| Leon "Bix" Beiderbecke was born
in 1903 in Davenport, Iowa to a middle-class merchant family. He began
playing the piano at age 3, the cornet at 14. His first exposure to jazz
was hearing his older brother's 1917 records of the Original Dixieland
Jazz Band. During his high-school days, he began gigging and sitting in
with local bands. In September, 1921, his parents enrolled him at the Lake
Forest Military Academy near Chicago, hoping to instill in him some discipline
and interest in his studies, but the proximity to Chicago and its nascent
jazz scene had just the opposite effect. He formed a small band and began
playing for campus dances. |
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