Manó Kaminer
Young Man with a Horn

ehm, brief premise:

Leon Bix Beiderbecke left us (some say due to pneumonia and others due to too much alcohol ehm, probably the latter…) at only 28 years old and was one of the greatest trumpeters of the ’20s, from what was defined as “White Jazz”.

Bix (he was of German origin and many mistakenly believed that his second name was a diminutive of Bismark and well…) immediately proved to be a “child prodigy” as he learned to play piano at just 3 years old, in return (ehm, so to speak…) he did terribly at school, and despite his parents enrolling him in a very “exclusive” college in Illinois, he proved to be quite poor in his studies, being interested only in two subjects: sports & music.

Bix was used to frequenting the various clubs of nearby Chicago at night where jazz and alcohol flowed like full rivers, then returning late to college quite drunk and remaining more than sleepy during lessons, so he gave up everything even on the advice of his professors and finally started his short but intense musical career as an improvising cornetist.

His mentors were the cornetists Dominic James La Rocca known as “Nick”, Joe Oliver known as “King”, Freddie Keppard, Emmett Louis Hardy, the clarinetist Leon Joseph Roppolo (of evident Italian origin) and the unforgettable Louis Daniel Armstrong known as “Satchmo”, who (benevolently impressed) said after hearing him: «I never heard anyone play like Him», surely he also learned from the classics like Joseph Maurice Ravel & Claude-Achille Debussy of whom he was a passionate admirer.

Why all this preamble, you may ask?

Simple, because I learned today that just recently passed away, at the venerable age of 103 years yes yes exactly one hundred and three, that great actor of Jewish origin named Issur Danielovitch (r.i.p.), and who the hell could that be you might ask, well, he grew up with the name Izzy Demsky before enlisting in the Navy, and who the hell is “Izzy Demsky” you might ask again (annoyingly) rightly, okay, I will reveal it to you immediately, it was Kirk Douglas, who legally changed his name before donning the military uniform, but that's another story linked also to his endless artistic career, a career that led him to play Rick Martin in ’50 together with his classmate Betty Joan Perske also known as the very beautiful Lauren Bacall, in this noir/drama/musical film “Young Man with a Horn” based on a novel inspired by the life of Bix Beiderbecke ehm, and here the circle closes as I seem to have spotted the boss approaching and I must immediately dive into the mountain of paperwork spilling over from the desk, okay see you…

P.S. yes, I know, it's not a real review (due to the approach of the enemy in the guise of henchman/christian-killer/boss) but a mix between a semi-biography of Bix and a quasi-obituary of Kirk, just so you know and well…