The title of my book-in-progress is Finding Bix, and what better place to go looking for the legendary jazz cornetist than in the text of his only known newspaper interview? The unsigned article, headlined "'Jazz Is Musical Humor,' Says Davenport Composer and Cornetist of Whiteman's Band," appeared in the Davenport Democrat and Leader, Bix Beiderbecke's hometown newspaper, on Sunday, February 10, 1929.
When he died just two years later, Beiderbecke left behind very few words (a handful of letters, some anecdotes from friends), so this interview represents a real bonanza of Bix-speak. And yet biographers have long been skeptical that it reflects his actual words.
Turns out their skepticism was justified. I can now say for sure that it's a fake.
First some background: In the interview, Bix expounds on the origins of jazz and his employer Paul Whiteman's landmark 1924 Aeolian Hall concert, the one in which he premiered Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. "By cacophonic combinations [Whiteman] proved what a change came over the face of Melusina and Terpsichore in a decade," the anonymous Davenport journalist writes. (Who? What?)
Bix goes on to famously suggest that "Jazz is musical humor."
The humor of jazz is rich and many-sided. Some of it is obvious enough to make a dog laugh. Some is subtle, wry-mouthed, or back-handed. It is by turns bitter, agonized, and grotesque. Even in the hands of white composers it involuntarily reflects the half-forgotten suffering of the negro. Jazz has both white and black elements, and each in some respects has influenced the other. It's [sic] recent phase seems to throw the light of the white race's sophistication upon the anguish of the black.
Scholars such as Richard M. Sudhalter (who put the word interview in scare quotes when writing about it in Bix: Man & Legend) and Jean Pierre Lion never came right out and said why they doubted the article's authenticity. But presumably they wondered how a kid who had consistently struggled academically would be given to musings just a few years later on "the half-forgotten suffering of the negro."
I shared that skepticism and decided to dig a little deeper. Phrases like cacophonic combinations and Melusina and Terpischore seemed especially to stick out. It didn't take long before Google pointed me toward So This Is Jazz by H. O. Osgood, published in 1926. "Cacophonic combinations" appears in his introduction, while the other bit comes from his review, reprinted elsewhere in the book, of Whiteman's Aeolian Hall concert.
That's pretty minor stuff, I admit, but it suggested to me that the Democrat's writer wasn't above a bit of plagiarism.* Still, he (or she) didn't appear to be making up Bix's actual words. Or at least that's what I thought until I happened upon a nationally syndicated article, published several months earlier, in The Evening Standard Independent of St. Petersburg, Florida. "The Official How and Why of Jazz -- From a Lawyer" by Louise Garwood is an interview with Edward Abbe Niles, a Harvard Law graduate, a Rhodes scholar, and a fancy-pants Wall Street lawyer (Cadwalader, Wickersham, and Taft). He also was, at the time, the author of Encyclopedia Britannica's entry on jazz. He even wrote an introduction to W. C. Handy's 1926 anthology of blues.
Niles was an expert, in other words, and a beautifully educated one, too. So at this point it should come as no surprise that he declared jazz to be "musical humor." And unlike Bix, he was given to musings on the half-forgotten suffering of the negro. After the jump, you'll find that Bix's words (except at the very end) are all more or less exactly Niles's words. (Both interviews are there. Compare them for yourself.) There's more to be said, I suppose, but this is enough for now. You can see the Niles interview in its original context here. More on Niles and the blues here.
* The jazz musician Brad Kay pointed out here an instance where the reporter actually seemed to be lifting from an earlier article in the Democrat about Bix's mother.
UPDATE: Discussion on the Bixography Discussion Group forum begins here and here.
[Davenport Democrat and Leader; Davenport, Iowa; Sunday, February 10, 1929; image credit]
'Jazz Is Musical Humor,' Says Davenport Composer and Cornetist of Whiteman's Band
Believes Humor of Jazz is Many-Sides; Classifies Catch-as-Catch-Can Music as "Sweet" and "Hot", but Prefers the "Hot" More Than Purring Respectability of the "Sweet."
