In A Mellow Tone
Wednesday December 5th, 2018 with Bernard Stepien
Legendary trumpeter/cornetist Bix Beiderbecke

Around a decade or more ago, the late Ron Sweetman presented a program on Bix Beiderbecke. I remember it to this day mostly because despite Ron’s penchant for black musicians, Bix Beiderbecke was for him and many critics a noteworthy exception. Beiderbecke was one of the key transition musicians between blues laden New Orleans music and anything that followed from the 20’s up to now with a particular influence on what would be Cool Jazz, 25 years later. What struck me the most is that Beiderbecke was also was a pianist and Ron photocopied me some of Beiderbecke compositions where I could see for myself that he crossed some boundaries on harmonies and even melodies. Tonight we will study all that using recordings from the year 1927.