Clapton and Beiderbecke - a coincidence.......?

In his autobiography, Eric Clapton tells of an incident that occurred when he was eleven years old.

Eric found a 'naughty book' on the village green, when he was playing. He didn't really understand it. Sex Education was a thing of the future in the early 1950's in Britain. In fact, sex was a taboo subject for everybody. Max Miller, the risque comedian, was banned from the airwaves. NO ONE was allowed to mention sex, and being caught thinking about it could have dire consequences - particularly for an eleven year old kid.

Anyway Clapton, not really understanding the meaning of what he was saying, asked a new attractive classmate, if she fancied a shag. The girl's reaction was one of panic, and Eric was carted off to the headmaster's office in disgrace.

There was really only one way the high standards of the English education system could be maintained against the onslaught of an eleven year old kid tentatively saying words he didn't understand - and so accordingly this educator of children beat the shit out of Eric with a stick.

Clapton doesn't go into details, but says that incident messed up his life for years afterwards.

Bix Beiderbecke, idolised by Miles and Satchmo'

Most other pictures show the ravages of bathtub gin that killed Bix at 28 years old

Bix had never been the brightest student in his school in his home town of Davernport, Iowa (too obsessed with music). However aged fifteen he was sent off to military school. Shipped out of town!

The incident was investigated and a strange tale came to light. At the age of 15, Bix took a five year old girl into a garage and into the back of a car. And there he asked or told her to lift her skirt. The girl made a noise and was rescued.

Susequently Bix was arrested by the town police and a charge sheet for lewd behaviour was made out. The girl's father dropped the charges - it is said to spare the child from having to testify. The truth is hard to speculate about - but the Beiderbeckes were a wealthy well to do family - maybe money changed hands. Maybe part of the deal was that Bix was shipped out of town to some midwestern Lubyanka where they would knock some sense into him.

And this was over thirty years earlier than Eric Clapton's spot of trouble. Thirty years further back into the age of sexual repression and violent treatment of children. Is it likely, or even possible that Bix escaped from this incident without suffering severe chastisement?

There exists several of Bix's letters to his doting parents from just after this time. Some people seem inclined to read between the lines that he was misleading his parents into thinking that he was settling down to his new school, when he in fact he was determinedly going about the first steps in ruining himself. I personally see a kid trying desperately to allay his parents fears - and perhaps his own.

I get the impression that many of Bix's fans would like to do the sort of job that Robert Louis Stevenson's wife did for him - the artist saint routine. Which is understandable. Paedophile type incidents are not treated sympathetically nowadays even. - and maybe its a unfair distraction from a life of selfless artistic effort..

Click here! This is Bix playing a piece called Singing the Blues. Louis Armstrong refused to play the piece after hearing this recording - because he thought Bix had achieved perfection.

Some common features I hear in the music of both Eric Clapton and Bix Beiderbecke:-

1) flurries of notes apparently delivered effortlessly - but in fact requiring the total rethinking of playing techniques for both instruments - involving physical pain and selfless devotion to the craft. These flurries or rifs can be heard ornamenting the end of a line apparently throwaway. However Bix's mouth wasa scarred with the long hours playing gigs and even longer hours of practice. Clapton reputedly works addictively at his playing, and collects guitar obsessively.

2) In the stuttering notes of these riffs, can we hear the desperation and fear of children with broken flesh, at once..... fearful, guilty and uncomprehending? The blue notes and discords of life combed into a pattern that adorns a work of art.

3) Both players seem to treat the solo as something over and above a creatve musical opportunity. There coexists simultaneously - subtlety and aggression. With both players.

The solo is a microcosm of the world - the artfully placed notes hint at the existence of world that is logical and, friendly and decent - rather than hurtful and incomprehensible.

4) Finally the substance abuse. Clapton has worked selflessly to help other musicians mewed up in the hell of addiction to escape its confines. too late for poor old Bix. Drinking was regarded as a bit of a hoot by Bix's contemporaries.

(Eddie Condon was famously asked what was the difference between modern jazz and what his gang did. Condon replied, 'they flatten their fiths - we consume ours............!')

5) The way Bix was a trophy star in the Paul Whiteman orchestra is well documented. If Eric Clapton has found himself in a combos not exactly sympatico with what he does (but wanting his name on the record label) - well you would have to ask him.