Title: Leon Bismark Beiderbecke House
Content: of the boats. He would also stow away and play the calliopes on the boats. His older brother Charles brought home record albums when he returned from serving in World War I that featured the music of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Bix was drawn to the sound of the band's trumpet player Nick LaRocca. Beiderbecke had bought a second-hand cornet when he was 15, and he would slow the turntable down and learn the trumpet lines note-by-note. He played his first public performance at a vaudeville show in the Davenport High School gym. He went on to perform with

Title: Bix Beiderbecke
Content: Bix Beiderbecke Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, pianist, and composer. Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His solos on "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927) demonstrate purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, as well as others, he helped to define the jazz ballad and foresaw what would become cool jazz in the 1950s. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions and the only one he recorded, fused jazz with

Title: Bix Beiderbecke
Content: classical (mainly Impressionist) influences. A native of Davenport, Iowa, Beiderbecke taught himself to play the cornet largely by ear, leading him to adopt a non-standard fingering technique that informed his unique tone. He first recorded with Midwestern jazz ensemble The Wolverines in 1924, after which he played briefly for the Detroit-based Jean Goldkette Orchestra before joining Frankie "Tram" Trumbauer for an extended engagement at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, also under the auspices of Goldkette's organisation. Beiderbecke and Trumbauer joined Goldkette's main band at the Graystone Ballroom in Detroit in 1926. The band toured widely and famously played a

Title: Leon Bismark Beiderbecke House
Content: Neal Buckley's Novelty Orchestra and the Plantation Jazz Orchestra on the stern-wheeler Majestic. In 1921, Beiderbecke was sent to Lake Forest Academy. Except for a brief period in the early 1920s when he returned home to work for his father, Bix lived the rest of his life away from Davenport as a professional musician playing in jazz bands. He would come home to visit from time to time and when he was here he played with local bands. It is believed that on his visit from December 1924 to January 1925 Bix composed "Davenport Blues" in this house. Beiderbecke died

Title: Leon Bismark Beiderbecke House
Content: Lumber and Coal Company. His mother, Agatha Jane (Hilton) Beiderbecke, was the daughter of a riverboat pilot and was the organist at First Presbyterian Church. Bix learned to play the piano by ear in the family home. By the age of three he could play simple melodies. The "Davenport Democrat" published an article about his musical accomplishments when he was six years old. As he grew older he would go down to the Mississippi River to listen to the jazz music that could be heard playing on the riverboats. Beiderbecke heard Louis Armstrong play for the first time on one

Question: What was Bix Beiderbecke's principal musical instrument?
Answer: Cornet