PLINKY-PLANK! Blooey moans! Crooning tones! Ear-tickling, piercing, soul-wrenching melodies -- that's jazz!
Put them all together and what have you?
"Musical humor," says the world's hottest cornetist of Paul Whiteman's orchestra. Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke, who is convalencing [sic] from a recent illness at the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Beiderbecke, 1934 Grand avenue.
And "Bixie," as his friends all call him, should know! For a year and a half he has played with the king of jazz orchestra on Whiteman's special concert tour and filled every little niche and cranny with catch-as-catch-can tricks of melodic figures and spent hours in the recording library of phonograph and music companies recording his own compositions.
"Jazz is musical humor," he says. "The noun jazz describes a modern American technique for the playing of any music, accompanied by noise called harmony, and interpolated instrumental effects. It also describes music exhibiting influence of that technique which has as its traditional object to secure the effects of surprise, or in the broadest sense, humor."
Those "Barrel-House" Tones!
Tracing the origin of jazz back to the gay nineties when Dixieland musicians played negrotic "barrel-house" tones into "bowlers" and blew moaning saxophones into jugs and lengths of gaspipe. Mr. Beiderbecke pointed to the date Feb. 12, 1924 when Paul Whiteman gave the first jazz concert ever given, in Aeolian hall, New York, and by cacophonic combinations proved what a change came over the face of Melusina and Terpsichore.
"The jazz band's chief stimulus, of course, was the rise of the negro "blues" and their exploitation by the negro song-writer, W. C. Handy," the cornetist stated.
"They at once were melancholic and humorous, and dealt exclusively with the singer's own emotion and philosophy. Their experiments were convert [sic; covert]. In today's jazz they are open. The visual effect of comic instruments and bodily contortions of the musicians is, tho dispensable, a part of jazz itself."
Mr. Beiderbecke classifies jazz as "sweet" and "hot." He likes the "hot," which slightly modifies the original pandemonium of the "Livery Stable Blues," more than the purring respectability of the "sweet," whose hush and muffled throb is heard behind a balustrade of potted palms at debutante dances.
Humor "As You Like It."
"The humor of jazz is rich and many-sided," he said. "Some of it is obvious enough to make a dog laugh. Some is subtle, wry-mouthed, or back-handed. It is by turns bitter, agonized, and grotesque. Even in the hands of white composers it involuntarily reflects the half-forgotten suffering of the negro. Jazz has both white and black elements, and each in some respects has influenced the other. It's [sic] recent phase seems to throw the light of the white race's sophistication upon the anguish of the black."
"Bixie," as his boyhood gang called him, practically grew up with music. His grandfather, the late Charles Beiderbecke, was a composer and pianist of no little fame, and his mother, before her marriage, was organist at the First Presbyterian church in Davenport.
Music was in the air at the Beiderbecke home! "Bixie" took piano lessons for a time from two local instructors, not more than a score in all. When he arrived at prep-school at Lake Forest, Ill., he was dripping arpeggios and mooning over Chopin's nocturnes like any mere high-brow.
Goodbye Grieg and Lizst!
At 17 he became interested in certain insidious and perverse inflections which crept into popular music, so he bought himself a cornet and laid aside his Grieg and Lizst [sic].
"The boys told me to put more American punch into melodies," he said. "A copy of 'Yes, We Have No Bananas' was put before me and I was told play like a he-man."
He did. Figuratively speaking, he taught the cornet to laugh by unexpected thrills, to moan by sudden perky blares, to do stunts, and to hold its head up high. He emphasized exact tempo and decisive rhythm.
After completing his course at Lake Forest, he enrolled in the school of music at the State University of Iowa. Here he droned, "one, two, three, four" on the piano while he transposed and translated notes and melodies into orchestral scores.
With his "huddle system," came the desire to start an orchestra and in the fall of 1925, he organized a motley crowd of ex-collegiates and called them the "Wolverines."
From Chicago to New York the itinerant orchestra played. Later looking for new and lucrative fields to conquer, "Bixie" played for six months with Charlie Straight's orchestra in Chicago and three years with Gene Goldkette's band in Detroit, which broadcast programs over WGN.
We Want More!
