Sidney Bechet
... the band only as long as Bunk Johnson promised to bring Sidney home every night. Bechet constantly skipped school to spend the day practicing on the clarinet and although his parents wanted him to become apprenticed to a trade, he stuck with being a musician which has brought him great fame to this day. Sidney Bechet soon became a master of the soprano saxophone; the first to play Jazz on the soprano saxophone. He dominated many of the bands that he was in playing lead parts which were usually for trumpet players and he was a master of improvisation. Alternating between the saxophone and clarinet, he played with and made important jazz recordings with legends like Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Clarence Williams, Noble Sissle, Tommy Ladnier and Louis Armstrong. Bechet was a proponent of Dixieland Jazz (located in New Orleans) and one of the pioneers of early jazz. He had many disagreements with many musicians during his life and it showed he had a short temper which was evident in his music. His many solos were very passionate, inventive and direct and they all had a lot of vitality to them. As mentioned earlier, he played the clarinet and saxophone so domineering that he took command on the bandstand. Listening to his music would often make one think that he was in a class by himself because of his intensity, drive, power and intelligence. The big problem with Sidney was that he was never able to stay in one band; he preferred to be a soloist and to work in many different bands. Bechet describes his music the best when he says: “ ‘There’ll always be Jazz. It doesn’t stop with me, it doesn’t stop anywhere. You take a melody…people can feel a melody…as long as there’s melody there’s Jazz, there’s rhythm’ ” (Bechet 2). It was Bechet’s poetic nature which added character and vigor to his music. Music took Bechet to Chicago, New York, even Europe -- valuable worldly experience that would later influence his playing. Musicians Sidney Bechet have influenced are Johnny Hodges, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter Bob Wilber and Branford Marsalis. He never gained great popularity in the United States, however, he achieved his greatest success in Europe where he eventually ended up living. He was so big there that he was often treated as a national celebrity in France and it was there in France where he died on May 14, 1959 of cancer. One of Sidney Bechet’s best known songs was “Summertime” which was recorded in 1939 and written by Gershwin. Sidney Bechet was on saxophone, Johnny Williams on bass, Meade ‘Lux’ Lewis on piano, Teddy Bunn on the guitar, J.C. Higginbotham on the trombone and Sidney Catlett on the drums. This piece was celebrated because it had four choruses of diverse variations. The song is improvised and is vividly done so by Bechet. A lot of the musical instruments are very inaudible except for the saxophone which Bechet was playing. It was basically Sidney Bechet on solo for most of the song which was a huge success for not only the record itself but for the jazz market as well. The song has a very mellow and somber melody to it with the sound of the saxophone however towards the end of it; there are high dramatic phrases which lead into the last chorus where the notes are bold and happy, almost different from the rest of the choruses. There is almost like an emotional climax with the notes and there seems to be a lot of swooping notes. The song really has a simple, warm and complete sound to it. Another popular song Sidney Bechet participated in the recording of was “Muskrat Ramble” which was recorded in 1944. The song was written by Kid Ory and performed by Sidney Bechet’s Blue Note Ensemble: Bechet on saxophone, Sidney de Paris on trumpet, Vic Dickinson on trombone, Art Holden on piano, Pope Foster on bass and Manzie Johnson on drums. This song is important because it serves as an example of a tune that was played for years before it was ever written down. S...