Editing Bix Beiderbecke (section)

=== Goldkette ===
During an engagement at the Cinderella Ballroom in New York during September–October 1924, Bix tendered his resignation with the Wolverines,{{efn-ua|Beiderbecke's replacement in the Wolverines was the 17-year-old Chicagoan [[Jimmy McPartland]], who emulated but generally did not copy Beiderbecke's style. During World War II, McPartland married the English pianist Marian Turner in Germany; [[Marian McPartland]] went on to become a jazz great in her own right.}} leaving to join Jean Goldkette and his Orchestra in Detroit, but Beiderbecke's tenure with the band proved to be short-lived. Goldkette recorded for the [[Victor Talking Machine Company]], whose musical director, Eddie King, objected to Beiderbecke's modernistic style of jazz playing.{{sfn|Sudhalter|Evans|Dean-Myatt|1974|page=188}} Moreover, despite the fact that Beiderbecke's position within the Goldkette band was "third trumpet", a less taxing role than 1st or 2nd trumpet, he struggled with the complex ensemble passages due to his limited reading abilities. After a few weeks, Beiderbecke and Goldkette agreed to part company, but to keep in touch, with Goldkette advising Beiderbecke to brush up on his reading and learn more about music.{{sfn|Sudhalter|Evans|Dean-Myatt|1974|page=127}} Some six weeks after leaving the band, Bix arranged a Gennett recording session back in Richmond with some of the Goldkette band members, under the name Bix and His Rhythm Jugglers. On January 26, 1925, they set two tunes to wax: "Toddlin' Blues", another number by LaRocca and Shields, and Beiderbecke's own composition, "[[Davenport Blues]]", which subsequently became a classic jazz number, recorded by musicians ranging from [[Bunny Berigan]] to [[Ry Cooder]] and [[Geoff Muldaur]].{{sfn|Lion|2005|pages=338–339}} An arrangement of "Davenport Blues" as a piano solo was published by Robbins Music in 1927.

In February 1925, Beiderbecke enrolled at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. His stint in academia was even briefer than his time in Detroit, however. When he attempted to pack his course schedule with music, his guidance counselor forced him instead to take religion, ethics, physical education, and military training. It was an institutional blunder that Benny Green described as being, in retrospect, "comical," "fatuous," and "a parody."{{sfn|Green|1991|page=29}} Beiderbecke promptly began to skip classes, and after he participated in a drunken incident in a local bar, he was expelled.{{sfn|Sudhalter|Evans|Dean-Myatt|1974|pages=132–133}} According to Lion, he was not expelled, but quit.{{sfn|Lion|2005|pages=94-95}} That summer he played with his friends Don Murray and [[Howard 'Howdy' Quicksell|Howdy Quicksell]] at a lake resort in Michigan. The band was run by Goldkette, and it put Beiderbecke in touch with another musician he had met before: the [[C melody saxophone|C-melody saxophone]] player [[Frankie Trumbauer]]. The two hit it off, both personally and musically, despite Trumbauer having been warned by other musicians: "Look out, he's trouble. He drinks and you'll have a hard time handling him."<ref>Quotation from Trumbauer's journal; in Lion, p. 101.</ref> They were inseparable for much of the rest of Beiderbecke's career, with Trumbauer acting as something of a guardian to Beiderbecke.<ref>Brooks, p. 32</ref> When Trumbauer organized a band for an extended run at the Arcadia Ballroom in St. Louis, Beiderbecke joined him. There he also played alongside the clarinetist [[Pee Wee Russell]], who praised Beiderbecke's ability to drive the band. "He more or less made you play whether you wanted to or not," Russell said. "If you had any talent at all he made you play better."{{sfn|Lion|2005|page=104}}

