BAW (09 Oct 2:15pm) - you may not like Bix after he played with Whiteman, but it had nothing to do with whether he could read music or not.

If I remember Sudhalter et al's biography correctly, Bix could read but wasn't very good at it. When he played with Whiteman he learned his written part mostly by ear on run throughs. I seem to remember that he himself felt bad about not being able to read better - others could read the parts and improvise. So reading/not-reading didn't really come into how he played. (And, whatever you may think about Whiteman, he kept a chair for Bix as much as he could).

(And wasn't it a musical pedant who he'd gone to to learn proper technique who told Bix not to bother because it would alter his unique tone?)


Mick