Sidney Bechet with Tommy Ladnier & His Orchestra * November 28, 1938 * New York City * Bluebird Records

Ja-Da
Really The Blues
When You and I Were Young, Maggie
Weary Blues

Tommy Ladnier, trumpet
Sidney Bechet, soprano sax & clarinet
Mezz Mezzrow, clarinet & tenor sax
Cliff Jackson, piano
Teddy Bunn, guitar
Elmer James, bass
Manzie Johnson, drums


Just a few weeks after his recording debut as a bandleader, Sidney Bechet returned to the studio with his old friend, Louisiana born trumpeter Tommy Ladnier, to cut some sides for RCA Bluebird label.

According to John Chilton (pg 119) this band was hand picked by Hughes Panassié , the French impressario and critic, who wanted to record top notch American jazz musicians. He hunted down Tommy Ladnier, who was then gigging halfway up the Hudson River in Newburgh, New York. Sidney Bechet had to be given permission to record with the group by Irving Mills, and only on the condition he wouldn't be billed as the leader. The resulting records were worth the humility, as they are some of the finest trad jazz sides ever cut.  

The enthusiasm is there right from the beginning of "Ja-Da." Cliff Jackson's left hand is strong hinting at the boogie woogie craze about to blow, and the band seems comfortable and happy to be together throughout the first choruses. Bechet embellishes the head on soprano saxophone, but takes his solo chorus on clarinet. There is an important lesson here for historians and others who would try to understand Bechet's musical mind, and a potential misconception to correct. I can't remember where I  first read the rumor that Sidney Bechet had abandoned clarinet for the soprano saxophone rather early on, and that he took the clarinet out in later life only because trumpet players like Wild Bill Davison or Bunk Johnson didn't think the soprano appropriate for a traditional New Orleans style front line. I'm not sure about Bunk or Wild Bill's opinions, but whatever they were, and however Bechet might have focused on soprano in the later years of his career, there is a tremendous amount of clarinet and soprano doubling that he does all throughout the '20s, '30s and '40s. Working with trumpet players as diverse as Charlie Shavers, Tommy Ladnier, Louis Armstrong, Mugsy Spanier, and even as a bandleader himself without a trumpet, Bechet routinely recorded clarinet numbers or switched off within the same tune. So for a significant part of his career, the clarinet remained a nearly equal voice with soprano sax, independent of the band in question. Because of that, I think it's probably safe to say the appearance of clarinet on any sides was most likely a decision made by Bechet himself rather than anyone else. Besides, does anyone think the psychology of Sidney Bechet was typically acquiescent to the demands of the trumpet players he worked with? He wasn't known for being obsequious.  

To get back to the recordings, though, "Really the Blues" is a classic blues drag written by Mezz Mezzrow, the feisty clarinetist whose later autobiography (bearing the same name of the tune) was to make an early case against commercialism and big band era arrangements while forcefully arguing in favor of black musicians and bands. On the head of this tune, as the two clarinetists are playing together, it's Mezz who takes the lead line, but when the solos come, we hear Bechet's soprano sax tell the story, delivering vintage soul, the band murmuring assents throughout. The tune itself is excellent, and as one of the first collaborations between Mezz and Bechet, it is important historically.

"When You and I Were Young, Maggie" is a light, toe tapping number featuring Ladnier's trumpet lead, a competent chorus by Mezzrow on tenor, and some ebullient clarinet work by Bechet to round out the cut.

The last track from this session, "Weary Blues" is one of the best known in Bechet's clarinet catalog. From the outset, Sidney's musical voice is dominant throughout, with Mezzrow shadowing in harmony, and Ladnier holding the mellow line as usual. Bechet's clarinet solo opens with growling zest, then gets to wailing with expertly controlled pitch bends--each idea unfolding naturally. The whole session had the relaxed, joyous feel of musicians who understood each other and wanted to work together.  

Stylistically, though one could glean this from any number of recordings by Bechet prior to this, these are excellent examples of Bechet's unique soloing style, which was so much more than variations on a theme. His use of rhythm, meter, playing over the bar, linking his phrases organically rather than through pattern repetition, tend to be underappreciated, generally speaking, by many in the jazz education field. The music, so far beyond conventional analysis, isn't easily taught because it was so connected to Bechet's individual soul. But if our goal is lyricism and originality, if a player wants to learn how to please and surprise an audience simultaneously and consistently throughout a solo performance, recordings like these will always be a template and guide.


