The inspiration for the writing of this book has been the music, but not the life, of a great musician, Leon (Bix) Beiderbecke, who died in the year 1931. The characters and events of the story are entirely fictitious and do not refer to real musicians, living or dead, or to actual happenings.

To Raymond Branson Dodds and Alice Grady Dodds

What I'm going to do is to write off the story of Rick Martin's life, now that it's all over, now that Rick is washed up and gone, as they say, to his rest.

There was a difference.