It was on one of the musical tours of that organization that Paul Whiteman heard him play and urged him to join his orchestra. But contracts are contracts and not until his contract was up did he make the change.
Since joining Whiteman's orchestra "Bixie" has played one of the three concert pianos besides being a cornetist, and director of one of the Whiteman orchestras.
Among the most recent compositions are "Thou Swell," "Tu Tan Elegante," and "In a Mist," in which Bixie is featured in a piano solo.
"We have great times traveling about," he said -- the "boys" are airplane crazy and movie-shy. We have a new Travelair plane and several are learning to pilot.
"Might come in handy sometimes," he laughed, "in case we oversleep and miss the train, but we're generally on time. In fact, one time we were a bit ahead of the Uptown theatre in Chicago and the curtain went up without warning. "Be nonchalant!" was employed and we picked up our instruments and started to play."
*
[nationally syndicated feature in The Evening Independent; St. Petersburg, Florida; Saturday, September 1, 1928]
The Official How and Why of Jazz -- From a Lawyer
By Louise Garwood
For NEA Service
New York, Sept. 1, 1928 -- Jazz, that intoxicating stepchild of art, at last has been officially and authoritatively defined. The definition comes from the Encyclopedia Brittanica's [sic] own authority on the subject, Edward Abbe Niles.
Niles is neither a blues-writer nor a saxophone orator. He is a grave young New York lawyer, a Rhodes scholar, the grandson of a Yankee bishop, a graduate of Harvard Law school. He is described by his wife as the "world's worst dancer." But popular music has been a hobby with him for 16 years. He turns to a phonograph record rather than golf for relaxation.
It's "Musical Humor"
"Jazz is musical humor," Niles said. "The noun describes a modern American technique for the playing of any music, embracing tricks of accent and rhythm, characteristic interpolated melodic figures and instrumental effects. It also describes music exhibiting influence of that technique which has as its traditional object to secure the effects of surprise and in the broadest sense, humor.
"Many fantastic explanations have been given for the origin of the word 'jazz.' Few of them are reasonable. For many years the New Orleans negroes have applied it to their music in the sense of 'speeding it up'."
Jazz, as Niles explains it, seems to be both development and a mixture.
Not Unlike a Pudding
"It is not unlike a pudding of many ingredients, recently mixed and still cooking," he said.
"Its rhythmical foundation was rag-time, a name that originated in the late 90's.
"However, jazz is [sic; in] its aspect of instrumental effects and tone-colors, was incubating before and during the rag-time period. Even in the 19th century negro musicians played cornets into buckets, boxes and derby hats, blew into jugs and lengths of gas-pipe, as today. But those experiments were covert. In today's jazz they are open. The visual effect of comic instruments and bodily contortions of the musicians is, though dispensable, a part of jazz itself.
W. C. Handy, Pioneer
"The jazz band's chief stimulus was the rise of the negro "blues" and their exploitation by the negro song-writer, W. C. Handy. They at once were melancholic and humorous, and dealt exclusively with the singer's own emotions and philosophy -- 'I got de blues but I'm too dam' mean to cry!'"
Niles classifies jazz as "sweet" and "hot." He likes the "hot," which slightly modifies the original pandemonium of the old "Livery Stable Blues," more than the purring respectability of the "sweet," whose hush and muffled throb is heard behind a forest of potted palms at debutante dances.
"When I sniff at the sweet jazz of 1928 I become the pelican of the wilderness (Psalm 102)," said Niles. "But frankly, I prefer wit and even honest slap-stick. A fat comedian bouncing down-stairs on a banana peel is worth a thousand Tootsie Rolls.
Rich and Many-Sided
"The humor of jazz is rich and many-sided. Some of it is obvious enough to make a dog laugh. Some is subtle, wry-mouthed, or back-handed. It often is the fun of the comic-strip, but never the joke-book variety. It is by turns bitter, agonized, obscene, grotesque, or all at once. Even in the hands of white composers it involuntarily affects something of the half-forgotten suffering of the negro. Jazz has both black and white elements, and each in some respects has influenced the other. Its recent phase seems to throw the light of the white race's sophistication upon the anguish of the black."
