Once Bix joined Whiteman, Mezzrow was rather disappointed.
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Here is what Mezzrow wrote in "Really the Blues",
"What spread the gospel of jazz far and wide across the country, pulling at least one part of our native music free at last from European influences? It was the rebel in us. Our rebel instincts broke music away from what I'd call the handcuff-and-straight jacket discipline of the classical school, so creative artists could get up on the stand and speak out in their own honest and self-inspired language again. There had been a rebel in Bix too -but a pint-sized one, a little stunted and gimpy, afraid to bust out and romp all over the place. It got even frailer and more anemic when the schooled musicians got after him. American jazz lost one of its greater disciples when Bix strayed away. He should have kept his dirty socks on, and never started sleeping between sheets."
Mezzrow has the romantic, primitive notion of the "bohemian" being the real creator, with the bourgeois influence "destroying" the creativity of the artist. Rather cliche, in my opinion. Of course Bix wanted to play jazz, but he also wanted to progress and develop along more classical paths. That is the reason he joined the Goldkette band (twice) and the Whiteman band.
I agree with you that Bix must have been an admirer of the great black musicians, and that Mezzrow appreciated that. What I have a hard time believing are the sentences that Mezzrow ascribes to Bix, such as, "Bix went on, 'Hell, you even feel better physically in a colored cafe.' Darn, those people know how to live." Is it a case of "transfer"? Mezzrow feels very strongly about the qualities of the black life style and of the environment amongst blacks. These sentences sound suspiciously like Mezzrow speaking. No evidence, just intuition. (Scientists have intuition too. )
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