The Bix
Beiderbecke Memorial Album.
What is the 1936
‘Bix Memorial Album’?
Well, this page is being put up here hastily because we just
discovered that some 78 record collectors who have some, or all, of the records
which comprised it, do not actually possess the accompanying booklet. In other
words, the ‘liner notes’ of the album, were sometimes lost when the individual
records were split up. (Something most unlikely to happen when, much later, an
‘album’ consisted not of 5, 6 or 7 78 rpm discs in a multi-pocket ‘book’, but
just one (or two) discs, or CDs!)
Anyhow, I can expand this explanation later: but this web-page’s
primary purpose is to make available the 12-page booklet (‘liner notes’) that
originally accompanied the 1936 Victor record album devoted to the memory of
the young and brilliant Jazz improviser Bix Beiderbecke. He played the cornet;
that is, a slightly different (and, when you get down to it, more
‘conservative’) version of the trumpet. This was the main instrument of early
Jazz, much as the guitar was – and is – the main instrument of the rock band.
Here are 12 links that will enable you to download and - if you
so desire! - make your own facsimile of the booklet that accompanied the
original (any now highly sought after) album of 78 rpm records, first issued in
1936.
I was jolly lucky in late February 2003, when I attended Phil
Pospychala’s annual ‘Bix Birthday Bash’ in
Bix died, aged only 28, in August 1931. A great and strikingly
innovative musical improviser, he worked within the then new concept of ‘Jazz’.
But, like many exceptionally creative artists in whatever artistic field before
(and after), he succumbed to the insatiable and unfulfillable demands &
pressures of the life he had been drawn into, and ‘burned himself out’,
arguably becoming the first ‘genius and martyr ‘of Jazz to become known in his
own time, even if mostly among his fellow musicians.
The original booklet is of size approximately 9.375” (23.8cm) by
6.875” (17.5cm). I have scanned in the
pages preserving the wide margins of the original. So if you take each page
below, and print it out to fit into the sizes given above, you can make your
own replica of this booklet, both in text and style! For those of you who use
Windows, the program Microsoft Publisher makes it easy; just create a 12-page
booklet of the right page size. Create a page-size picture frame on each page,
then import each numbered .jpg in turn to each page. When you print out the
booklet, the pages will be in the right order when folded and stapled. All you
have to do is trim it to size, and Lo! You have a replica of the original album
booklet.
It was printed on good quality semi-gloss paper, what (I guess)
might be 90gsm paper in modern parlance.
If you use these scans ‘as-is’, there’ll be a few shadowy margins
&c. But you can always ‘clean up’ the .jpgs in your photo-processing
program.
Just click on the links below, one at a time, to give you a .jpg
of each page… then just save each picture somewhere convenient on your hard
drive, and work on them later.
The file size is around 250 – 300 kilobytes per .jpg, so if you haven’t
got a broadband connection to the Internet, it could take a little while to
download all 12.
Of course, some of the critical commentary by Warren Scholl has
been superseded by more recent research: but in no way should the advantages of
hindsight we enjoy, be applied retrospectively to any student or critic writing
over 60 years ago! Scholl did a brilliant job with these notes!
Regards,
Norman Field.
Page written
Revised