Niles practically grew up with jazz. His development into an authority itself is an interesting story. He started piano lessons at 10 with Milo Bennett, a pupil of Lizst [sic], and later studied with Frank C. Butcher. When he arrived at prep-school he was dripping arpeggios and mooning over Chopin nocturnes like any mere high-brow.
A Broader Scope
"The boys soon found a broader scope for my talents," Niles said. "A copy of 'Everybody's Doin' It' was put before me and I was told to play like a he-man. I fancied myself superior to such condescension, but nevertheless was forced to lay aside my Grief and Lizst.
"About 1913 I became interested in certain insidious and perverse inflections which crept into popular music, the lugubrious laughter of 'St. Louis Blues,' 'Memphis Blues.'"
Niles became better acquainted with "blues," when, during the war, he was in the army air service at Ellington field, Texas. In these southern surroundings he had every opportunity to observe negro music. He relapsed to an occasional sonata when attending Christ Church college, Oxford, after the war. But when he started practicing law in New York in 1921, he fell once more into the hot-bed of developing jazz.
Successful as Writer
He began writing about popular music and achieved swift success. In 1925 an interview he had with W. C. Handy inspired "Blues," the first anthology of American negro secular folk-song and jazz, published by A. and C. Boni.
Niles thinks the major service jazz has rendered to music generally is its revelation of the possibilities of old and new instruments and mutes, and the volume and will seriously influence Ameri-color obtainable by small orchestras. [sic; American music," he said.]
"Jazz will continue to develop and beauty of tone and variety of can music," he said. [sic] "Great music develops gradually, and the higher its development the less national it becomes. Between the music we have and the music we have not yet developed is room for the spirit of strangeness and humor which the best jazz so successfully has managed to convey."
Very interesting indeed - an important discovery!
However, there is another possibility - namely that Bix himself read (and kept) the articles and that he, knowing that he was going to be interviewed and was expected to say something intelligent, freely borrowed from the statements mentioned in it.
It is possible of course - but I rather doubt that a provincial interviewer from a local paper would have read the Niles interview, let alone the Osgood diatribe.
And would this interviewer really have just quoted from other sources and blatantly publish them as Bix's words? Surely the paper would run the risk of being accused of plagiarism? And what would Bix have said afterwards about the article containing things he never said?
Did Bix have so little to say that the interviewer thought it was necessary to borrow from other sources?
I am sceptical about that.
Furthermore - would it not be possible that the interview wasn't done in person at all but that Bix was asked to write something about himself and his opinions on jazz and send it to the newspaper?
I think it is likely that Bix himself copied these statements to add some depth and seriousness to his "interview".
Hans Eekhoff
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 07, 2010 at 02:08 AM
Thanks for the comment, Hans. You suggest a couple of possible scenarios: 1) that Bix read the Niles interview and used it as a basis for his interview answers in an attempt to sound more intelligent; and 2) that Bix was actually the one who plagiarized the quotations, having been asked by the reporter for his thoughts.
I don't think either scenario is as likely as the one I've suggested, and the first scenario borders on the implausible. The quotations in the two articles aren't merely similar in a way that would suggest that Bix remembered them and inserted key ideas and phrases into his interview responses. No, they're exactly the same. Word for word in most places with room for a few editorial excisions here and there. I'm just not convinced that anyone could offer up those exact words by memory and that a reporter would then get those quotes all exactly right so that the Bix and NIles interviews matched up so perfectly. If it is possible, it sure isn't likely.
It is possible, I suppose, that Bix is the one who plagiarized the quotes, but again it seems unlikely. The reporter was working on deadline, and asking an interview subject to write stuff down would hardly speed up the process. And even if Bix did write those quotations down and the reporter assumed they constituted Bix's words and thoughts, how then to explain that the structures of the two articles are also basically the same? Both more or less lead with the idea of musical humor; both put the extended biographical information in the same place; both even talk about Chopin, Grieg, and Liszt. It just seems far, far, far more likely that the reporter lifted the Niles interview, especially when you pair that conclusion with the additional evidence of his having plagiarized Osgood and, perhaps, even another Democrat article.
