Bix


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Posted by jts on June 09, 2002 at 23:59:10:

Its been around fifteen years or so since his old recordings (both with his own band and with the Paul Whiteman band) were cleaned up, re-mastered, and released as digital recordings.

Ever since the first time I heard these incredibly clean re-released recordings, I've wanted to take time to transcribe (not arrange, but transcribe note-for-note as much as possible) some of the choice jazz band stuff (not Whiteman stuff) for brass quintet.

I've never gotten around to it. Lazy? certainly. Busy? some of that, too. Now that my oldest is out of school (no more of these three or more trips per year to odd destinations) and I've managed to channel my teenagers into the same school system, perhaps (??) I might get one of these tunes done for brass and audition the result locally.

For brass quintets to be able to play transcriptions (again, not arrangements) of the old Bix Beiderbecke trumpet/clarinet/tenor sax(occasionally)/trombone/bass sax recordings would be (at least for me) a thrill, if the style were to be imitated properly. (Perhaps, there's the rub.) I would predict the popularity of a set of three tunes among brass quintets could spread very quickly. Probably not to the extent of the ragtime thing that happened when the movie The Sting came out, but I believe that once exposed to transcriptions such as these, brass quintet players would become electrified.

As I've procrastinated this long, I am still seriously doubting my own earnestness and encourage some of you more committed composers/arrangers out there to purchase the Bix c.d.'s, pick out two of three of the very best, transcribe them for brass quintet, and get them published. Great tunes such as Singin' the Blues, Davenport Blues, Big Boy, Riverboat Shuffle, and his own In a Mist .

If nothing else, some younger musicians will once again discover that jazz can "bounce" just as well as it can "swing.



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