Bix In Fiction
Bix In Fiction A list of fictional books
where
Bix Beiderbecke is mentioned.
The Ghost of Bix Beiderbecke. (In progress)
Fat Bennie is the protagonist of a series of hard boiled detective fiction books by Benjamin Rayder. So far, two books have been published, "Fat Bennie vs The Scrap King of Chicago" and "Fat Bennie Goes to France or The Mystery of the Amber Room." These titles are available together in one book, "The Adventures of Fat Bennie O'Day... Surfing P.I" for $10.00, plus $2.50 for shipping and handling from the Fat Bennie website.
Currently, Rayder is writing another Fat Bennie mystery, "The Ghost of Bix Beiderbecke." The description of the book reads, "Bennie needs the help of a long dead jazzman to solve this case and recover a missing saxophone, for its mysterious owner." The first chapter is available at http://www.fatbennie.net/bix01.pdf The chapter begins with the quote“I’d go to hell to hear a good band.”-Bix Beiderbecke.
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"The Night I Saw Bix Beiderbecke Playing on the Corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd" by Ron Goulart.
"Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine" was edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch in Eugene, Oregon. The Fall 1988 issue, entitled "Horror" contains short stories, essays and articles. One of the short stories is "The Night I Saw Bix Beiderbecke Playing on the Corner of Fifth Avenue and 53rd" by Ron Goulart.
Some information about Ms. Rusch can be found at http://www.greenmanreview.com/rusch.html
I quote:
"Few people have had as diverse an impact on science fiction and fantasy as Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Winner of the John W. Campbell Award in 1990 for best new writer, Rusch made her mark with powerfully emotional short stories. In 1989 she shared a World Fantasy Award with her husband and collaborator, Dean Wesley Smith, for their work on Pulphouse: A Hardback Magazine. From 1991-1997 she edited The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, for which she won the Hugo Award for best editor in 1994."The short story deals with black magic, sorcerers, demons and runes (I had to look it up; letters of the earliest Germanic alphabet used by Scandinavians and Anglo-Saxons from about the 3rd century), and holes in the fabric of time. According to the story, a sorcerer can write a number of runes on a piece of parchment and slip it to his intended victim. If the individual has the piece of parchment in his possession by a given time, a demon will home in and destroy him. The only way he can save himself is by passing the parchment to someone else. The story relates how this fellow is first given the parchment and then passes it on before the deadline. As he returns home, the text reads:
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When I was approaching 51st Street, I began hearing music from a couple of blocks ahead. The tune was "Singing the Blues". The fellow on cornet had a round plump face, slicked hair and a small mustache. He wore a wrinkled tuxedo and was paying attention to nothing but his music. Seated in a camp chair was a lean blond man playing a banjo. His case was open on the damp sidewalk, a scatter of small coins and a single dollar bill resting on the faded purplish plush. The drummer was tall and thin, playing a single snare while standing in a hunch.
I recognized the horn player while I was still several yards from him. It was Bix Beiderbecke, the legendary jazz musician who'd died back in the early 1930's sometime. I'd seen his picture in histories, heard his records.
I was tempted to stop and listen, but I didn't. It seem wiser tot keep moving.
One of them called something after me. I don't know, though, what he said. [End of story]
**************Evidently, Mr. Goulart knows quite a bit about Bix: his total concentration in music, his disregard for personal grooming, his most important recording, and the fact that in his latter years he had a mustache. How many jazz fans, let alone normal people, would know all of these things?
"Rend mig i traditionerna" by Leif Panduro (tranlated as "Kick Me in the Traditions," Eriksson-Taplinger, New York, 1961)
Fredrik Termesden writes on May 28, 2002, "This weekend I just read "Skit i traditionerna" (Danish title "Rend mig i traditionerna" ? To hell with traditions), a Danish novel from 1958 by Leif Panduro which at least in Scandinavia I think has something of a "cult" status.