I'll admit to being a tad bit defensive about the suggestion that "a provincial interviewer from a local paper" would not have read a nationally syndicated article about the most popular music of the day. Contrary to what many may think, Davenport was not some backwater at this time. It was plenty large (relatively speaking) and plenty cosmopolitan. The Niles interview, meanwhile, was nationally syndicated. And it's possible that the Democrat subscribed to NEA at the time, and the reporter read the piece not in another paper but off the wire. In any event, a reporter above all would have been likely to have sought out or randomly come across this interview -- even a reporter in Davenport, Iowa.
I also don't buy the idea that there was something obscure about the "Osgood diatribe." (I'm not sure how his writing fits that description, "diatribe." He was quite sympathetic to jazz and especially to Whiteman.) In 1926, the first two full-length books about jazz were published: Osgood's and Whiteman's. I don't think they were obscure titles, and anyway a reporter looking to brush up on the subject certainly could have found them.
I am less skeptical than you, Hans, about the idea that Bix had so little to say that the reporter might have been provoked to make stuff up. I have interviewed many, many musicians as a journalist. Most musicians don't also deal with words for a living. And they're generally no good at all in using words to describe what it is they do. There are exceptions, of course, and it doesn't mean that Bix was not articulate about his music. It's just that there's no reason to believe he was. After all, there are few if any instances of him actually talking about his music, right? Which is why this interview has always carried so much weight.
Finally, you are skeptical that a case of plagiarism this outrageous would have been attempted let alone pulled off. Wouldn't the paper run the risk of being accused of thievery? Certainly it would have. I don't think it's likely the paper knew. But given the plagiarism scandals of our own era -- at the New York Times and the New Republic, for example -- who's to say that this one isn't possible? Anyway, before I had even found the Niles interview, I asked the advice of a scholar who has some knowledge of the history of journalism. Would it have been unheard-of in 1929 for a reporter to just make a whole interview up? Not at all, she replied. That doesn't mean it was ethical or that the paper would have approved, but it would hardly have been unheard-of.
As to what Bix or his family thought -- isn't that always the question. Who knows?
Posted by: Brendan Wolfe | February 07, 2010 at 01:38 PM
Who says that Bix had to remember those quotes? I wrote to you in an email that it could very well be that Bix had the writings by Osgood and Niles in his posession - after all, Whiteman was mentioned in them. Nothing unusual about that. I too collect articles in which bands that I belong(ed) to are mentioned. I think it is very plausible that Bix copied them. He wasn't a great writer - that we know; he may have agreed with the quotes and decided that he couldn't put it better himself.
The Osgood diatribe (which does not always mean, as you suggest, that the writer is against the subjesct - I simply meant it as "prolonged discourse") was not a "nationally syndicated article" as you stated. I maintain that it is far less likely that the reporter from Davenport knew about it than Bix.
But if the articles WERE "nationally syndicated" and NOT "obscure" it would have been even more unlikely that the reporter plainly copied them and put them in Bix's mouth.
You also misunderstand me. I did NOT state that Bix had little to say. Quite the contrary - I questioned that. I think he DID have something to say and that the reporter embellished nothing. In my opinion Bix was asked to write an article about himself and his opinion of jazz, which he did; including the quotes which he copied from Niles and Osgood.
Hans Eekhoff
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 07, 2010 at 03:53 PM
"Jazz is not confined to music,
' "Magazines, movies, melodramas, the comic strips of the Sunday newspapers, and even politics succeed because they are noisy and full of vigorous rhythm. They express our national good humor. This is jazz. Why shouldn't a dance orchestra do the same thing?'
"
'Jazz expresses an instinct for a noisy good time that is universal and as old as the globe. Even in the jungle the natives made music of shrieks and drum beats. Orientals had the oboe; American Indians the drum and the war-whoop. In the earliest days of the circus there was a noisy clown band. Negroes give expression to the jazz mood in playing the banjo.' "
- Paul Whiteman The American Magazine (June 1924), written by Susie Sexton
Kind of has the same feeling as the Bix article. Laura Demilio sent it to me a while back. I thought then it sounded an awful lot like Bix's interview, but nothing can beat finding Bix's "interview" word for word! Ha! Ha!
