Frank Trumbauer & Bix Beiderbecke: I'm Coming, Virginia
Track
I’m Coming, Virginia
Group
Frank Trumbauer And His Orchestra (With Bix Beiderbecke)
CD
Bix Restored, Volume 1 (Origin Jazz Library)
Musicians:
Frankie Trumbauer (C-melody saxophone), Bix Beiderbecke (cornet), Don Murray (clarinet), Bill Rank (trombone), Chauncey Morehouse (drums, harpophone),
Doc Ryker (alto sax), Irving Riskin (piano)
.Recorded: New York, May 13, 1927
Rating: 98/100 (learn more)
In this, his longest solo, Bix is at the height of his powers. He eschews the gutbucket growls and half-valves that were just becoming popular with Duke Ellington and instead digs deep into the melody. In true Impressionist style, with all the manly restraint of Henry James, he suggests rather than declaims the tune’s dark melancholy, taking Trumbauer’s solo – the handoff is just perfect – and gently refining it. His “correlated” phrases (Bix’s term) build, one on top of the other, until Bix finally leaps up to a (relatively) high register and delivers what Richard Sudhalter rather dramatically described as “Caravaggio-like shafts of light.”
Reviewer: Brendan Wolfe
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Related Links
Bixology, an excerpt from a book by Brendan WolfeThe Dozens: Twelve Essential Bix Beiderbecke Performances by Brendan Wolfe
Remembering Bix by Ted Gioia
Bix Beiderbecke from jazz.com’s Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians
Tags: 1920s jazz · c-melody saxophone · cornet
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