The story is about David, an 18 year-old rich boy in a boarding school who suddenly goes
mad and is sent by his rather bizarre family to a private psychiatrical institution. His own
description of the therapy he undergoes there is mixed with earlier memories, especially
from his schooldays.Suddenly in the middle of a description of a home-coming party at the school I found the
following passage (the translation is my own with all the errors that mighht lead to):"On the way out we met old Jacob [one of the teachers]. He stood with Hubert [David's
roommate] trying to understand jazz music. They played one of my records in there: "Sorry"
with Bix Beiderbeck [sic!], which by the way is a fantastic record. And Hubert stood clapping
his hands on two and four and said that that's the real rhythm of jazz. Old Jacob said that
according to his tastes it sounded quite incomprehensible, but that he might learn to
understand it if he tried really hard. Isn't that cute?Lis [the girl whom both David and Hubert are interested in] and I passed them and I tell
you Hubert looked crestfallen. He got so confused he started clapping on one and three
instead of the right ones. And old Jacob suddenly looked happy and said that now he
understood it at last. So help me God!"On May 29, Fredrik added, "My compatriot Anders Gustafsson has informed me that there is a "real" English translation of the entire book available in the USA. It is called "Kick me in the traditions" and was published c. 1961 by Eriksson-Taplinger in New York.
Besides the quoted passage where Bix is mentioned the entire book is very amusing, so I
warmly recommend it!"(A hard-cover edition of the book was reissued in 1985 by Paul S. Eriksson; a Signet softcover edition was published in 1962)
"Rayuela" by Julio Cortazar (translated as Hopscotch, Random House, New York, 1966)
This book was originally published in Argentina in 1963. Cortazar was an Argentine writer whose work includes poetry, novels and many short stories. Born in Brussels in 1914, he spent his childhood and youth in Buenos Aires, working as a teacher. His first poems were published in 1938; in 1951 Cortazar left for Paris, where he resided until his death in 1984.
The author informs the reader at the beginning of the novel that it can be read in at least two ways. If the reader chooses to begin at the beginning and read it as a "traditional" novel, he/she will reach "The End" somewhere towards the middle of the book (chapter 56). The author states explicitely that the reader could ignore the subsequent chapters "with a clean conscience. In the "hopscotch" way of reading the book, the reader begins in the middle, and then progresses in a non-linear fashion throughout the book, flipping pages to follow the chapter order, 73, 1, 2, 11, 6, 3, 84, etc. In many ways, this novel is a hard-copy predecessor of hyperlinks. The book description from the publishers reads, "Horacio Oliveira is an Argentinian writer who lives in Paris with his mistress, La Maga, surrounded by a loose-knit circle of bohemian friends who call themselves "the Club." A child's death and La Maga's disappearance put an end to his life of empty pleasures and intellectual acrobatics, and prompt Oliveira to return to Buenos Aires, where he works by turns as a salesman, a keeper of a circus cat which can truly count, and an attendant in an insane asylum. Hopscotch is the dazzling, free-wheeling account of Oliveira's astonishing adventures. The book is filled with references and commentaries about several jazz musicians. For an except with a reference to Jelly Roll Morton click here.
I transcribe below a section dealing with Bix.
*************
The scene takes place in an appartment in the Latin Quarter in Paris.
"Protected by the window was that mossy parellelepiped, smelling of vodka and candles, damp clothing and left-over food, which was a kind of studio for Babs the ceramicist and Ronald the musician, the seat of the Club, wicker chairs, stained pillows, bits of pencil and wire on the floor, a stuffed owl with half his head gone, a poorly played and corny tune on an old record with the deep needle-scratch, an incessant scratch rasp scrape, a terrible saxophone that one night in 1928 or 29 had played as if he were afraid of getting lost, backed up by school girl drums, a mediocre piano. But then an incisive guitar came on which seemed to signal a transition to something else and suddenly (Ronald had alerted them by holding up his finger) a cornet broke loose from the rest of the group and blew the first notes of the melody, landing on them as on a diving board. Bix took off with everything he had, and the clear sketch was inscribed on the silence as if it had been scratched there. Two corpses sparred fraternally, clinching and breaking, Bix and Eddie Lang (whose real name was Salvatore Massaro) played catch with "I'm Coming Virrginia", and I wondered where Bix is buried, thought Oliveira, and Eddie Lang, how many miles apart are their two nothings tha one future night in Paris were to fight, guitar against cornet, gin against bad luck, jazz. "
"I like it here. It is warm, it is dark."
