Sidney Bechet Biography
One of the original Dixieland jazz masters, clarinetist/soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet (1897-1959) is widely regarded as the first significant jazz soloist to record, beating his fellow New Orleans native Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months. A masterful soprano saxophonist and clarinetist whose trademark sound incorporated a distinctive vibrato, Bechet was an assertive player and an inventive improviser who tended to dominate any group he played with.
The self-taught Bechet was still a child when he began playing clarinet with some of New Orleans’ top bands, and was giving clarinet lessons by the time he hit his teens; his students included the great clarinetist Jimmie Noone and saxophonist Johnny Hodges. At 16, Bechet began touring the south with pianist Clarence Williams’ band; he subsequently joined trumpeter King Oliver’s group. He left New Orleans for Chicago in 1917, and two years later joined Will Marion Cook’s orchestra, with whom he toured Europe. While traveling, he purchased a soprano sax in a pawn shop, which soon became his main instrument.
Bechet made his recording debut in 1923 with Clarence Williams, and over the next two years participated in numerous recording sessions, sometimes alongside Louis Armstrong. During a stint in New York, Bechet performed briefly with one of Duke Ellington’s early bands. He spent much of the second half of the 1920s overseas, traveling in Europe and Russia, with bands led by Claude Hopkins, Benny Payton and Noble Sissle. Bechet was eventually deported back to the U.S. from France, where he had been jailed after a pistol duel that he had reportedly instigated during an argument over chord changes.
After returning to his hometown in 1932, Bechet temporarily quit music to open a tailor shop in partnership with Crescent City trumpeter Tommy Ladnier, whom Bechet had met in Moscow while on tour. But he soon rejoined Noble Sissle’s band, and over the next few years made classic recordings with Sissle, Ladnier, Armstrong, Mezz Mezzrow, Meade “Lux” Lewis, Teddy Bunn and Jelly Roll Morton. In New York in April 1941, Bechet participated in an early experiment in overdubbing, recording a version of the pop novelty song “Sheik of Araby,” on which he played clarinet, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, piano, bass and drums on the track.
In 1949, Bechet’s well-received performance at Paris’ Salle Pleyel festival led to him permanently relocating to France. For the remainder of his life, Bechet remained a major star in France, recording prolifically and playing large-scale concerts, while making occasional visits to the U.S. Bechet’s autobiography Treat It Gentle was published shortly before his death.
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