Posted by: victorcornet21 | February 07, 2010 at 04:51 PM
I have this to add. For once Haim says something sensible in his Forum, namely
that the article was important, not only for Bix but for the entire Beiderbecke
household. The paper must have been received with great anticipation on that wintery Sunday, just imagine - a large article on Bix, with his photo!
Knowing that this would be a significant event for the family (as well as friends and neighbours!), would Bix not have taken the trouble to have a decent story? Would he have accepted the invitation to be featured in an article and not have anything to say?
Nonsense. I am pretty sure that he put his heart and soul in it.
However, Bix was not the greatest of writers, we all know that, not because he
was "uneducated" but simply because writing was not his strongest point. (Bix is not the only one!).
He therefore used a number of quotations from writings that he had in his posession
and knew well (after all, Paul Whiteman his bandleader was mentioned in them). These quotations no doubt reflected his own opinions but Bix realised that they were rather better put than he could do it.
Also the remark that "Jazz is musical humor" is very fitting for Bix. In a lighthearted way he defended his art which, especially in starchy Iowa of the 1920's, was still often considered to be the "music of the devil".
A too serious plea for Jazz may not have gone down all that well so instead he
chose to put it in a lighter manner. Bix wasn't stupid.
While resting at home for some time, Bix was offered a chance to write something about himself for the county newspaper. I believe that he really tried to make the most of that.
I will never believe that Bix just wasn't interested, had nothing to say and
simply let somebody at the Davenport Democrat do the ghost-writing and put these highly esoteric quotes in Bix's mouth.
In my opinion Brendan Wolfe, in this case, has the wrong end of the stick.
Hans Eekhoff
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 08, 2010 at 04:40 AM
Thanks for your additional comments, Hans. I am enjoying the conversation.
I agree with you and Albert Haim that this likely would have been an important story for the Beiderbecke family. Maybe for Bix, too. He'd been in the paper before, both for good and bad reasons, but I think it's fair to say that at that point in his life and career, the good publicity would have been gratifying for both him and his family.
You write: "Knowing that this would be a significant event for the family (as well as friends and neighbours!), would Bix not have taken the trouble to have a decent story?" I'm not sure what you mean here by "taken the trouble to have a decent story." When you are the subject of a journalist's story, you don't necessarily have a lot of power or control over how that story will be told. (See Janet Malcolm's The Journalist and the Murderer for an in-depth discussion of the often-difficult relationship between journalist and subject.) The journalist shows up, interviews you, and then goes away to write the story. Bix might have had the opportunity to prepare for the interview so as to put his best foot forward. He had the opportunity to talk the journalist into framing the story in a way that was sympathetic to his ideas. He had the opportunity, presumably, to lobby the journalist after the interview or to provide additional quotations. But in the end that's how it usually works: journalist and subject talk; journalist goes away and writes the story.
You write that Bix would have "put his heart and soul in it." Maybe. I just don't know why we must assume that. Did he put his heart and soul into everything he did? Hardly. None of us do. That's just an assumption I'm not prepared to make.
You write: "Would he have accepted the invitation to be featured in an article and not have anything to say?" Maybe Bix thought he had plenty to say, but it is the journalist, not Bix, who decides whether what he has to say makes sense, whether it fits the story he or she wants to tell, and finally whether it goes into the paper. Of course, maybe Bix didn't have much to say because, as I may have written elsewhere, maybe he wasn't terribly articulate when it came to talking about his art. As I also might have mentioned previously, my experience as a music journalist tells me that this would hardly be a rare trait among musicians. I've had plenty of people (musicians and otherwise) agree to interviews and leave me with little decent material. It's the nature of the business. Of course, part of the skill of interviewing is to overcome such obstacles and engage people on their own terms and get them to tell you great stuff!
Anyway, I think this is most likely what happened. I say this because it fits with how I understand journalism to work, and because there is no obvious evidence to suggest anything different. I understand that your version of events is possible; I just don't buy the premises on which you base your conclusion that it's likely.
