March 11th, 2021
Quad-Cities Musician Josh Duffee Fighting To Save Bix Beiderbecke’s Fading Home
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.
Josh Duffee was a winner of the Bix Award for helping to keep the musician’s legacy alive.
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 site. I had finally had enough of seeing Bix’s home falling apart without anything being done to fix it or repair the issues going on inside and outside.
“I saw the comments being made on my post yesterday , but didn’t want to comment until I heard from an elected official. The deterioration of Bix’s home has been on my mind for many years.
Josh Duffee, longtime music director for the Bix fest, playing the drums.
This morning I received a phone call from Mayor Mike Matson, asking me about my concerns. He wants to be sure nothing happens to the house where it has to be torn down, so he is in the process of contacting other elected officials and city inspectors to see what can be done to save the house.
“These repair costs should fall on the Avati Brothers since they are the homeowners, but if they can’t pay for what needs to be repaired, they need to sell the house so the repairs can be made.
I’ll keep everyone posted what I hear from the City of Davenport once Mayor Matson reports back to me. If you would like to drop an email showing your concerns to the Mayor about Bix’s home, every little bit will help. His email is Mike.Matson@davenportiowa.com. The email support from all over the world for the repairs will show the support for Bix!”
We’ll be talking to Duffee on our podcast QCUncut soon about his efforts and how we can all work together to keep the Bix home and legacy alive and well in the Quad-Cities!
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