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Porter Ullman Sidney Bechet and His Long Song
Porter Ullman Sidney Bechet and His Long Song
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young Bechet was blowing softly into his instrument (Bechet, 71).
From that time on, however, he was rarely willing to play in the
background. In the New Orleans ensembles that nurtured Bechet
and Armstrong, the cornetist was constrained to paraphrasing the
melody and, often at the same time, selecting appropriate ornamental notes. The trombonist created a slower countermelody
based on chord progressions, while the clarinetist, the least concerned with the written melody, played florid obbligatos, using
scales and arpeggios. But Bechet was unwilling to accept this traditional supportive role of the clarinet.
The New Orleans clarinetists tended to play with an incredibly
rich, packed, woody sound, and Bechet would retain this sound
throughout his lifetime. Sometimes the sound was achieved at the
sacrifice of some fluency, but the New Orleans clarinetists valued
speed and grace. The most famous clarinet solo in their tradition,
the chorus on "High Society," actually is a piccolo solo from a
Robert Recker arrangement. It was first adapted for clarinet by
Alphonse Picou, and then memorized by generations of New Orleans clarinetists. "High Society" was first recorded on 22 June
1923 by the King Oliver band with Johnny Dodds on clarinet. A
thirty-two bar, A B A C form, it allows ample room for Dodds to
display his improvisational skills. The first half of the clarinet
chorus is transcribed in Example 1.3
What one hears in Sidney Bechet's early work is a virtuosic
extension of this New Orleans clarinet tradition. As a boy Bechet
was immersed in that tradition: he studied with creole clarinetists
Lorenzo Tio, "Big Eye" Louis Nelson, and George Baquet. He did
parade work with Henry Allen's (Sr.) celebrated Brass Band, and
played with the Olympia Orchestra, the Eagle, and with John
Robichaux's "genteel" dance orchestra. He played all this music
mainly by ear! Bechet never became a good reader, and in his
maturity was sensitive about this failing, but he seemed able to pick
up any tune immediately.
The precocious youth's apprenticeship in New Orleans was
both basic and thorough. In 1911 or 1912, he played with cornetist
Bunk Johnson in the Eagle Band of New Orleans, and in 1913 or
1914 he performed with King Oliver in the Olympia Band. At
some time in 1915 he was with Kid Ory's band, and in 1915-1916
was again with Oliver, who by that time had his own group.
In addition to his work in New Orleans, Bechet led an itinerant
life from 1914 to 1917, touring in shows, and going as far north as
Chicago, where he frequently teamed with a third New Orleans
cornetist, the great Freddie Keppard. A clannish, difficult man,
Keppard and the prickly Bechet got on perfectly together. Also in
Chicago, Bechet performed in a duo with another New Orleans
native, Tony Jackson, one of Jelly Roll Morton's favorite pianists
and the composer of "Pretty Baby."
138
Will Marion Cook was on tour in 1919 with his New York
Syncopated Orchestra, when he heard Bechet play during the
orchestra's stop at Chicago in February and persuaded the
clarinetist to join the orchestra as a soloist. Cook had a versatile
organization that used jazz as only one of its styles-he auditioned
Bechet by having him play a cadenza from the Poet and Peasant
Overture. Cook would feature Bechet playing the blues in programs that included everything from spiritual arrangements, such
as "Joshua fit the battle of Jericho," to transcriptions of Brahms's
Hungarian Dances.
Finally, in the spring of 1919, Bechet arrived in New York,
where he joined Cook and soon after sailed to England with the
orchestra. They arrived at London in June 1919, and immediately
began an engagement at the Royal Philharmonic Hall. Cook's
group was warmly received by the critics and the public, and
Bechet especially attracted wide attention. His performance
brought forth a prescient review from the Swiss conductor, Ernest
Ansermet, who, after hearing Bechet play his featured "Characteristic Blues," wrote:
There is in the Southern SyncopatedOrchestraan extraordinaryclarinet
virtuoso who is, so it seems, the firstof his race to have composed perfectly
formed blues on the clarinet. I've heard two of them which he had elaborated at great length, then played to his companions so that they are
equally admirable for their richness of invention, force of accent, and
daring in novelty and the unexpected. Already, they gave the idea of a
style, and their form was gripping, abrupt, harsh, with a brusque and
pitilessending like that of Bach'ssecond BrandenburgConcerto. I wish to
set down the name of this artistof genuis; as for myself, I shall never forget
it-it is Sidney Bechet.