In the spring of 1926, Bix and Trumbauer joined Goldkette's main dance band, splitting the year between playing a Summer season at a Goldkette-owned resort on Lake Hudson, Indiana, and headlining at Detroit's [[Graystone Ballroom]], which was also owned by Goldkette. In October 1926, Goldkette's "Famous Fourteen", as they came to be called, opened at the [[Roseland Ballroom]] in New York City opposite the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, one of the East Coast's outstanding African American [[big band]]s. The Roseland promoted a "Battle of the Bands" in the local press and, on October 12, after a night of furious playing, Goldkette's men were declared the winners. "We […] were amazed, angry, morose, and bewildered," Rex Stewart, Fletcher's lead trumpeter, said of listening to Beiderbecke and his colleagues play. He called the experience "most humiliating".{{sfn|Lion|2005|page=126}} On October 15, 1931, a few months after Beiderbecke's death, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra recorded a version of "Singin' the Blues" that included [[Rex Stewart]] performing a nearly note-for-note homage to Beiderbecke's most famous solo.{{sfn|Lion|2005|page=126}}

{{listen
 | type = music
 | pos = left
 | filename = Singin the Blues - Beiderbecke Solo - Sample.ogg
 | title = "Singin' the Blues" (1927)
 | description = Beiderbecke's cornet solo in "Singin' the Blues" recorded on February 4, 1927, in New York.
 | format = [[Ogg]]
}}
Although the Goldkette Orchestra recorded numerous sides for Victor during this period, none of them showcases Beiderbecke's most famous solos. The band found itself subjected to the commercial considerations of the popular music sector that Victor deliberately targeted the band's recordings at. The few exceptions to the policy include "My Pretty Girl" and "Clementine", the latter being one of the band's final recordings and its effective swan song. In addition to these commercial sessions with Goldkette, Beiderbecke and Trumbauer also recorded under their own names for the OKeh label; Bix waxed some of his best solos as a member of Trumbauer's recording band, starting with "Clarinet Marmalade" and "Singin' the Blues", recorded on February 4, 1927. Again with Trumbauer, Beiderbecke re-recorded Carmichael's "Riverboat Shuffle" in May and delivered two further seminal solos a few days later on "I'm Coming, Virginia" and "[[Way Down Yonder in New Orleans]]". Beiderbecke earned co-writing credit with Trumbauer on "[[For No Reason at All in C]]", recorded under the name Tram, Bix and Eddie (in their Three Piece Band). Beiderbecke switched between cornet and piano on that number, and then in September played only piano for his recording of "[[In A Mist]]". This was perhaps the most fruitful year of his short career.{{efn-ua|name=CompDisc|For complete Beiderbecke discographies, see Sudhalter and Evans;{{sfn|Sudhalter|Evans|Dean-Myatt|1974|pages=403–472}} and Lion{{sfn|Lion|2005|pages=308–339}}}}

Under financial pressure, Goldkette folded his premier band in September 1927 in New York.{{efn-ua|Organizations like the one run by Jean Goldkette often operated multiple bands. During the summer of 1926, for instance, Goldkette split his personnel into two bands, with Beiderbecke, Trumbauer, and company playing Hudson Lake. Goldkette also managed the all-African American [[McKinney's Cotton Pickers]], a band that at one time or another featured [[Doc Cheatham]], [[Benny Carter]], [[Don Redman]], [[Rex Stewart]], [[Fats Waller]], and [[James P. Johnson]].}}  [[Paul Whiteman]] hoped to snatch up Goldkette's best musicians for his traveling orchestra, but Beiderbecke, Trumbauer, Murray, [[Bill Rank]], [[Chauncey Morehouse]], and [[Frank Signorelli]] instead joined the bass saxophone player [[Adrian Rollini]] at the Club New Yorker. The band also included guitarist Eddie Lang and violinist Joe Venuti, who had often recorded on a freelance basis with the Goldkette Orchestra. Another newcomer was [[Sylvester Ahola]], a schooled trumpeter who could play improvised jazz solos and read complex scores. When Ahola introduced himself, Beiderbecke famously stated "Hell, I'm only a musical degenerate".{{sfn|Sudhalter|Evans|Dean-Myatt|1974|page=211}} When that job ended sooner than expected, in October 1927, Beiderbecke and Trumbauer signed on with Whiteman. They joined his orchestra in Indianapolis on October 27.{{sfn|Lion|2005|page=154–163}}