[Dixielandjazz] Bix-- Was Bix's death caused tainted alcohol? (Norman Vickers)

[ROBERT R. CALDER]

Wild Bill Davison, in the film where he talks of growing his hair long and learning banjolele, when he'll have become as an ex-cornetist potentially the oldest hillbilly on the road, precedes that impressive oration with an extended pull at a bottle of something darker than the vodka our bibulous listmate Marek has been looking forward to during his now current visit to St. Petersburg. 
It is well known how he used to cry, like a desiccated Saharan fallen off his parched camel cries "water, water ...." the perhaps less plaintive "whisky.. whisky..." at the end of a solo, pretending to stagger but not actually crawling from the bandstand. 

With the fine brown juice lubricating him in front of the camera he proceeds, "Christ! When I think of all the stuff I drank over the years... WHY AM I STILL HERE?" 

In the past, TV viewers appalled at the sight of G-men putting axes into barrels and flinging bottles at walls were offered the verbal consolation that a great volume thus spilled could never have been drunk for the flavour and was probably toxic hooch, though then again the not acutely unhealthy ind in a sense less dark stuff isn't exactly good for a body when poured down in vast amounts. 
Whether it was the putative active ingredient which can be consumed short of excess, or some invasive impurity which there is no safe level? I remember when one source of Perrier water was condemned, a poor television hack losing his smile as the expert quite rightly said there was NO SAFE level of Benzene -- C6H6 -- since in theory nearly any amount might cause cancer. I also remember from university lectures that some post-prohibition legal Bourbon was for economic and speed reasons distilled using benzene in the process, some of which went into the Whiskey and no doubt killed somebody born well after Bix (nasty stuff to use preparing even Industrial alcohol or other fuels, where the evidence of its evil was detected) .
Anyway I penned the above when unable to get through to the linked article on what might have killed Bix. I also remember my late friend Jimmy Hood, a non-smoker who died of lung cancer not from playing jazz under conditions now illegal, but simply from spending eight hours per working day in a vile smelly environment called Glasgow Central Station, and suffering effects of Diesel fuel fumes only very latterly made loudly public in the UK. 

The carcinogenic products of diesel fuel combustion have been well known to a few for at least fifty years. At least you might just feel better the toxic bourbon's off the market!

Robert R. Calder 
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