Growing up in Davenport, Iowa, Brendan Wolfe could not help but be familiar with the name Bix Beiderbecke. He was aware of this Davenport native and Jazz Age musician, but admits he didn’t know much about the man’s music. What really got his attention was when he wrote a story about the reissuing of a book about Bix’s life and received a scathing letter from Bix’s nephew pointing out numerous errors in the story. “That, in essence, set me on the trail to figure out what the right facts about Bix are, and why he is someone that people would get angry about.”
The legend of Bix Beiderbecke has become a romantic tale for the ages as the story of his life has been colored by countless retellings by advocates (Bixophiles), scholars, writers, critics, and ordinary jazz fans over the years. A reviewer in 2003 called Bix “the Kurt Cobain of the 1920s; a tortured musical genius who in a short and sadly besotted bohemian life seemed to encapsulate something essential about his time. If he didn’t exist, it would have been necessary to invent him.”
Bix’s drinking buddy, guitarist Eddie Condon described the sound of Bix’s cornet “like a girl saying yes” and went on to say, “Bix was never actually a person, he was a living legend. Without effort, he personified jazz.” Louis Armstrong said, “The first time I heard Bix, I said ‘This man is as serious about his m
