Some problems with your recommendation, Igor.

1. There is no directive like "gzip_static".

2. The proxy_pass that you recommend above -- this does a full 301 redirect to Apache!

This is really not the solution I am after.

So, back to my first question, how do I pass the baton from Apache (which really needs to be my first front server because of all the features) only for the static files to nginx?

Thanks.