BIX

Set in the 1920s comes BIX, a fascinating graphic novel biography following the harrowing life story of the legendary but often overlooked jazz musician Leon Bix Beiderbecke.

BIX is a black and white graphic biography highlighting the career of Leon Bix Beiderbecke, an early jazz trumpet player, who rose rapidly to fame in the 1920s before falling just as quickly from grace due to a wretched dependence on alcohol.
He was the first white musician to contribute significantly to the development of jazz, and was considered in his time the most innovative soloist next to the great Louis Armstrong (who appears among the book's supporting cast, alongside other ‘20s jazz legends such as Bing Crosby, Paul Whiteman, and Frank Trumbauer).

Torn between the “respectable” classical music that would please his traditional parents (represented in the book by a piano) and the exciting new world of jazz, in which he displays true genius (represented by his trumpet), Bix comforts himself with booze. Soon, of course, the bottle becomes the very demon his parents warned him about, another enemy in the battle for control of his creative destiny.

Symbolizing Bix's singular nature, and the lack of understanding which he must endure, Bix will be told in “silent” panels— that reflect the fact that he and most people simply don't “speak” the same language.

SCOTT CHANTLER is the acclaimed creator of the graphic memoir Two Generals, which was nominated for two Eisner Awards, named one of Chapters-Indigo's Best Books of 2010, selected for Best American Comics 2012, and voted by CBC's Canada Reads as one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all time. His other work includes Northwest Passage (nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards) and the Three Thieves series (winner of the Joe Shuster Award for Best Comic for Kids and listed by YALSA as a Great Graphic Novel for Teens). He recently served as Writer-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, the first cartoonist to be appointed so by a Canadian university.