Further reading:

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. John Chilton, OUP, NY (1987)

November 6, 1938 * Sidney Bechet's First Recording Session as a Bandleader

What a Dream
Hold Tight
Jungle Drums
Chant in the Night

Sidney Bechet, soprano sax & clarinet
Ernie Caceres, baritone sax
Dave Bowman,  piano
Leonard Ware, guitar
Henry Turner, bass
Zutty Singleton, drums
Eddie Robinson & Willie Spottswood, vocals

November 6, 1938, New York City


At the spry age of 41, Sidney Bechet finally had the opportunity to record as a band leader. It had been a long six years since his last collaborative session with Tommy Ladnier and their New Orleans Feetwarmers--a session which produced several classic sides. This one would be different in many ways.

Eschewing the standard instrumentation (which is, anyhow, not so standard as some jazz histories would have us believe), the somewhat misleadingly named Sidney Bechet and His Orchestra was actually a sextet consisting of Bechet on clarinet and soprano sax, Ernie Caceres on baritone sax, Dave Bowman on piano, Leonard Ware on guitar, Henry Turner on bass, Zutty Singleton on drums, and a pair of vocalists (Eddie Robinson and Willie Spottswood, 'The Two Fishmongers') featured on "Hold Tight."

The band recorded four tunes that day, all of them originals. Three of them, "What a Dream", "Chant in the Night" and "Jungle Drums", were composed by Bechet. The vocal number "Hold Tight" was composed by Robinson, Spottswood, Ware, Jerry Brandow, and Lenny Kent.

In his biography of Sidney Bechet, John Chilton suggests this session, while bold, is one of Bechet's weaker one, suffering from lack of rehearsal and less than stellar song material (pg 111-112). I couldn't disagree more, and wish this band hand recorded twenty more sides of the same quality. While Caceres isn't balanced, volume-wise in the recording with Bechet (which might just have been an honest difference between the bari player and the muscular sound of Bechet, accurately captured) the timbre and counterpoint the two create is exciting, intriguing, and unique. Chilton wanted a more standard type of climax to the tunes, and perhaps wishes for more melodic content on a number like "Jungle Drums", but here, perhaps, we have the difference between brass criticism and woodwind writing (Chilton himself, who passed away last year, was a trumpet player). A careful review of combo jazz tunes by clarinetists reveals a predisposition for motivic, linear melodies, repetitious in an almost  minimalist fashion. "Seven Come Eleven", "AC/DC Current", "Benny's Bugle" by Benny Goodman; "When the Quail Come Back to San Quentin", "Summit Ridge Drive", "Dr. Livingston, I Presume" by Artie Shaw; and "Jungle Drums" by Sidney Bechet are all cut from a similar cloth.  It's perhaps not a coincidence that John Adams, one of the more revered minimalist composers of the last forty years, was a clarinetist.

That aside "What a Dream" is a beautiful tune, and Bechet's soprano soloing matches it. His clarinet on "Hold Tight" is vintage, excellent, and you can't go wrong with his playing on the other tunes. As with so many of Bechet's early projects (including the first incarnation of The New Orleans Feetwarmers and the Clarence Williams Blue 5), we are left simultaneously wishing we had more, and grateful for what he left us.

Further reading:

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. John Chilton, OUP, NY (1987)

Sidney Bechet & Albert Nicholas with Jelly Roll Morton * September 14, 1939 * Bluebird * NYC

Oh, Didn't He Ramble
High Society
I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say
Winin' Boy Blues

Stanley De Paris, trumpet
Claude Jones, trombone, speech
Albert Nicholas, clarinet
Sidney Bechet, soprano saxophone
Happy Cauldwell, tenor saxophone
Jelly Roll Morton,  piano
Laurence Lucie, guitar
Wellman Braud, bass
Zutty Singleton, drums


Sidney Bechet plus Jelly Roll Morton equals a winning equation, no matter how you calculate it, and no matter how much tension there may have been in the studio at the time. These four tracks from September 14, 1939 serve as a quick proof. Opening up with a quote from "Flee as a Bird" for a solemn preamble, then the mock-solemn intonation...

Ashes to ashes, 
dust to dust,
if the women don't get ya
the liquor must...

...the band bursts into "Oh Didn't He Ramble", confidently swinging with a unanimous groove, each voice knowing exactly where to place himself. Bechet's soprano is comfortable, diving and singing, Stanley De Paris's trumpet well balanced (though apparently he and Bechet were not happy to find each other on the same date), and Albert Nicholas played the right supporting role along with the rest of the band before they break off for a dirge fade out.

