Louis states (in answer to a question from Phil Evans in 1954) that he met Bix in Davenport in 1920. Here is part of the statement. "He was a cute little boy. He'd come down to hear the bands, and then go home and practice what he heard. He and I became friends the first time we met..."
This story of Louis and Bix meeting in 1920 seems unbelievable to me, as it does to James Collier. Bix going to the river and listening to the Marable band sounds plausible. But Bix - a white, middle class youngster and Louis becoming friends on the spot sounds like bull to me. Moreover, a white kid and a black youngster walking together the streets of 1920 Davenport and going into a music shop seems pure fiction to me. Louis was a nice guy, but his recollection of facts was poor.
J.J Jones writes, in his review of Bergreen's "Louis Armstrong: An Extravagant Life" (the title of the review is "True Lies"; the review can be found in http://shoga.wwa.com/~jrjones/armstrong.html), "Of greater historical importance is the often-told story of how Armstrong met Bix Beiderbecke in the summer of 1919, when Beiderbecke was a young novice in Iowa and Armstrong was playing on a riverboat docked in Davenport. Collier credits the story to Armstrong and cites a biography of Beiderbecke that repeats it, but scoffs at the notion that a middle-class white boy would fraternize with a black riverboat musician. But quoting Baby Dodds, the riverboat orchestra’s drummer, Bergreen reports that Beiderbecke struck up a friendship with Armstrong, took him into Davenport, and helped him pick out a horn. This early meeting between the two great cornetists of the jazz age sounds apocryphal, but both Armstrong and Dodds said it happened."
Dreams are nice, but reality is not made up of dreams.
Albert
PS Even the story of Bix helping Jimmy McPartland pick or buy two cornets has been viewed with some skepticism by Mike. He finds plausible that Bix would help Jimmy in 1924, when he was a 17-year old getting a professional job with a group that had had enormous success in the Midwest and in the Cinderella ballroom. But the same event happening again in 1927? I agree with Mike. The 1927 story sounds fishy to me.