Bix Beiderbecke
The Bix Beiderbecke Story Bix And His Gang

THE REVIEW

Paris, April 15, 1927.

I am watching the rain fall gently on the boulevards, turning the Montparnasse streetlights into golden stains reflected on the asphalt. In the smoky cafés of the city, every language in the world is spoken: Russian, Spanish, l'italiano and l'inglese. Starving painters, but rich in ambition and hopes, share tables with elegant and already famous poets; there are also American jazz musicians playing until dawn in exchange for a glass of absinthe and a few francs.

The center of this world of artists is "Le Minotaure Bleu", a venue hidden between Rue de la Gaîté and Boulevard Raspail. By day, it looks like any ordinary bistro, but at night it comes alive, becoming the secret and beating heart of the city.

Tonight, Duke Ellington and Count Basie, just arrived from New York, are sitting at the piano with their shirt sleeves rolled up and held by garters, improvising velvety chords while Louis Armstrong, leaning against the bar, is carefully polishing his Selmer Balanced Action with a distracted look.

«Paris never sleeps,» I hear Armstrong mutter to himself.

«No,» answers Duke without stopping playing, «here you can still dream with your eyes wide open.»

Near the window at the back of the venue, I see Ernest Hemingway writing notes in a wine-stained notebook. From time to time he looks up at the other customers, like a silent hunter searching for his prey in this bohémien jungle.

Next to him, Man Ray is finishing setting up his Voigtlander Bessa 6x9 on the tripod.

Man says, «Ernest, don't move. You have the perfect face of someone who just lost something.»

«I've just lost five francs at poker and my patience with my editors,» Hemingway shoots back.

«Perfect then,» replies Man Ray.

The flash lights up the room.

From the entrance comes a clear laugh. Kiki de Montparnasse appears wrapped in an emerald green coat, followed by Tamara de Lempicka, draped in her elegant dress and wearing black gloves up to her elbows, advancing with eyes cold as polished glass.

«Kiki, Tamara!» shouts Armstrong. «Finally, someone with enough style to save all the people in this room.»

«Louis, dear,» the two women respond in unison, «this room doesn't want to be saved.»

Behind them enters Salvador Dalí, gripping his walking stick with the solid gold handle and his pointed moustache aimed at the sky, almost like two question marks pointed at the Great Architect.

«I just saw a white horse enter Notre-Dame,» he announces solemnly.

Hemingway slowly raises his eyes from his notes and sighs, «Was it real or surrealist?»

«In Paris, it’s the same thing,» says Dalí without flinching.

In the darkest corner of the room, I glimpse Pablo Picasso drawing his bizarre mademoiselles on a napkin under the disapproving gaze of a waiter. Seated next to him is Amedeo Modigliani, as usual pale and elegant, with feverish eyes and an almost empty bottle of wine.

«You paint people like they are fragments of a mirror,» Modigliani tells him.

«And you paint them like they're lovesick ghosts,» replies Picasso.

«Because they are,» Modigliani retorts, convinced.

Picasso laughs quietly as he nods.

Finally, the main guest of the evening arrives: Bix Beiderbecke. He wears his Kreissäge at an angle and has the melancholy air of someone who knows he has little time left to play his music; then, only the great silence remains. When he takes his silver Conn Victor from its case, a respectful and immediate silence falls over the venue.

Duke and Count at the piano start a slow, swinging four-hand jam with a strong blues feel.

Louis follows them right away, immediately swinging along with his characteristic powerful and syncopated sound.

Then the music changes: it’s Bix’s turn to play. He instantly stands out with the Chicago style. The sound from his cornet is round, pure, and soft, with a relaxed vibrato, in sharp contrast to Armstrong’s “aggressive” sound. The balance between spontaneity and melodic structure is extraordinary. His harmony is deeply influenced by European impressionist classical music, particularly Claude Debussy.

He introduces some of the songs he's taking on tour at this time, such as: “Somebody Stole My Gal,” “Royal Garden Blues,” and “Since My Best Gal Turned Me Down.” The more lighthearted pieces he plays are joined by trombonist Bill Rank, Don Murray and Izzy Friedman on clarinet, Adrian Rollini and Min Leibrook on bass sax, Frank Signorelli and Lennie Hayton on piano, banjo player Howdy Quicksell, and Chauncey Morehouse and Harry Gale on drums.

The notes of these pieces seem to rise like mist over the Mississippi, inadvertently slipping into the alleys of Paris. Even the waiters stop, entranced, to listen.

Even Dalí falls silent and listens intently.

Near the door, almost invisible in the bluish whirls of smoke, Guillaume Apollinaire watched everyone with an enigmatic smile. Some swear he died almost 10 years earlier; others insist that in Paris poets never really die.

So much so that Kiki offers him a glass of Morey Saint - Denis.

«You’re late as usual.»

«Ghosts have no schedule,» he replies.

At that very moment Man Ray bursts out that he has a brilliant idea.

«Everyone, come with me. Tonight we’re making an impossible photograph.»

We all go up to the roof of the venue. The rain gave way to a clear sky, and the city shines all the way to Montmartre. The Sacré-Cœur seems to float above the mist that has instead invaded the streets. Tamara poses like a steel queen. Dalí points his cane at the moon. Picasso smokes while staring into space. Modigliani, surely thinking of his Jeanne who has just told him she is expecting his child, smiles dreamily. Kiki, instead, laughs out loud for no apparent reason. Hemingway lights his pipe and then slips his hands into his pockets. Armstrong and Bix as usual begin to argue animatedly about which chords to put in the piece. Duke watched everyone with serene calm, as only a great conductor knows how. Apollinaire—no matter how hard we try—remains always blurry, almost transparent. I wonder why.

«Hold it right there!» shouts Man Ray unexpectedly. I tell him I'll take the photo this time. He too runs over to pose with the others.

The magnesium flash explodes into the night, lighting it up like day.

For a moment, all of Paris seems to hold its breath.

Many years have passed since that evening, but it is still said that photograph really exists. Some collectors swear they've seen it: an image full of light and shadow, of genius and melancholy.

But there’s definitely something strange about this picture.

To be precise, in the original negative: Guillaume Apollinaire does not appear.

Everyone else is there, looking toward an empty spot on the roof, as if at that place, someone had truly been with us.