page_title: Bix Beiderbecke
section_title: Death
hierarchical_section_title: Bix Beiderbecke / Death
caption_attribution_description: English: Plaque in Sunnyside, NY where the jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke died.
context_page_description: Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke was an American jazz cornetist, pianist, and composer.
  Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone. His solos on seminal recordings such as "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" demonstrate a gift for extended improvisation that heralded the jazz ballad style, in which jazz solos are an integral part of the composition. Moreover, his use of extended chords and an ability to improvise freely along harmonic as well as melodic lines are echoed in post-WWII developments in jazz. "In a Mist" is the best known of Beiderbecke's published piano compositions, and the only one that he recorded. His piano style reflects both jazz and classical influences. All five of his piano compositions were published by Robbins Music during his lifetime.
  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 style.
context_section_description: Beiderbecke died in his apartment, No. 1G, 43-30 46th Street, in Sunnyside, Queens, New York on August 6, 1931. The week had been stiflingly hot, making sleep difficult. Suffering from insomnia, Beiderbecke played the piano late into the evenings, both to the annoyance and the delight of his neighbors. On the evening of August 6, at about 9.30 pm, his rental agent, George Kraslow, heard noises coming from across the hallway. "His hysterical shouts brought me to his apartment on the run," Kraslow told Philip Evans in 1959.
  He pulled me in and pointed to the bed. His whole body was trembling violently. He was screaming there were two Mexicans hiding under his bed with long daggers. To humor him, I looked under the bed and when I rose to assure him there was no one hiding there, he staggered and fell, a dead weight, in my arms. I ran across the hall and called in a woman doctor, Dr. Haberski, to examine him. She pronounced him dead.
  Historians have disagreed over the identity of the doctor who pronounced Beiderbecke dead, with several sources stating that it was Dr. John Haberski - the husband of the woman Kraslow identified - who pronounced Beiderbecke dead in his apartment. The official cause of death, as indicated on the death certificate, was lobar pneumonia. Unofficially, edema of the brain coupled with the effects of long-term alcoholism have been cited as contributory factors. Beiderbecke's mother and brother took the train to New York and arranged for his body to be taken home to Davenport. He was buried there on August 11, 1931 in the family plot at Oakdale Cemetery.
caption: Plaque in Sunnyside, NY where the jazz musician Bix Beiderbecke died.
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