Ansermet concluded that Bechet's way "is perhaps the highway the
whole world will swing along tomorrow."4
While in London, Bechet picked up a straight soprano
saxophone and soon developed on this difficult instrument one of
the most extravagant, and least polite, sounds in jazz-a broad,
wailing cry, openly and sometimes throbbingly emotional. Bechet's
clarinet playing was warm, woody, and intimate, despite his use of
the broad vibrato that was typical of some New Orleans reed
players. His tone on soprano was larger, smoother, and more
romantic than on the clarinet. He mused on the clarinet; on the
soprano he soared recklessly.
Bechet tended to overwhelm any ensemble he played with. He
would start a chorus by hitting a high, throbbing note with a vibrato
so broad it sounded like a trill, descend with a
whinnying stutter,
grumble in the lower register, twirl around with little triplet
figures, and rip upwards again, traversing over an octave in a
single, dramatic rush. To emphasize a high note, he might add a
SIDNEY BECHET
139
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In October 1924 Bechet joined Louis Armstrong for a recording session, directed by Clarence Williams, that produced "Texas
Moaner Blues." One is immediately struck by the equality of the
three lead voices: Armstrong on cornet, Bechet on clarinet, and
Charles Irvis on trombone. (Perhaps they are too independent; the
ensemble does not have an ideal coherent sound.) Armstrong's solo
is notable for its rhythmic variety, and because it has some of the
freedom from the beat that characterizes Bechet's early work. It is
not technically polished, however, and Armstrong does not utilize
space with the sublime control of later recordings. Bechet switches
to soprano sax for his urgent solo, with its powerful vibrato, throat
growls, and wailing blue notes.
Bechet would record with Armstrong again on 17 December
1924, but the masterpiece of their collaboration, and one of the
SIDNEY BECHET
141
142
SIDNEY
BECHET
143
Recording Session of the One-Man Band, 1941. All photographs of Bechet courtesy
of the Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University.
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SIDNEY BECHET
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NOTES
1. Gary Giddins has recently discovered that Armstrong was born 4 August 1901, and not in 1900 as formerly believed. See the VillageVoice,23
August 1988, 101.
2. The basic Bechet biographies, in addition to his TreatIt Gentle:An
(London: Cassell, 1960; reprint, New York: Da Capo, 1978,
Autobiography
with new preface by Rudi Blesh), areJohn Chilton'sdefinitivework,Sidney
Bechet:TheWizardofJazz (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1987) and
Jean-Roland Hippenmeyer's SidneyBechet,ou l'extraordinaire
odysseed'un
musiciendejazz(Geneva,Switzerland:Tribune Editions, 1980). Also worthy
of note is a book of fifteen Bechet compositions,Mon ami Sidney(Paris:
PublicationAlain Pierson, 1982; distributedexclusively by Import Diffusion Music, Paris). Each book includes a selection of photographs.
3. All music examples are in concert key and were transcribedby Lewis
Porter. This recording is availableon Smithsonian R001, a collection of
King Oliver recordings, with scholarly notes by Lawrence Gushee, who
pointed out the original Recker publication.Dodds strays from the published version-he changes the fifth note and some of the rhythms.
4. Ansermet's review, originally published in Revue romande,on 19 October 1919, has been reprinted in Walter Schaap'sEnglish translationin
many places, among them, Ralph de Toledano, ed., FrontiersOfJazz (New
York: Frederick Ungar, 1947; second edition, 1962).
5. Information about Bechet's recorded legacy may be found in the artist
index of the massive Walter Bruyninckx discography SixtyYearsOf RecordedJazz (published by the author in Belgium, with irregular updates,
1978-present).In addition, Bechet'sautobiographyhas a list of recordings
150