I agree with you that Bix was not the greatest of writers. And I agree it was not because he was "uneducated." I don't think I ever said that. I simply said that his academic struggles, combined with the other writing from him we'd seen, made me "skeptical" that these quotations were from him. Again, it's possible to be a C or worse student and a great writer. It's possible to write letters in the voice he did and then write a newspaper article in a completely different voice. It's possible to be a musician and be highly articulate about your music and your art. I don't disagree with that at all. It's just unlikely. And that very unlikelihood led me to investigate the language of the article and find that it was not Bix's writing or voice at all. There is now no reason for me to think, suddenly, that it is in fact Bix's work after all. I just don't follow that reasoning.
You write that Bix would have had the Niles interview and the Osgood book in his possession. He might have. You write that Niles's opinions "no doubt reflected his own opinions." I'm not sure why you have no doubt. I suppose to the extent that Niles's opinions were fairly uncontroversial, lots of people, including Bix, may have agreed with them. But is there stuff that Bix has said or written that specifically suggests he would have had those same specific views?
You're right: Bix wasn't stupid. His family wasn't stupid. I'm not sure even the reporter was stupid. You asked earlier how the reporter could have thought he would get away with such a brazen case of plagiarism. My answer is he did get away with it, and for eighty-one years at that, so maybe he would have been correct to assume that no one would notice. Except wouldn't Bix notice? And the Beiderbecke family? Or if not notice the plagiarism, notice the story and want to talk about it. It would take some collusion on Bix's part to keep the charade going. I don't think this presumes he wrote it, though. I don't even think it's even evidence of that. There could be other reasons: maybe the reporter told him that's just how journalism works. (Reporters manipulate their sources all the time, as sad a truth as that may be.) Or maybe Bix thought he sounded good and decided to just go with it. It wouldn't be the first time he kept something from his family.
In the end, I don't know what happened, and you present an interesting but I think unpersuasive theory. What's even more interesting to me is that you "will never accept" some fact about Bix. I'm almost done writing a book about the guy, and I don't feel I know him nearly well enough to be so certain. And now something I thought I knew to be true is not true. That provokes in me less certainty, not more!
Posted by: Brendan Wolfe | February 08, 2010 at 01:40 PM
Brendan,
I repeat a few things which I said before and which you haven't grasped or choose to ignore and are therefore misinterpreting once again:
1. I don't think Bix was "interviewed". In my opinion he didn't "talk to a journalist" at all. I think he was invited to write and submit a story about himself and his views on Jazz - which he did.
2. I think that Bix put his heart and soul into that writing, he wanted to impress his family and friends. He knew how important the article would be for those people. He borrowed some well-defined theories from Osgood and Niles; he had their writings at home. He agreed with those views and used them to enhance his article.
Bix wasn't a writer or a philosopher. He did what many 25 year old guys do who are not all that clever with a pen but are suddenly expected to write something important.
I recognize this - I did exactly the same thing at that age. I wrote the sleeve notes for a Bix LP when I was 25. I quoted much from Sudhalter.
3. No, you didn't use the word "uneducated" in this connection. I didn't say you did. Jamaica used it and I do not agree. Again, you've obviously missed this.
4. The reporter didn't have anything to "manipulate" or "get away with". I am convinced that he didn't write the article. Bix did.
Finally you write:
"In the end, I don't know what happened, and you present an interesting but I think unpersuasive theory. What's interesting to me is that you "will never accept" some fact about Bix".
That is also exactly what I think of your version of this case.
Hans
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 08, 2010 at 02:00 PM
Let's see...the famous son of a prominent Davenport family returns home for an extended stay. The city editor sees a possible story and sends out a reporter. Who is the paper likely to send? The Society columnist. The Society columnist doesn't know from Shinola about jazz. Maybe he's heard of Ted Lewis. Not wishing to be at a disadvantage, he does some research in the morgue and comes to the interview armed with some dandy quotes. When Bix is reticent, the reporter asks "Would you say jazz is enough to make a dog laugh?". And Bix says "Yeah, sure".
