Do you have a family member or ancestor who was a musician? Are you curious to learn more about their involvement in Quad Cities bands or ensembles? Special Collections intern Harrison Phillis will give a presentation featuring a brief history of music in the Quad Cities area as well as the available resources related to local music history and how to utilize them effectively. Beyond Bix: Researching Local Musicians in the Quad Cities Monday, June 26, 2023 6:30pm – 7:30pm The Library | Main – Meeting Room B (Large) https://davenportlibrary.libcal.com/event/10095316  Read More

The Bix Beiderbecke Jazz Festival opens today, running through Sunday at the Rhythm City Casino in Davenport, and, let’s be honest, it’s got an air of stodgy nostalgia to it. The Bix Fest was once a much bigger deal, an outdoor and indoor festival at a number of different venues, featuring bands from all over the world. Now it’s confined to a smaller space, in a smaller venue, one which has a built-in audience of people coming there for gambling and other attractions. If ’80s and ’90s Bix Fest was when it was celebrating its heyday, this is, well, it’s not quite... Read More

Today, on the 90th anniversary of the passing of jazz legend and Davenport native Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931), Josh Duffee of Davenport changed his Facebook profile picture to a black-and-white photo of a 24-year-old Bix, from 1927. A passionate jazz drummer, teacher and bandleader, Duffee and his Graystone Monarchs (10-piece all-star band) will be performing a “Tribute to Bix Beiderbecke” tonight at the Bix Jazz Festival at the Rhythm City Casino Events Center, 7077 Elmore Ave., Davenport, where the festival is currently taking place. This is the 50th anniversary for the jazz festival,... Read More

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! Liz Beiderbecke-Hart lives 139 miles from Davenport (outside Springfield, Ill.), but makes the pilgrimage back every year in honor of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival and her famous family. “Bix is a part of my soul, he’s a part of who I am,” she said recently, in advance of the 50th anniversary of the fest, Aug. 5-7 at Davenport’s Rhythm City Casino Event... Read More

BREAKING NEWS: The 50th anniversary of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, Aug. 5-7, will be live-streamed for the first time. There will be five 5-hour concerts over those three days – at Davenport’s Rhythm City Casino Event Center — and you can pay for one ($20 each) or all five through Eventbrite. This link (also on the Society’s website), https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bix-beiderbecke-50th-jazz-festival-tickets-164015884927, will easily walk you through the process. This year, there will be eight professional bands plus the Bix Youth Band performing. The festival venue will... Read More

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! Over 20 years ago, Josh Duffee had an inspired idea – form a big band and play the music made famous by the jazz drummer who launched the career of a world-famous Moline drummer. Then a 21-year-old Moline High graduate, Duffee intimately knew his way around a drum kit and worshipped both Gene Krupa (1909-1973) and Louie Bellson (1924-2009) – the latter a Moline alum who... Read More

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. The saxophone was donated to the museum last year by Don Murray’s great-nephew, Justice Tom Harris Jr., and the tuxedo and trunk will be on permanent loan from Bix’s great-nephew, Chris Beiderbecke. Funding for this project will... Read More

For the first time in 11 years, the Dixieland jazz of the 1920s will be part of Bix 7 race weekend, with a new music festival – The Heights of the Era, all day Saturday, July 24, in Davenport. “We really miss Bix Beiderbecke music being part of Bix weekend,” event organizer Michelle Solis Russell, partner in Russell Group (the Davenport-based construction and development firm), said Wednesday. A longtime runner in the annual seven-mile road race (canceled in 2020 due to Covid), she said the event heyday was back in the ‘80s and “the Bix was very much a music fest with those two things... Read More

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 of disrepair year after year, and now he’s taking action to preserve it. Duffee posted on his Facebook page today, “I made a call to the City of Davenport yesterday on Bix’s birthday after I was home from visiting the house and grave... Read More

Congratulations to local musician Josh Duffee, who very deservedly won the Bix Lives Award this weekend! Josh has long been a huge supporter of the Bix fest and Beiderbecke’s legacy, as well as an accomplished jazz musician in his own right. Josh posted news of the win on his facebook, where he said: I am very honored to have received the Bix Lives Award this past Saturday, January 16th, at the RME. A congratulations is also in order for Carol Schaefer, the other recipient of the award. I can’t believe it has been 20 years since I started my musical journey with my orchestra... Read More