The version of "High Society" they cut that day is of interest mostly for the rarity of hearing both Bechet (on soprano) and Albert Nicholas (on clarinet) play the "test solo." I'll let others come to their own conclusions as to who won this duel, but I think Albert delivers it more confidently and cleanly. His swagger for the last choruses of the tune seem to indicate pride in the accomplishment, and I can't help but wonder what Bechet thought of the resulting disc (it obviously didn't hurt his relationship with Nicholas, who he was to record with again, with great results).

The soprano soloing on "I Thought I heard Buddy Bolden Say" and "Winin' Boy Blues" are vintage Bechet and we are left, once again, wondering what would have happened if the association between Morton and the great soloist could have continued longer. But it wasn't to happen. Bechet had begun an engagement in Fonda, in upstate New York along the Mohawk River, and wasn't to make the return to New York City for the next session (Chilton, 123).

Just as so many of Jelly Roll's recordings sound like vignettes, so Bechet's time in the recording studio with him was just another vignette in the life of a great soloist. He would have one more recording session in 1939 as a sideman with The Haitian Orchestra, then turn his sites to leading his own band again. Perhaps the frustrations in the studio during 1939 made him realize it was time to take matters into his own hands as a leader, but whatever the impetus, 1940 would be a banner year for Bechet's legacy, and this date with Jelly Roll just a harbinger of things to come.

Further Reading:

Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. OUP, 1987.

Zammarchi, Fabrice. "Sidney Bechet". Notes to Sidney Bechet: The Complete American Masters, 1931-1953. Universal Music Classics & Jazz, France, 2011.

Sidney Bechet & The Clarence Williams Blue Five * 1923-1925

Accidents of history are a strange thing, but sometimes all we know hinges on them. Had Sidney Bechet not gotten deported from England in 1922, for instance, we might legitimately wonder how long it might have taken for him to make studio recordings, and whether his influence on the likes of a young Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong would ever have taken place. Shortly after his deportation, he was hired by pianist and composer Donald Heywood as part of a traveling show called How Come. It was while on tour with this show that the young Duke Ellington heard him in Washington D.C., an experience that Duke recalled for the rest of his life.

"I have never forgotten the power and imagination with which he played," Duke said of the experience. [Chilton, pg.56] In 1962, Ellington was to expand upon this, saying:

"Yes, there were some very good Lester Young imitators. Lester was one of the very potent influences. Charlie Parker had plenty of imitators. Johnny Hodges too. And there was a time when there was hardly a tenor player in the world who didn't try to sound like Coleman Hawkins. But we mustn't leave out the greatest--Bechet! The greatest of all the originators, Bechet, the symbol of jazz! [...] I consider Bechet the foundation. His things were all soul, all from the inside. It was very, very difficult to find anyone who could really keep up with him. He'd get something organized in his mind while someone else wass playing, and then he'd play one or two choruses--or more--that would be just too much."  [Stanley Dance, The World of Duke Ellington, 10]  


Listening to the first recordings of Sidney Bechet immediately after hearing the King Oliver Creole Jazz Band recordings of 1923 or Louis Armstrong's Hot Fives and Sevens, while paying attention to the timeline, is a revolutionary experience for anyone raised on standard histories. Many year ago, when I finally discovered Bechet for myself, my reaction as a clarinetist and soprano sax player, was simply that trumpet and cornet players must have had the greatest PR agencies on earth working for them to lay any claim to originating jazz solo style! I mean no disrespect to the great Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, or the others, but I can't hear how much any of what that they did, conceptually, hadn't been mastered by Bechet long before they added to it.

I don't really have the time to do an analysis of these important recordings, so will refer readers interested in further analysis to John Chilton's important study: Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. Oxford University Press. NY: 1987. Here let me just mention some highlights as I see them:

There is a pride of place to "Wild Cat Blues", as it's our first Bechet recording and the first great jazz saxophone on record.

"Kansas City Man" shows a fully formed blues soloist: we don't need to hear him grow into the music or go through and apprenticeship phase.

"Achin' Heart Blues" documents a clarinet soloist more advanced than either Johnny Dodds or Leon Roppolo.

"Shreveport Blues" is not only a demonstration of Bechet's mastery of lyric playing, but his double time figurations behind the cornet aren't the sort we hear other players struggling to master: he already has the music entirely within his scope and is comfortably throwing down exactly what he wants.