Bix was a serious musician and I can't imagine him discussing his art in terms of low humor. Was he thinking of the dog audience when he recorded In a Mist or I'm Coming, Virginia?
There is a long history of self-important reporters interviewing jazz musicians and either overpowering the musician with windy, irrelevant questions, or being conned by the musician who gives off the wall answers that the reporter, with his complete lack of knowledge, accepts. The Bix interview may have established the pattern used for the next fifty years.
Posted by: Mike | February 08, 2010 at 04:08 PM
I forgot to say good work finding the Niles article.
Posted by: Mike | February 08, 2010 at 04:13 PM
I repeat - I do not think that Bix was "interviewed" at all. I think he, being a local celebrity, was given a chance to write an article about himself and his opinion of jazz and submit it to the newspaper. I think he had the writings by Osgood and Niles in his posession (his band was mentioned in them) and he borrowed a few quotes from it. In my opinion "Jazz is musical humor" is also typical of Bix. Not because he wanted to "discuss it in terms of low humor" but because Jazzmusic was not yet really accepted in the starchy Iowa of the 1920's and Bix tried to defend this "devilish music" in a lighthearted way, to make himself and his art more acceptable, rather than vigorously defend it, which may not have gone down very well.
I find the idea that Bix himself wrote the article, rather than a local reporter, much more logical, plausible and feasable.
Hans Eekhoff
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 09, 2010 at 02:50 AM
I repeat- I think Bix was interviewed by an empty suit. But, Hans, I agree your argument is plausible.
Posted by: Mike | February 09, 2010 at 12:52 PM
Dear Mike:
I also agree that Hans'scenario is a possible one.
However, there is a clear break in style at the end of the article. The style switches from academic ("Terpsichorean!") to conversational. Bix mentions that the band members were interested in traveling by air, especially when they might be "late" for an engagement (Bix's own experience when he chartered a plane after missing the train for a date). This off-the-cuff tone sounds very like a natural result of a face-to-face Q & A about day-to-day experiences with the Whiteman band, making me believe that there was an actual in-person interview. Since we all probably concur that this article was intended for the "society" rather than the "fine arts" section of the newspaper, questions about the celebrity bandleader and working in that famous orchestra would be a likely major focus of any such interview.
Now, in fairness to Hans' scenario, I have to allow that there could have been an initial interview AND a written out or loaned clipping portion from Bix, perhaps to help out a clueless "society" reporter with what it was all about in jazz. Even so, Bix couldn't have known that almost every word would be appropriated and reproduced in the finished product.
These speculations are all angles on what could have occurred, and I hope that they will be helpful to Brendan in evaluating whatever other evidence, aside from the now known texts, may emerge. Absent such evidence, however, textual exegesis still suggests that the plagiarism most likely originated with the reporter, who was ultimately responsible for what he or she wrote.
Why, a non-Bixophile might ask, are these people arguing over an article published the better part of a century ago? The reason we care is that this discussion is at the heart of the question about which Brendan Wolfe is writing his book. We're all trying to find Bix somewhere in this story, and it seems as if, whatever side of this discussion we come down on, the boy may be giving us the slip yet again!
Posted by: Glenda Childress | February 09, 2010 at 07:48 PM
Un saludo
Posted by: Carlos Ignacio | February 14, 2010 at 05:30 PM
Sure. But it was NOT a "fake inteview". It was just a rather shallow interview and not very serious because Bix didn't have much to say. He was a great musician but not a great raconteur or a philosopher. He tried to add some weight with the quotes from Osgood and Niles - it was very logical for him to posess their writings, after all the Whiteman band was mentioned in them.
Forget the local reporter with all this knowledge theory. THAT is fake; not the interview.
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | February 15, 2010 at 03:51 PM
Recent comments in the Haim Forum by a former QC Times staffer who prefers to remain anonymous are significant. This guy makes it very clear that Bix made those comments - not some local reporter. Mr. Wolfe is therefore quite wrong to call this a "fake interview". Hopefully this myth will not be accepted as truth - as is so often the case.
Hans Eekhoff
Posted by: Hans Eekhoff | March 01, 2010 at 01:18 PM