Bix's Piano Composition "In the Dark" will be used in ....

.... the Grand Theatre  (London, Ontario) production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."

According to ifpress.com

"Music co-ordinator and composer Floyd Ricketts, a Beal secondary school theatre grad and The High School Project at the Grand, is finding inspiration in the sounds of the 1920s. Jazz Age tragic figure Bix Beiderbecke's piano piece In the Dark may be finding its Grand home as the Ricketts-styled theme for Daisy."

In the Dark

This piece was composed by Bix in 1931. Pat Ciricillo [Bix's next door neighbor in the 44tth Street Hotel] reported that Bix was composing In the Dark in the winter of 1931, using Pat Ciricillo's piano. Jack Teagarden, who had joined Red Nichols at the Hotel New Yorker on February 8, 1931, roomed with Bix during the February 14-15, 1931 weekend. Teagarden confirmed Pat Ciricillos account. In a telephone interview with Philip Evans [1] on February 18, 1960, Teagarden reported "I spent the weekend with Bix in his apartment. He was working on In the Dark and had only a beginning and an ending, being unable to connect the two. I whistled a bridge that I felt would fit. Bix was delighted and kept it in the composition that Challis scored."

Bill Challis, arranger with the Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman orchestras, transcribed all four if Bix 's piano compositions, In A Mist, Candlelight, Flashes and In the Dark, as well as Bix's sole orchestral composition, Davenport Blues.  In a June 6, 1979 letter to Norman Gentieu, Challis commented on Flashes and In the Dark as follows. "In the Dark had the same formula, main part rhythmic with a melodic middle. Flashes, Bix did in a hurry. He wasn't working and he did the composition because he needed the money. Jack Robbins was willing to accept almost anything. Bix would say, "I have another one." It was the only income he had going. Flashes was done in the same format as the others, but required too much musical knowledge, too much musicianship to understand it. If Bix had lived, he would have changed the formula. He'd have given it more thought and come up with something different."

From my article in the March 2010 issue of the IAJRC Journal.

The Robbins Music Corporation copyrighted Bix Beiderbecke's compositions Flashes (E22489) and In the Dark (E22490) on April 18, 1931. Pianist Jess Stacy was the first to record Flashes/In the Dark (as a medley), Chicago, Nov 16, 1935, Parlophone R-2233.

It may seem odd that a record waxed by Jess Stacy in Chicago was first released by Parlophone in England.  It turns out that in 1935, record producer/musician/music critic John Hammond was commissioned by Parlophone, part of British conglomerate EMI, to produce a series of jazz records to be issued for the British market. Records were cut in the Decca studios in New York (Bunny Berigan and Leonard Feather, among others) and in Chicago (Gene Krupa and Jess Stacy). In 1941, Stacys recording of In The Dark/Flashes was released in the US as part of the six-disc (10-inch, 78 rpm, 18114-18119) album Gems of Jazz, Vol. 2,  Decca 201.

Jess Stacy was interviewed over WKCR on March 10, 1986 by Phil Schaap, curator of Jazz at Lincoln Center, jazz educator, and radio programmer.

PS How did you find out about the other piano compositions, Candlelights, In the Dark, and Flashes?
JS I bought the sheet music and tried to interpret them the way Bix would do it. He made everything swing.

Listen to Jess Stacy's recording of In the Dark/Flashes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agf10gUtDSo

And here is Lisa Ryan's beautiful video with Dick Hyman's recording of "In the Dark" in the soundtrack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzATlLUv6Gw

Albert