCR pushed my boundaries—through Bix. The algorithm does not care about Bix. The algorithm does not care that he learned to play the piano at age three, or that he performs a great extended improvisational solo on “Singin’ the Blues.” The algorithm only cares that he is part of “early jazz,” so they can slot him onto generated “early jazz” playlists to keep users consuming. WKCR does care about Bix. We care that he played some great sessions with Frankie Trumbauer, and that his cornet style influenced generations to come. The Bix Beiderbecke Society cares about Bix. They make sure his legacy and the joy of his music can reach the ears of every coming generation. About the importance of keeping Bix alive, Hal Smith writes: “Older musicians have much to share with younger generations: stories of interactions with jazz pioneers, historical research, and instrumental techniques from an earlier time.” We lose those valuable stories in a world devoid of human curation. In our digital world, Bix needs WKCR, Bix needs the Bix Beiderbecke Society, and Bix needs you, dear listener. Human curation keeps the musicians we love from getting lost in a saturated world. We, as a disparate musicloving community, have a responsibility to keep innovative and historic art—and by extension, Bix—from disintegrating due to the passage of time and, increasingly, due to the machinations of the algorithm.
And so here I am. My heart races as I direct my dad to drive the minivan into an empty cemetery in Iowa. Earbuds out. Door open. Searching… searching… searching… there! Bix! His final resting place lies right before my very eyes. Over the previous eight months, for me, Bix grew from an unknown figure into a cherished musician, and eventually became a manifestation of the values I hold dear. When I hear his music, I no longer just hear a full orchestra led by a radiant cornet. I am reminded of the importance of human curation, the value of playing music pushed aside in today’s landscape, the importance of history, and the passionate listeners who stand against the grain of algorithmically-driven music. I drop to my knees and brush away the cluttered leaves that have accumulated next to the headstone. Coins left by fellow travelers are piled high atop his engraved name. Clearly, I am not the first to make this pilgrimage. With care, I place my offerings at this altar of early jazz: a single rose, two WKCR buttons, and a handwritten note. They’re humble offerings, to be certain, but selected with deep love. My dad snaps my photo. My siblings’ laughter tumbles out from the rolled-down windows of the car as they take a photo of me getting my photo taken. This is meaningless to them. Bix is nobody. Ted is a bit crazy. If we have to sit through this, we might as well get a kick out of it.
To be fair, I do recognize the absurdity of the situation: a 21-year-old college junior sidetracking his family’s Thanksgiving plans to visit the grave of a long-dead cornet player. But Bix has become more to me—a metonymy for human curation and my outlook on life. I feel united in something greater, something shared by friends back in New York and strangers here in Davenport. The smile that that connection puts on my face is enough for me to ignore my siblings. I take a long look at the headstone. A tear nearly rolls down from my eye. My heart races. I want to shout! I am here! Bix is here! For a moment, the whole world is left behind. All my problems wash off my back. Then my mom calls me back to the car and I’m snapped from my trance. There we were, Bix and Ted in Davenport, Iowa, if just for a moment, one sweet moment, and that is enough for me.
The following note was left by the author at Bix’s grave:
Dear Bix,Sending love from WCKR-FM in New York City. We are eternally grateful for the beauty of your cornet, the radiance of your smile, and the grace of your music. May ‘The Jewel of Davenport’ sparkle for the whole world to see for centuries to come!Love, Ted Schmiedeler”
WKCR will celebrate Bix Beiderbecke with our annual 24 hour birthday broadcast on March 10th, 2025. Tune in!
