In loving memory
Bill Bixler
February 9, 1947 – July 29, 2026
Saxophonist, father, friend. He never met a room he couldn't warm up with a horn in his hands. Leave a memory below — we're keeping every one.
Saxophonist, father, friend. He never met a room he couldn't warm up with a horn in his hands. Leave a memory below — we're keeping every one.
Bill Bixler, "Bix" to almost everyone, spent more than six decades making music and getting other people to make it too.
He started out in the 1960s with a garage band, The Cindermen. In 1974 he helped found Wild Blue Yonder, a jazz-rock fusion band, and he later owned the Wild Blue nightclub in Fresno's Tower District, a room a lot of Fresno musicians still talk about.
In Malibu he taught instrumental music at Malibu High School until he retired in 2014. Some of his students went on to make music for a living, including Taylor Goldsmith and Blake Mills of Dawes, Louis Cole of KNOWER, and Shwayze. Many more just learned to love playing.
He never really stopped. He sang and played sax with Miss Bix & the Blues Fix, hosted "The Bix Mix" jazz show on KBUU radio, and produced Dick Van Dyke's 2017 album Step (Back) in Time.
He died of cancer on July 29, 2026, at 79. He leaves his wife of 30 years, Leslie Letven Bixler; his brother, Jim; his sons Hud, Solon and Robben; daughters-in-law Cathy Bixler and Julie Edwards; and grandchildren River, Luca, Mira and Zumi.
Share a story or just a hello. Your message appears here right away.