"That Bix is a crazy son of a bitch. Put on "Jazz Me Blues."
"The influence of technique on art," said Ronald, diggging his hands into a pile of records, looking casually at the labels. "Before LP's came out those guys had less than three minutes to play in. Nowadays a wild man like Stan Getz can come along in front of the mike ant turn himself loose, blow anything he wants to. Poor Bix had to be satisfied with one chorus and as soon as he got warmed up, snap, it was all over. They must have got sore as hell when they cut records."
********************
Mr. Cortazar played trumpet and was clearly a fan of Bix's (and of Eddie Lang), but he got the date of "I'm Coming Virginia" wrong (it was recorded in 1927). Moreover, Mr. Cortazar seems to have contempt for the musical abilities of Frank Trumbauer, Irving Riskin and Chauncey Morehouse. In this, he shows poor musical taste.Appointment in Samarra, by John O'Hara.
Appointment in Samarra tells a story of class and social restraints in Gibbsville, PA (a town quite obviously based on Pottsville) during the 1920's.
There is no direct mention of Bix, but his presence is implied as can be seen from the following paragraph.
"'I think, if you don't mind, I think we shall play a little tune,' he said aloud. He played Paul Whiteman's record of Stairway to Paradise, and when the record came to the 'patter' he was screaming with jazz. The phonograph stopped itself but he was up and changing it to a much later record, Jean Goldkette's band playing Sunny Disposish."
"Hush-A-Bye" is also mentioned.
Butterfield Eight, by John O'Hara.
This novel was made into a movie starring Elizabeth Taylor. The title of the novel is a telephone exchange.
The following excerpt reads, with some exceptions, like a "who's who" in jazz.
"So the three friends would have their jam sessions, and some nights when they did not play, they would sit and talk. The names they would talk: Bix Beiderbeck [sic], Frankie Trumbauer, Miff Mole, Steve Brown, Bob McDonough [Dick?], Henry Busse, Mike Pingatore, Ross Gorman and Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong and Arthur Shutt [sic], Roy Bargy and Eddie Gilligan [?], Harry McDonald [Howard?] and Eddie Lang and Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and Fletcher Henderson, Rudy Wiedhoft [sic] and Isham Jones, Rube Bloom and Hoagy Carmichael, Sonny Greer [?] and Fats Waller, Husk O'Hare and Duilio Sherbo [?], and other names like Mannie Kline [sic] and Louis Prima, Jenney [Bob? Jack?] and Morehouse [Chauncey], Venuti [Joe], Signorelli [Frank] and Cress [sic, Carl?]], Pee Wee Russell and Larry Binion and some were for this one and some for that one, and all the names meant something as big as Wallenstein and Flonzaley and Ganz do to some people."
<>John O'Hara must have been a Jean Goldkette fan: nine of the names were with the Goldkette band at one time or another.
The Galton Case by Ross MacDonald. (uploaded Sep 6, 2004)
This is one MacDonald's detective stories that takes place in California. The novel was written in 1959, but, at one point, the action takes the reader back to 1936. Here is the excerpt of interest.
<>"I was flipping through the smudged pages of Chisel, the little magazine that Casey Hildreth had given me. Somebody named Chad Bolling was listed on the masthead as editor and publisher. He also had a poem in the magazine, "Elegy On The Death of Bix Beiderbecke,." It said that the inconsolable cornet would pipe Eurydece out of Box Pluto's smoked filled basement."
The last sentence does not make any sense to me. Can anyone explain?
"Through his music, Bix is alive."
Brief Table of Contents
Recordings
The Original 78's
Analysis of Some Recordings: Is It Bix or Not ?
Complete Compilations of Bix's Recordings
Tributes to Bix
Miscellaneous Recordings Related to Bix
In A Mist
Label Credits on Original Parlophone Issues of Bix's Recordings
Chronological listing of Bix's recording sessionsFor comments or questions contact ahaim@bixography.com