Remembering Bix - by Ralph Berton (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, [1974].

Book Synopsis

As Nat Hentoff says, "Hearing Bix for the first time was like waking up to the first day of spring." Bix has always inspired such acclaim, for he was an unmatched master of the cornet. Ralph Berton was privileged enough to have been a fan -- and younger brother of Bix's drummer -- just as Beiderbecke's genius was flowering, before he died in 1931 at age twenty-eight. Listening from behind the piano, tagging along to honky-tonks and jam sessions, Berton heard some of the most extraordinary music of the century, and he brings Bix and his era alive with a remarkable combination of the excitement of youth and the perspective of the five decades that followed -- decades that confirmed Bix's place in the pantheon of jazz.

About the Author

Ralph Berton (1910-1993) wrote extensively on jazz, serving as an editor at Metronome and Down Beat magazines and as editor-in-chief of Sound and Fury. He was also a professor of jazz history at Cooper Union, Middlesex County College, and Bloomfield College.