real name: Leon Bix Beiderbecke Born Mar 10, 1903 in Davenport, IA Died Aug 6, 1931 in New York, NY Bix Beiderbecke was one of the greatest jazz musicians of the 1920s. His colorful life, quick rise and fall, and eventual status as a martyr made him a legend even before he died, and he has long stood as proof that not all the innovators in jazz history were black. Possessor of a beautiful, distinctive tone and a strikingly original improvising style, Beiderbecke's only competitor among cornetists in the '20s was Louis Armstrong but (due to their different sounds and styles) one really could not compare them. Beiderbecke was a bit of a child prodigy, picking out tunes on the piano when he was three. While he had conventional training on the piano, he taught himself the cornet. Influenced by the original Dixieland Jazz Band, Beiderbecke craved the freedom of jazz but his straight-laced parents felt he was being frivolous. He was sent to Lake Forest Military Academy in 1921 but, by coincidence, it was located fairly close to Chicago, the center of jazz at the time. Beiderbecke was eventually expelled he missed so many classes. After a brief period at home he became a full-time musician. In 1923, Beiderbecke became the star cornetist of the Wolverines and a year later this spirited group made some classic recordings. In late 1924, Beiderbecke left the Wolverines to join Jean Goldkette's orchestra but his inability to read music resulted in him losing the job. In 1925, he spent time in Chicago and worked on his reading abilities. The following year he spent time with Frankie Trumbauer's orchestra in St. Louis. Although already an alcoholic, 1927 would be Beiderbecke's greatest year. He worked with Jean Goldkette's orchestra (most of their records are unfortunately quite commercial), recorded his piano masterpiece "In a Mist" (one of his four Debussy-inspired originals), cut many classic sides with a small group headed by Trumbauer (including his greatest solos: "Singin' the Blues," "I'm Comin' Virginia," and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans"), and then signed up with Paul Whiteman's huge and prosperous orchestra. Although revisionist historians would later claim that Whiteman's wide mixture of repertoire (much of it outside of jazz) drove Beiderbecke to drink, he actually enjoyed the prestige of being with the most popular band of the decade. Beiderbecke's favorite personal solo was his written-out part on George Gershwin's "Concerto in F." With Whiteman, Beiderbecke's solos tended to be short moments of magic, sometimes in odd settings; his brilliant chorus on "Sweet Sue" is a perfect example. He was productive throughout 1928, but by the following year his drinking really began to catch up with him. Beiderbecke had a breakdown, made a comeback, and then in September 1929 was reluctantly sent back to Davenport to recover. Unfortunately, Beiderbecke made a few sad records in 1930 before his death at age 28. The bad liquor of the Prohibition era did him in. For the full story, Bix: Man & Legend is a remarkably detailed book. Beiderbecke's recordings (even the obscure ones) are continually in print, for his followers believe that every note he played was special. — Scott Yanow All Music Guide
Real name : Francis Joseph Spanier. Born Nov 9, 1906 in Chicago, IL. Died Feb 12, 1967 in Sausalito, CA Muggsy Spanier was a predictable but forceful cornetist who rarely strayed far from the melody. Perfectly at home in Dixieland ensembles, Spanier was also an emotional soloist (equally influenced by King Oliver and Louis Armstrong) who was an expert at using the plunger mute. He started on cornet when he was 13, played with Elmer Schoebel's band in 1921, and first recorded in 1924. Spanier was a fixture in Chicago throughout the decade (appearing on several important early records) before joining Ted Lewis in 1929. Although Lewis was essentially a corny showman, Spanier's solos gave his band some validity during the next seven years. After a stint with Ben Pollack's orchestra (1936-1938), Spanier became seriously ill and was hospitalized for three months. After he recovered, the cornetist formed his famous eight-piece "Ragtime Band" and recorded 16 Dixieland performances for Bluebird (later dubbed The Great Sixteen) that virtually defined the music of the Dixieland revival movement. But because his group actually preceded the revival by a couple years, it soon had to break up due to lack of work. Muggsy joined Bob Crosby for a time, had his own short-lived big band, freelanced with Dixieland bands in New York, and starting in 1950 he gradually relocated to the West Coast. During 1957-1959 Spanier worked with Earl Hines' band and he continued playing up until his retirement in 1964, touring Europe in 1960 and always retaining his popularity in the Dixieland world. By Scott Yanow. All Music Guide
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In the first, or, as it may be termed, the Latin-9- period of medievalculture, there was not much to distinguish the Italians from the rest ofEurope. Those Lombard schools, of which mention has already been made,did indeed maintain the traditions of decadent classical education morealive than among the peoples of the North. Better Latin, andparticularly more fluent Latin verse, was written during the dark agesin Italy than elsewhere.[6] Still it does not appear that the wholecredit of medieval Latin hymnology, and of its curious counterpart, thesongs of the wandering students, should be attributed to the Italians.While we can refer the Dies Iræ, Lauda Sion, Pange Lingua andStabat Mater with tolerable certainty to Italian poets; while there isabundant internal evidence to prove that some of the best CarminaBurana were composed in Italy and under Italian influences; yet Paris,the focus of theological and ecclesiastical learning, as Bologna was thecenter of legal studies, must be regarded as the headquarters of thatliterary movement which gave the rhyming hexameters of Bernard of Morlasand the lyrics of the Goliardi to Europe.[7] It seems clear that wecannot ascribe to the Italians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuriesany superiority in the use of Latin over the school of France. Theirprevious vantage-ground had been lost in the political distractions oftheir country. At the same time, they were the first jurists -10-and thehardiest, if not the most philosophical, freethinkers of Europe.