His lightening runs behind the melody in "Old Fashioned Love" are all musically substantial and emotionally relevant -- in this way he stands out in contrast to other flashy players, including Frankie Trumbauer and Jimmie Noone on some of their virtuosic choruses.

On "House Rent Blues" he builds perfectly balanced solo through interconnected triplet breaks. On "Mean Blues" he shows his lyrical ability to create a counter melody more interesting than the original. I can't stress enough how superior he seems to compared to everyone else out there at the time these were made. The listener remains glued to his lines no matter who is playing the lead at the time. Perfect variation after variation unfolds until the end.

"Texas Moaner Blues" features his first work with a young Louis Armstrong, this time on clarinet and soprano sax. His solo concept is clearly far in advance of Armstrong at this point, and Satch seems to have learned a lot, when we check out later recordings.  

Bechet's next recording was backing blues singer Sippie Wallace on "Off and On Blues." His clarinet is rich,  powerful, and his blues fills and choruses are perfectly conceived.

On "Mandy Make Up Your Mind" we get a little soprano sax work comping, but the big solo is taken by Bechet on sarrusophone! And it sounds great!

On the last of the early Armstrong/Bechet sessions, "I'm a Little Blackbird Looking for a Bluebird", it is once again Bechet who is the true soloist in the band, building a commentary of baroque ornamentation around Armstrong's statements of the theme, and motivic response to the vocal chorus.

According to Fabrice Zammarchi's notes to  The Complete American Masters of Sidney Bechet, the last two Clarence Williams Blue Five sessions were behind vocalists on January 8, 1925. They feature typical accompaniment by Bechet and tasteful solos.

Shortly after this era, Bechet returned to Europe and wasn't documented again on American records for several years of the important roarin' '20s, which fixed the canon in many jazz fans' minds. We can be grateful that Clarence Williams took the opportunity to showcase his talents between 1923-1925, or history might have lost perspective on the man Ellington considered the foundation and eptiome of jazz itself.

The Sidney Bechet & Mugsy Spanier Big Four * March 28, 1940

The Sidney Bechet/Mugsy Spanier Big Four

Sweet Lorraine
Lazy River 
China Boy
Four or Five Times
That's A Plenty
Squeeze Me
Sweet Sue
If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)


Sidney Bechet * clarinet, soprano sax
Mugsy Spanier * trumpet
Carmen Mastren * guitar
Wellman Braud * bass


In one of those remarkable moments of cross pollination often experienced by musicians, but rarely captured at the precise moment of brilliance in the recording studio, European Gypsy Jazz once had a direct impact upon one of jazz history's founding fathers. The date was March 28, 1940, the idea Stephen Smith's: to pair Bechet and Spanier with a gypsy rhythm section (bass and guitar without drums) and see what happened when they were given the opportunity to swing a la Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club de France (Chilton, 126). The result was some of the most compelling recordings of any era, and certainly among the finest of Bechet's stellar career.

For a clarinetist, one of the great advantages of Gypsy Jazz is the lower overall volume of the group. Because there are no drums or piano, it's easier for the clarinet to project clearly, without forcing, in any register of the instrument, at any dynamic level. Bechet takes advantage of this, on both clarinet and soprano sax, switching back and forth sometimes in the same tune. On "That's A Plenty" for example, he lays down what is certainly one of the finest clarinet solos on the tune, then picks up his sax and gives a definitive saxophonic interpretation.

One of the myths surrounding Bechet was that he more or less abandoned the clarinet unless it was demanded by a trumpet player for a more "legitimate" revivalist purpose. Among other things, these remarkable recordings demonstrate that Bechet used clarinet and saxophone according to his vocal and timbral needs, and that the clarinet wasn't exactly supplanted by the soprano sax. When he wants low chalumeau underlining, for instance, he doesn't hesitate to use the clarinet on "Lazy River." The tunes are dominated by saxophone, but nowhere else in Bechet's catalogue is it more clear that he chose based upon expressive needs of each situation.

The titles I've listed above are, so far as I can tell, the only tunes recorded by the Bechet-Spanier Big Four. The link, however, has a slightly different list, including "Jazz Me Blues" and "Panama". For those wishing to have a more comprehensive view of Bechet's American recording career, I highly recommend picking up Universal Music Classics & Jazz France's 14 CD set: Sidney Bechet: The Complete American Masters 1931-1953. The reason I linked above to the other album is simply that the 14 disc box seems to be, sadly, out of print, and only available for several hundred dollars at present on Amazon. I hope it is reissued soon.  


