Bix Beiderbecke Museum and Archive

What Does the Museum Collect? 

The Bix Museum is home to the largest collection of professional resources and artifacts relating to Bix Beiderbecke, his family, his music, and his legacy all located in the Quad Cities. We host both a permanent exhibit and a publicly accessible archives in Davenport, IA to house and preserve these artifacts and research materials.

Scope of the collections

The Bix Beiderbecke museum’s collection consists of personal items of Bix Beiderbecke, items related to Bix Beiderbecke, items related to musicians that played with Bix Beiderbecke, items related to Jazz, jazz history, and Quad Cities’ history related to Bix Beiderbecke and jazz history.

Categories of collections

The Bix Beiderbecke collection consists of: audio recordings (oral histories of people who knew Bix), writings, scripts, emails, tapes, video, music albums, records, letters, programs, and objects relating to Bix and his constituents. At the Davenport Public Library, in the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center, the Bix Beiderbecke Museum has an archive consisting of various letters, programs, and other miscellaneous text-based artifacts related to Bix Beiderbecke and his legacy.

Want to Make an Artifact Donation?

If you have a collection of objects you would like to donate to the museum that falls under our collection scope, reach out to Director Nathaniel Kraft at director@bixmuseum.org to discuss your donation. Please describe what your objects are, the provenance of the objects, and if possible include photos/scans of the objects. Below is an FAQ about our donation process to see if an artifact donation is right for you.

What is the museum collecting?

This list is not exhaustive

• Instruments owned/played by Bix and musicians associated with Bix. ex: Bix’s Piano or Miff Mole’s Trombone

• Personal possessions of Bix, musicians associated with Bix, and other persons associated with Bix. ex: Bix’s Tuxedo

• Original photos, letters, audio/visual recordings, etc of Bix, the Beiderbeckes, and musicians/other persons associated with Bix’s legacy. ex: Beiderbecke Family collection of family photos and handwritten Bix letters

• Original 78 shellac pressings of Bix Recordings. ex: Gennet label 78 records of Wolverines recordings

• Original research done on Bix, his legacy, and his music. ex: Evans original Bix biography research and manuscripts

• Artwork relating to Bix and his legacy. ex: original PeeWee Russell oil paintings

Are you looking for Bix Fest memorabilia, reprint compilation albums, sheet music, books, posters, etc?

The Bix Beiderbecke Museum has an extensive collection of these types of mass-produced materials and most likely has a copy. We do not need more than 1 or 2 high-quality copies of each for archival and display purposes but we often have guests and Bix fans ask us if there are ways to acquire these types of memorabilia, recordings, books, etc. If you have a collection of these items, the museum would be happy to accept them as a donation with the understanding that your copies may be donated to another museum/archive with similar collecting goals or put in our Museum Store for sale so that guests looking for Bix related merchandise have the opportunity to get it while supporting the museum. All revenue from these objects sold in our Museum Store goes back into the preservation of our artifacts like the costs associated with cleaning and tuning our instruments.

Will my donation be on display?

Like all museums, not everything we hold in our collections is on display and many artifacts are stored out of view or in our archives. We cannot guarantee any donation we accept will be out on display at any given time and cannot guarantee any stipulations you may have for donating an object. When you donate, you give us full ownership of that object, which includes discretion on its storage and display.

Are there tax incentives for the value of my donations?

There can be. Like tax-deductible monetary donations to registered nonprofits, donations of physical objects can be considered tax-deductible in some cases. You are responsible for any value appraisals for objects donated to the museum for your own records as the museum does not do appraisals ourselves or recommend appraisers for you to use.

I have written a book, released a DVD or CD, created art, or published something relating to Bix and his Legacy. Would you be interested in a copy or several copies for the museum store?

Yes! Part of our dedication to preserving Bix’s Legacy is archiving all creative, biographical, inspirational, etc works dedicated to Bix and his Legacy. This may be books written about Bix or the Jazz Age, tribute albums dedicated to Bix, documentary series, etc. We would be happy to hold a copy in our collection for archival purposes. If you offer a dealer’s rate for stock of said media or want to donate multiple copies and are willing to allow it to be sold in our Museum Store we would like to discuss the possibilities to do so. Please email Director Nathaniel Kraft at director@bixmuseum.org

Do I need to fill out any paperwork?

Yes, all donations must be accompanied by a filled-out Deed of Gift that gives possession of the items to the Bix Museum. You can download, review, and print out a copy of our deed of gift below.