Again, when the nobles, after the battle of Campaldino, had been finallysuppressed, Villani once more returns to the subject of these companies,describing the booths of wood adorned with silken curtains, which wereranged along the streets and squares, for the accommodation ofguests.[55] It will be observed that Villani connects the gladness ofthis season with the successive triumphs of the Guelf party and thesuppression of the nobles by the Popolo. Not -52-only was Florence freedfrom grave anxieties and heavy expenses, caused by the intramuralquarrels between Counts and Burghers, but the city felt the advent ofher own prosperity, the realization of her true type, in theirvictorious close. Then the new noble class, the popolani grassi,assumed the gentle manners of chivalry, accommodating its customs totheir own rich jovial ideal. Feudalism was extinguished; but societyretained such portions of feudal customs as shed beauty upon commonlife. Tranquillity succeeded to strife, and the medieval city presenteda spectacle similar to that which an old Greek lyrist has describedamong the gifts of Peace:
It may be conjectured that Dante, obeying the scholastic impulse of hisage, started from the abstract or universal. Therein lay the reality ofthings, not in the particular. What has been already quoted from theletter to Can Grande justifies this supposition. He meant to lay barethe scheme of the universe, as understood by medieval Christianity, andviewed from the standpoint of the human agent. That scheme presenteditself in a series of propositions, a logic or a metaphysic apprehendedas truth. Each portion of the poem was mapped out with rigorousaccuracy. Each section illustrated a thought, an argument, a position.The whole might be surveyed as a structure of connected syllogisms. Tothis scientific articulation of its leading motives corresponds thearchitectural symmetry, the simple outlines and severe masses of theCommedia. The plan, however minute in detail,-80- is comprehended at aglance. The harmonies of the design are as geometrical as some colossalchurch imagined by Bramante. But Dante had no intention of re-writingthe Summa in verse. He meant to be a poet, using the vulgar speech of"that low Italy" in the production of an epic which should rank on equalterms with the Æneid, and be for modern Christendom what that had beenfor sacred Rome. Furthermore he had it in his heart to yield such honorto Virgil, "leader, lord, and master," as none had ever paid, and towrite concerning Beatrice "what had not before been written of anywoman." His poem was to be the storehouse of his personal experience.His love and hatred, his admiration of greatness and his scorn forcowardice, his resentment of injury, his gratitude for service rendered,his political creed and critical opinions, the joy he had of nature, andthe pain he suffered when he walked with men: all this was to findexpression at right seasons and in seemly order. Upon the severeframework of abstract truth, which forms the skeleton of the Commediaand is the final end of its existence, Dante felt free to superimposematerials of inexhaustible variety. Following the metaphor of buildingmore exactly, we may say that he employed these materials as the stoneswhereby he brought his architectural design to view. The abstractthought of the Commedia, tyrannous and all-controlling as it is, couldnot lay claim to reality but for the dramatic episodes which present itto the intellect through the imagination.
Petrarch, called to perform another mission, had a-87- different training.Brought up from earliest infancy in exile, transferred from Tuscany toFrance, deprived of civic rights and disengaged from the duties of aburgher in those troublous times, he surveyed the world from his studyand judged its affairs with the impartiality of a philosopher. Without acity, without a home, without a family, consecrated to the priesthoodand absorbed in literary interests, he spent his life in musings atVaucluse or in the splendid hospitalities of the Lombard Courts. Throughall his wanderings he was a visitor, the citizen of no republic, but thefreeman of the City of the Spirit. Without exaggeration he might havechosen for his motto the phrase of Marcus Aurelius: "I will not say dearcity of Cecrops but dear city of God!" Avignon, where his intellect wasformed in youth, had become through the residence of the Popes thecapital of Christendom, the only center of political and ecclesiasticalactivity where an ideal of universal culture could arise. Itself inexile, the Papacy still united the modern nations by a common bond; butits banishment from Rome was the sign of a new epoch, when the hegemonyof civilization should be transferred from the Church to secularcontrol. In this way Petrarch was enabled to shape a conception ofhumanism which left the middle age behind; and when his mind dwelt onItaly at a distance, he could think of her as the great Italic land,inheritor of Rome, mother of a people destined to be one, born to rule,or if not rule, at least to regenerate the world through wisdom. Fromhis lips we hear of Florence nothing; but for the first time thepassionate cry of Italia mia the appeal of an Italian who recognizedhis-88- race, yet had no local habitation on the sacred soil, vibrates inhis oratorical canzoni. Petrarch's dreams of a united Italy and aresuscitated Roman republic were hardly less visionary than Dante'sideal of universal monarchy with Rome for the seat of empire. Yet in hislyrics the true conception of Italy, one intellectually in spite ofpolitical discord and foreign oppression, the real and indestructibleunity of the nation in a spirit destined to control the future of thehuman race, came suddenly to consciousness. There was an out-cry intheir passion-laden strophes which gathered volume as the years rolledover Italy, until at last, in her final prostration beneath SpanishAustria, they seemed less poems than authentic prophecies.
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