Bix Documentary

[Brad]

If you want to see a newly restored doc about Bix for free, see this article in JazzWax. However, you only have until tomorrow  

Documentary: Bix Beiderbecke

Here’s an interview by Marc Myers with the filmmaker, Brigitte Berman.

Brigitte Berman on Bix Beiderbecke

[Dub Modal]

Thanks for the link. Watching now. Cool watching the re-enactment of Bix woodshedding next to the record player 

[EKE BBB]

Thanks! 

This evening will be full of Bix sounds.

[Brad]

3 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

Thanks for the link. Watching now. Cool watching the re-enactment of Bix woodshedding next to the record player 

 

1 minute ago, EKE BBB said:

Thanks! 

This evening will be full of Bix sounds.

[medjuck]

Does the revised film include the Bix footage that was found after she originally released the film? 

[Shrdlu]

Thanks for letting us know about this, Brad.

I watched it. I have known some things about Bix since the early 1960s, when I was given a copy of Orrin Keepnews's "Pictorial History Of Jazz" and later got to talk briefly with Eddie Condon about Bix. This documentary gives many more details and includes far more than the two or three photos that are always shown.

What a depressing life the man had, touring around so much to ugly cities and playing that two-beat music to dancers. That destroyed him. There is nothing to envy. Playing a 16-measure solo in some tunes in Paul Whiteman's bloated orchestra is not my idea of enjoyment. If only Bix had lived in, say, the 1950s, when jazz was much better developed, with lots of solo room, good material to play, and excellent sound engineering. With his talent, he would really have flourished, and might have lived a long life.

Quite disturbing to watch.

[JSngry]

7 minutes ago, Shrdlu said:

 If only Bix had lived in, say, the 1950s, when jazz was much better developed, with lots of solo room, good material to play, and excellent sound engineering. With his talent, he would really have flourished, and might have lived a long life.

But there would not be all the Bix-derived music for him to work with, so how would he invent himself when he hadn't existed yet?

[Larry Kart]

"But there would not be all the Bix-derived music for him to work with, so how would he invent himself when he hadn't existed yet?"

You're receiving messages from outer space now, Jim? 

[JSngry]

Of course!

But seriously...I LOL about stuff like this, like, ok, "if only" Bix would have been Chet Baker, who would Chet Baker have been? Maybe they would have been roommates and gone to church together! 

It's a silly preposition, that "if only" a person's birthdate would have been different that everything about their life would have remined otherwise the same and they would have been exactly who they were EXCEPT for _____ (insert desired outcome here).

I mean, c'mon, that's some cartoon shit. Talk about a message from outer space...Bix was Bix precisely because of he he was, where he was, when he was. So he had a tragic life? BFD. The world is full of tragic lives who don't make ANY kind of music. And plenty of happy people make plenty of shit music.

No, if Bix had lived in the 1950s, he'd have lived in the 1950s instead of when he did, that's about all you can say with any certainty. And in order for him to have still been "Bix Beiderbecke", he'd have had to lived when he really did, did what he already did, and still lived through it all.

That ain't what happened, in outer space or anywhere else.

[medjuck]

I saw this film in (I think) 1981 when it was at the now defunct Filmex film festival. IIRC at one point Bill Challis says he knows an unrecorded Box piano piece and asks the interviewer if she wants him to play it. At which point the audience of the film began shouting out "Yes, play it!"

When she made the film the only known extant film of Bix was a brief, silent  shot that  (IIRC) she slowed down and used a couple of times.  After her film came out a sound newsreel was found of the Whitman band in which Bix stands up and takes a solo.  IIRC there are 2 takes or 2 angles of it.  I always thought it was a shame it wasn't found in time to be included in the film so I'm curious as to whether she's now incorporated it. I'll try to watch it before the password expires tomorrow. 

[medjuck]

OK After 40 years I misremembered: it wasn't Bill Challis who remembered "Cloudy"-- it was band leader Charlie Davis.  And she only uses the shot of Bix running once-- at the beginning of the film.  This is a restoration and doesn't add any footage to the original. 

The music track consists chiefly of Bis solos which is  a treat.