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[This piece is ideally read with this video playing in the background]
Bix Beiderbecke was a hard-drinking, introspective boy from Davenport, Iowa and he blew his cornet with the sweetest tone this side of the heavenly choir. In return for drinking himself to death at age twenty-eight, we jazz lovers speak of Bix with a wistful reverence reserved for saints and martyrs.
Not that it is undeserved – no less an authority than Pops himself, Louis Armstrong, had this to say about his Caucasian counterpart: “the first time I heard Bix, I said these words to myself: there’s a man as serious about his music as I am…” And the private jam sessions in which Louis and Bix crossed horns are as legendary as any lost recording opportunity in jazz history.
The enigma and legend of Bix is further enhanced by his forays into modern classical piano works. Compositions such as “In A Mist
