"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Birthdays Today

Musical birthdays today.... first, my old man's favorite, Bix Beiderbecke, was born today in 1903.   Is he the greatest jazz trumpeter?   Probably not quite... I think you'd have to put him second behind Louis Armstrong.  But Bix, who died too young, represents better than anyone else the Roaring Twenties and the Jazz Age.  



It's also Glenn Miller's birthday, born in 1904.   Miller was perhaps the greatest Big Band leader, and he also died too young, in a plane crash in World War II over the English Channel, flying to France to play for the troops.  Here's Miller playing perhaps his most famous number, Chattanooga Choo Choo:

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