Page "Bix Beiderbecke" Paragraph 50

Bix Beiderbecke and Louis Armstrong were among jazz's first soloists.

In New Orleans, jazz had been ensemble playing, with the various instruments weaving their parts into a single and coherent aural tapestry.

There had been soloists, to be sure, with the clarinetist Sidney Bechet the best known among them, but these players " lacked the technical resources and, even more, the creative depth to make the solo the compelling centerpiece of jazz music.

" That changed in 1924 when Beiderbecke and Armstrong began to make their most important records.

According to the critic Terry Teachout, they are " the two most influential figures in the early history of jazz " and " the twin lines of descent from which most of today's jazz can be traced.