Life in a New Key: Davenport's Bix Museum to Move Across the Street
After seven years tucked nearly out of sight in downtown Davenport, the growing Bix Beiderbecke Museum & Archive is raising money for a move across the street.
Located in the lower level of the historic Redstone building (at Second and Main Streets) since 2017, this gem of a museum dedicated to the life and times of Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931) – a jazz legend and one of Davenport's most famous sons – is working to relocate to 112 West Second Street. The nonprofit is waiting to hear on more grant funding, but has so far raised $70,000 from…
Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archives moving to new downtown Davenport location
DAVENPORT, Iowa — The Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archives in downtown Davenport is moving.
The nonprofit will soon be located on 2nd Street after being in the basement of the Redstone building for five years. The organization hopes that the move will make the museum more visible so that it can better educate the public on a historical figure in Davenport's history.
"We're a little buried. You drive by you don't really know there's a museum in the building," Museum Director Nathaniel Kraft said…
Celebrate a big Bix weekend in QC
This weekend will be a very special one for fans of Bix Beiderbecke, jazz and music history.
Sunday, March 10 is the 121st anniversary of Bix’s birth in Davenport and this year is the 100th anniversary of the first recordings by the legendary cornetist, pianist and composer. The following events are scheduled to honor the occasions…
Bix Birthday Bash to celebrate 100 years of Beiderbecke music on Sunday
MOLINE, Ill. (KWQC) -The 2024 Bix Birthday Bash will celebrate Beiderbecke’s 125th birthday and 100 years of his jazz music on March 10 from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at The Viking Club, 1450 41st Street, Moline.
Doors for the event will open at 1 p.m. with Josh Duffee’s Graystone Monarchs slated to start at 2 p.m.
Beloved Davenport woman loved, lived and breathed Bix
Geraldine Bowers was a short, slight woman, but an absolute giant in the bountiful world of Bix.
Gerri Bowers, 83, of Davenport – who worked tirelessly for decades to promote public awareness and appreciation of jazz legend Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke — died on Christmas Eve, Dec. 24.
She was born just seven and a half years after the Aug. 6. 1931 death of the Davenport native, cornet and piano player, and composer, and now Bowers will share her eternal rest at the same cemetery where Bix is – Oakdale Memorial Gardens, 2501 Eastern Ave., Davenport…
The real Kings of Queens: Searching for Bix and Louis
Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong were born 19 months and 944 miles apart, along the mighty Mississippi River.
Both became legendary jazz horn players (with vastly different musical and personal styles), fast friends and ended up settling within four miles of each other in Queens, N.Y.
Bix – a Davenport native whose name adorns a beloved QC road race and jazz festival — and Louis – a New Orleans native who achieved much greater international fame – unfortunately didn’t both live in Queens simultaneously. Bix died in his first-floor apartment in Sunnyside Aug. 6, 1931 (at 28), and Armstrong lived in his Corona home from 1943 until his death July 6, 1971…
'So far ahead of anyone else': The life and legacy of Bix Beiderbecke
The first place Chris Beiderbecke learned of his great-uncle Bix Beiderbecke’s fame was from a World Book Encyclopedia. Beiderbecke, in grade school at the time, looked up his last name while in the library, and found more than he was expecting.
Before that book, he knew Bix Beiderbecke— a world-famous jazz musician in the 1920s — only as his great-uncle, the man who stood as a groomsman in his grandfather’s wedding and who played piano for his grandmother when she was pregnant to soothe her…
Bix’s Travel Trunk
Bix Museum Raising $12,000 For Renovation With Three Vital Artifacts
The Bix Beiderbecke Museum and World Archives in downtown Davenport is raising funds to renovate their permanent exhibit with three of the most important artifacts acquired to date.
The $12,000 project will make it possible to permanently display Don Murray’s tenor saxophone and Bix’s tuxedo jacket and traveling trunk during the Paul Whiteman years in the museum…
Bix Beiderbecke Museum Bestows Two New Bix Lives Awards
Josh Duffee and Carol Schaefer are two Davenport men who are passionate about one of Davenport’s most famous natives.
They are the newest winners of the Bix Lives award, given each year since 2007 to people who exemplify what it means to keep Bix Beiderbecke’s legacy alive. Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke (1903-1931) is a legendary Davenport native, cornetist and pianist for whom an annual jazz festival and three-year-old museum in Davenport are named.
The Bix Beiderbecke Museum and World Archives (at the lower level of River Music Experience, 2nd and Main streets) announced Duffee and Schaefer as winners Tuesday, chosen by the museum’s board…
Making Bix More Accessible
The Friends of the Davenport Public Library recently won a grant from the state of Iowa to make material about jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke much more accessible to the public. The library won nearly $15,000 from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs…
Don Murray and Saxes
Bix Beiderbecke Museum Acquires Don Murray’s Saxophone
DAVENPORT, IOWA (March 5, 2020) — The Bix Beiderbecke Museum and World Archives is pleased to announce the acquisition of a new artifact.
One of the saxophones owned by jazz musician and best friend of Bix Beiderbecke, Don Murray, has been donated to the Bix Museum.
Liz Beiderbecke-Hart, Bix Board member stated, “On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archives, I wish to formally thank Justice Tom Harris Jr for his generous donation of his Great Uncle Don Murray’s saxophone…