Work Cited:

Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz, Oxford University Press, NY, 1987.

Sidney Bechet and the New Orleans Feetwarmers * 1932

Sweetie Dear (Jordan/Cook)
I Want You Tonight (Bechet/Maxey)
I've Found a New Baby (Williams/Palmer)
Lay Your Racket (Bechet/Maxey)
Maple Lead Rag (Joplin)
Shag (Bechet)

Sidney Bechet * clarinet, soprano saxophone
Tommy Ladnier * trumpet
Teddy Nixon * trombone
Hank Duncan * piano
Wilson Myers * bass, vocals on "I Want You Tonight" and "Shag"
Morris Morand * drums 
Billy Maxey * vocal on "Lay Your Racket"

In 1932, Sidney Bechet and Tommy Ladnier declared fleeting independence from commercial music, broke free from Noble Sissle's orchestra, and on September 15, recorded six of the finest sides of their careers. The New Orleans reed man and Louisiana trumpet player had met, oddly enough, in Moscow in 1926 while touring through the Soviet Union, and had recorded with Sissle's group just prior to their own small combo formation. They named the group the New Orleans Feetwarmers, and though the vogue for small ensemble hot jazz was quickly fading, these sides shout like a cry of freedom, remaining among Bechet's crowning achievements.

The New Orleans Feetwarmers weren't just a studio organization, but a gigging band, playing around White Plains, NY, and in Jersey City while they built up repertoire. The night before these historic recordings were made, the sextet opened New York's Savoy Ballroom, billed as "Ladnier and Bechet's New Orleans Feetwarmers."

Bechet gets composition credits on half the numbers. His clarinet soloing is unusual and aggressive on "Sweetie Dear"--a study in his shocking brilliance. He's soulfully bluesy on "I Want You Tonight", but nothing can prepare anyone for his soprano sax tour de force on "I've Found a New Baby." From his masterful use of delay, seemingly stepping in and out of time over the barlines, to his fast triplet figures, jazz just doesn't get better than this. He pivots from lyrical and dazzling within split seconds, diving and soaring at will. Anyone who believes New Orleans style jazz is somehow less advanced than more self-consciously intellectual and modernist styles needs to check this out. The Soprano Sax virtuosity continues on his own "Lay Your Racket" and, especially "Maple Leaf Rag", which is up there with "I've Found a New Baby" as an unsurpassably brilliant interpretation of the tune. Throughout these recordings, his use of trills on both clarinet and soprano sax is exciting and unique, worthy of study for all musicians hoping to expand their ideas.

For as brilliant as they sounded, the New Orleans Feetwarmers weren't long for this world. The tastes in New York had already shifted, and Hot Jazz was becoming increasingly unfashionable as the sweet music crooners began taking over the gigging scene. The great depression was taking it's toll and most nightclubs couldn't afford hiring a five or six piece band on a regular basis, opting instead for a pianist alone (Chilton 90). It would be another couple of years before Benny Goodman's band could bring back a hotter style, albeit primarily in the form of a big band.

If the Feetwarmers had overarching societal problems contributing to their demise, there were also internal problems. Bechet and Ladnier quarrelled over leadership and billing, and at one point after a gig, drummer Morris Morand  got into a fight with Bechet, even threatening to kill him (Chilton, 95). Bechet, as usual, moved on quickly to join Willie "The Lion" Smith at Pod's and Jerry's Club, and the Feetwarmers were no more. In the end, they left us one brilliant session, consisting of six tunes, among which are two or three that will never be topped. For that we can all be grateful.    



Recommended reading:

Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. OUP (New York). 1987

Ten Essential Jazz Clarinet Recordings (4)

4. Sidney Bechet * The Best of Sidney Bechet (Blue Note)



This next selection was a difficult one to make, considering all of the options for Sidney Bechet compilations, but it seemed to me the Blue Note set had a lot to recommend itself.

First and foremost, it has one of the most perfect blues recordings ever made, "Blue Horizon", which is a must for any jazz clarinetist to transcribe and inwardly digest.

Beyond this, there are many other sides here of unique importance. The sessions represented on this disc are largely drawn from the mid-1940s, when recording technology and quality had finally caught up enough to give some real excellent representations of jazz musicians' sound. They give us the opportunity to hear Bechet in many contexts both solo and ensemble, playing opposite Bunk Johnson and Wild Bill Davison on trumpet and cornet.

