Remembering Bix: A Memoir of the Jazz Age

By Ralph Berton

Book Overview

As Nat Hentoff says, "Hearing Bix for the first time was like waking up to the first day of spring." Bix has always inspired such acclaim, for he was an unmatched master of the cornet. Ralph Berton was privileged enough to have been a fan -- and younger brother of Bix's drummer -- just as Beiderbecke's genius was flowering, before he died in 1931 at age twenty-eight. Listening from behind the piano, tagging along to honky-tonks and jam sessions, Berton heard some of the most extraordinary music of the century, and he brings Bix and his era alive with a remarkable combination of the excitement of youth and the perspective of the five decades that followed -- decades that confirmed Bix's place in the pantheon of jazz.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306809370
• ISBN13: 9780306809378
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 472 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

I've read dozens of jazz history books - this one's the best!

I simply could not put this book down, and when forced to, only thought of when I might be able to pick it back up again. Ralph Berton is an amazing writer. He combines colorful prose, great humor and rare insights into the soul of jazz, life, love and lest we forget, the tragic life of Bix Beiderbecke. If you are a musicologist looking for studious research on this period of jazz, you will be frustrated by this book. If you treasure rich imagery that brings history to life, step into this wonderful time machine - and enjoy a guided tour of jazz culture in the 1920's.

It's WONDERFUL......plain & simple!

I, too, read it a long time ago. I would have been crazy about this book even if I'd never heard of Bix. Every paragraph is a gem. Berton bubbles over with cleverness. I use expressions & phrases that I picked up from the book, every day! And like another reviewer, I would love to know what happened to Ralph Berton.

Read this book!!

What a great portrait of a great age in AMerica. Ralph Berton was a fabulous aurthur. I read this book in four days, couldn't put it down, I dreamt about Bix's music for weeks on end.

Great Book

I read this book a long time ago, and consider it one of the best I've ever read. Maybe it's not absolutely historically accurate (it's not supposed to be), but it evokes for me an era long before I existed, and the spirit of what those times must have been like. There are at least two other books out there that are historically researched and accurate, but leave the emotion out. You need to read them together to get the true picture.Does anyone know anything more about Ralph Berton, who, without intending it, is really the most interesting character in the book?