The 55th Bix Jazz Festival celebrates its emerald anniversary with events highlighting Bix Beiderbecke’s collaborations with Jean Goldkette (1893-1962), the jazz pianist and bandleader. The 2026 festival will also recognize the festival’s new home as a program of Common Chord. The festival begins Thursday, July 30, with a session from 5 p.m. to 9:45 p.m., […]
It’s Bix Fest weekend! The annual jazz fest is taking place this weekend at Rhythm City Casino in Davenport and you can find details here. There’s a stellar lineup of national jazz bands to dazzle & delight. It’s a 3-day party you won’t want to miss! ‘23 Bands: Andy Schumm’s Chicago Cellar Boys Banu Gibson […]
Saturday in the Arts is a weekly feature covering a trend, subject, event or personality of local interest. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for the best entertainment and arts coverage in the area, QuadCities.com! When bassist Dan Martin moved with his wife in 2007 to a quiet Queens neighborhood in New York […]
More than 20 downtown Davenport businesses have come together to present Bix Block Parties on Friday, July 23, and Saturday, July 24, during Bix 7 race weekend. Supported by the Downtown Davenport Partnership (DDP), the event is designed to celebrate the downtown neighborhood with multiple blocks of events programmed by adjacent business owners throughout downtown. The locally […]
The Chicago Cellar Boys will be performing at The Knoxville Tap in Milan, IL, on Sunday, August 8th 2021 from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. This performance will be the final Bix Jazz Festival related event for the weekend, and it’s always an amazing time! Event organizer Josh Duffee will be taking reservations for advanced seating from […]
Local musician Josh Duffee has long been an advocate for keeping the legacy of legendary jazz musician — and former Quad-Cities resident — Bix Beiderbecke alive and well. Now Duffee is advocating to keep Bix’s childhood home alive as well. Duffee has been monitoring the situation as Bix’s former abode has fallen into a state […]
And on into the summer… We’re looking back at the year that was in arts and entertainment, 2020. Every day between now and New Year’s Eve, Dec. 31, we’ll be posting a story painting the big picture on the year, a couple months each day. We hope you enjoy the look back, and let’s all […]
Ten years ago, when Davenport jazz drummer Josh Duffee first performed with jazz singer Cecile McLorin Salvant in England, he knew he was in the presence of some kind of genius. This week, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation agreed, awarding the 31-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y. one of its 21 “genius grants.” The […]
Fourteen years before Aug. 6 was burned into the world’s memory (with the 1945 U.S. atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, killing more than 70,000 people), that date marked another impactful death. Davenport native and jazz legend Leon Bismark (“Bix”) Beiderbecke died Aug. 6, 1931 at age 28, from alcohol abuse and lobar pneumonia in […]
Several Quad-Cities cultural organizations and projects were among 176 grants totaling just over $2 million, announced Friday by the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs (IDCA), for works in art, film, history, and culture. The funding comes through programs overseen by the department’s divisions: the Iowa Arts Council, the State Historical Society of Iowa and Produce […]
