Red Nichols on Bix in Down Beat
Here is a complete transcript of an article that appeared in the August 1937 issue of Down Beat.
“Musicians Killed Bix Beiderbecke!”
“Bix Died Of A Broken Heart, Says Famous Leader of Five Pennies”
by Carl Cons
Between sets at the College Inn, Chicago, Ill. Sober as a grim-passed judge on election day, carrot-topped, world-famous Red Nichols fortified himself behind a glass of beer. He didn’t touch it. But six cigarette butts and two dance sets later he exploded.
Gin and weed? Hell! They didn’t kill him. MUSICIANS KILLED BIX BEIDERBECKE!
Some of those same musicians living today know what I mean. Bix died of a broken heart. And it was broken by the professional jealousy of musicians who couldn’t stand to be outplayed by him so easily.
Bix was a wonderful and sensitive musician and wanted to be friends with every one. He could do more on one note than any group of 100 cornet players and you can put me at the last.
After he died and jealous musicians had nothing to fear, they began to realize what a great artist he was.
Yes, Bix was appreciated after he was dead. But when he needed a lift, they wouldn’t give it. Many a night they got him drunk and if he slipped or didn’t play up to his best, they would pan the hell out of him.
Red shrugged his shoulders resignedly. He has a sense of sportsmanship and a keen admiration for the great Beiderbecke:It’s a dirty shame, isn’t it?
He went on:
That a man’s own kind can be so bitter toward him? The very guys that should have been the first to appreciate his talents were the ones who were more eager to discredit him.
Nichols, who plays in the Bix tradition and who has recorded some of the most polished classics of jazz with his famous Five Pennies, has been the unhappy recipient of much severe and unintelligent criticism by the “great unwashed” or the “not-dry-behind-the-ears” tribe of critics that swarm over the country today mouthing authoritative nonsense about everything.
HARDENED BY CRITICISM
Their unknowing “bull-in-the-china-shop” remarks have had their effect and though they come from outsiders, they have unwittingly handicapped another great musician. Red is hardened by a life full of criticism but it has made him, nevertheless, reticent and word-shy.
The man is one of the few remaining great musicians of the so-called “golden era” of swing, and it is a damn dirty shame if the same blind jealousy of fellow musicians and the inane remarks of trigger-mouth critics should parallel Bix’s tragedy by making Red so self-conscious and discouraged as to affect and spoil his own artistry and inspiration for playing.”
Two different issues are brought up in this article:
- First, Bix’s fellow musicians pushed or facilitated his drinking in excess and, according to Nichols, did it from jealousy;
- The second is a retaliation on the part of Nichols to criticism by jazz writers. I understand the second issue.
Nichols has been -unfairly in my opinion- one of the most maligned musicians in jazz. I am not convinced that the first one is accurate. I do believe that some of Bix’s fellow musicians did him no favor by dropping by his hotel room at all hours of the day to drink and have a laugh (in part, perhaps, at Bix’s expense), by keeping him drinking in speakeasies at all hours of day and night.
However, I doubt that this was done out of petty jealousy. I believe -and I freely admit that this is speculative- that these “friends” were rather superficial individuals who viewed daily life as an unending stream of drinking and so-called “having fun”. Some stupid people think that seeing an individual drunk beyond control is funny.