Sidney Bechet
May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959
Sidney Bechet was one of jazz’s greatest soloists. He began playing as a young teen in New Orleans, and by the time he was 20, he was traveling the world and making his mark on both the saxophone and clarinet. He was a prolific composer as well. Bechet’s life was not without controversy as evident by the pistol duel he once instigated in Paris. Bechet evidently had a notoriously bad temper. He was jailed and later deported. Bechet died on his 62nd birthday, May 14, 1959.
Despite the excessive and often off-putting vibrato, this melodic master is the Emperor of one of the major schools in clarinet… his class being populated by such as Johnny Dodds, Mezz Mezzrow, Bob Wilbur, and even Pee Wee Russell, although Pee Wee was off on his own somewhat– the Willie the Lion of clarinetists.
Basically, he played the second-line clarinet/sop-sax as a FIRST-LINE instrument. He was always the LEAD… always in charge… the equal of the Great Armstrong as has been proven in the few records they made together.
And that’s the shame of it because the genius and beauty of his improvisations were often lost in the bravura. Fortunately, because of the mechanics of producing music from reed instruments, he didn’t have to scale back his playing as he aged as did Armstrong but could continue to pour out as many notes as it took and with increasingly perfected nuance!
He’s definitely worth whatever it takes to become an “acquired taste,” and you should make the effort….