2025 Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival at the Rhythm City Casino Resort -- July 31 through August 2. (image by Bruce Walters)
Thursday, July 31, through Saturday, August 2
Rhythm City Casino Resort, 7077 Elmore Avenue, Davenport IA
An eagerly awaited weekend of live performances returning to the Quad Cities for the 54th time, the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival will, from July 31 through August 2, again enjoy residency at the Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center. For 2025, the Davenport venue will host performances by eight local and national jazz acts – the Graystone Monarchs, the Chicago Cellar Boys, Mike Davis’ New Wonders, the Bix Youth Band, El Dorado Jazz Band, Jazz-O-Maniacs, the Mortonia Seven, and Miss Jubilee – while additional area venues host Bix-related concert events of their own.
As is widely known, the festival was named after jazz cornet player and local legend Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke, who was born on March 10, 1903, and lived at 1934 Grand Avenue in Davenport. His father was manager of the East Davenport Lumber and Coal Company, while his mother was a musician who played piano and the organist for the First Presbyterian Church. Bix attended Davenport High School in 1918 until 1920, and the following September, he was enrolled in Lake Forest Academy, though he was eventually expelled.
As a musician, Bix's first gig was in 1921 at Hayne's Dancing School under his own name, The Beiderbecke Five. After leaving Lake Forest, he played with several bands around Chicago and Davenport, joining the Wolverine Orchestra in 1924. When he was only 24, Bix was making more than $200 a week – quite a princely sum in the 1920s. In October of 1924, Bix left The Wolverines and joined The Jean Goldkette Orchestra, and after returning to Davenport and briefly attending the University of Iowa in 1925, he began to play with jazz great Jean Goldkette. In October of 1927, Bix joined Paul Whiteman. bandleader for the Whiteman Orchestra – the group had its own train, was on national radio, and played every major concert hall in the United States, including Carnegie Hall, where Bix played his own composition "In A Mist." Bix continued to collaborate with Whiteman until September of 1929.
According to his peers and music historians, Biz was a true jazz pioneer, having written the compositions "In a Mist," "Candlelights," "In the Dark," and "Flashes," as well as his hometown salute "Davenport Blues." The gifted artist, however, eventually became dependent on alcohol, a disease which contributed to lobar pneumonia, and he died on August 6, 1931, at the age of 28, in his apartment in Queens, New York. Bix's body was returned to Davenport, where he was buried at Oakdale Cemetery.
In addition to the Rhythm City events in the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, a number of concerts will take place at other area locations in tandem with the fest: a pre-weekend July 30 set with the Bix AllStars at Knoxville Tap (8716 Knoxville Road, Milan IL) at 6 p.m.; Colin Hancock's Jazzologists at the Putnam Museum & Science Center (1717 West 12th Street, Davenport IA) on July 31 at 3 p.m.; T.J. Muller's Jazz-O-Maniacs at the Celebration Belle (2501 River Drive, Davenport IA) on August 1 at 11 a.m.; and Mortonia Seven at Oakdale Memorial Gardens (2501 Eastern Avenue, Davenport IA), playing the annual graveite concert on August 2 at 10 a.m.
For more information on all of the concert events scheduled for the July 31 through August 2 2025 Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Jazz Festival, visit BixSociety.org.