Perhaps most exciting for the clarinetist is "Old Stack O'Lee Blues" with Albert Nicholas. Here we have two differing New Orleans sound concepts: Bechet with his woody, aggressive ferocity, and Nicholas with his fat, round mellowness--Bechet on Albert system, Nicholas on Boehm--both of them singing, swinging, and booming.

For many in the New Orleans tradition, Bechet's sound is foundational, and for jazz itself, Bechet's solo concept certainly is. Even Gunther Schuller, whose jazz series has a penchant for setting up a rigid and highly subjective hierarchy to jazz history similar to a German Romantic "history of heroes", had to grudgingly admit that Bechet, as "creative melodist, had...a soloist's conception even before [Louis] Armstrong did." [Early Jazz, 198]

Duke Ellington went a great deal further in his praise for Bechet. "I consider Bechet the foundation [of jazz]," he said in 1962. As far as his clarinet sound, Duke had this to say:

He was just a great clarinet player. He had a wonderful clarinet tone--all wood, a sound you don't hear anymore."

But Duke's praise for Bechet doesn't end there. Perhaps this next quote puts things in the starkest relief:

Yes, there were some very good Lester Young imitators. Lester was one of the very potent influences. Charlie Parker had plenty of imitators. Johnny Hodges too. And there was a time when there was hardly a tenor player in the world who didn't try to sound like Coleman Hawkins. But we mustn't leave out the greatest--Bechet! The greatest of all the originators, Bechet, the symbol of jazz!   [Dance, The World of Duke Ellington, 10]

The history of jazz clarinet is a story of critical and scholarly neglect since the 1950s. I can't help but wonder why Duke Ellington, whom scholars have often canonized as the greatest jazz composer in history, shouldn't be consulted more for his opinion! The great foundational saxophonists of the 20th century--Lester, Bird, and Hawk, are all considered in this quote and yet Bechet, the clarinetist, is considered more important to jazz. Though these opinions (and the opinions of critics and scholars) are ultimately mere chatter in the face of the music, they do matter in the big picture, because they shape what is preserved and passed on to further generations. As clarinetists, it's worth remembering that such canons can be reshaped and influenced.

I read constantly of the supremacy of the saxophone to the clarinet in jazz, and when I was a student in college, it was common to hear no less a musician than Jackie McLean suggest that the clarinet might not really be a "jazz instrument." The history behind such statements is often ideological, extra-musical, and culturally disappointing. But we need not accept it, especially when our ears, hearts, and souls tell us otherwise (along with the history itself, and a few powerful quotes from musicians like Duke Ellington).

Keep swinging and wailing, clarinetists!

***

Works cited:

Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Ellington. Da Capo, 1970.
Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz. Oxford, 1968.

Sidney Bechet and the Port of Harlem Seven * June 8, 1939 * Blue Note Records * NYC

Blues for Tommy Ladnier
Summertime
Pounding Heart Blues

Frankie Newton, trumpet
J. C.  Higgenbotham, trombone
Sidney Bechet, soprano sax & clarinet
Meade Lux Lewis, piano
Teddy Bunn, guitar
Johnny Williams, bass
Sid Catlett, drums

On June 4, 1939, Sidney Bechet's collaborator Tommy Ladnier died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 39. Like Bechet, Ladnier was a Louisiana native, against the playing of "commercial" music, known to leave better paying gigs to play the music he loved, and was attracted to the more colorblind European scene. The French critic and jazz impressario, Hugues Panassié, when on a mission to record real jazz in the United States, made a point of hunting him down in Newburgh, New York to arrange a recording session with Sidney Bechet the year before. Four days after Ladnier's death, Bechet went into the studio and cut the very first of the Blue Note records which have become such a significant part of his legacy. The Port of Harlem Seven would only have this one recording session together, but it was to be meaningful.

The first tune cut on the session was, appropriately, "Blues for Tommy Ladnier." Frankie Newton's trumpet is mellow and balanced, his solo reflectively sympathetic without becoming sentimental. Bechet too, offers his eulogy, with each band member commenting in turn before bursting into an out chorus. It's then that Newton finally allows some high notes to sound and Bechet's soprano shouts back in concurrence. The feeling isn't so much of a dirge, but of a warm, heartfelt glimpse into their appreciation of the man who had just left them.

So much has been written about Bechet's recording of "Summertime" that there is little to add. It's impossible to praise this moment in jazz history too much. Here is Bechet at zenith, his five heartbreaking choruses taking us deeper and deeper into a southern sunset, and probing the themes associated with the song: birth, death, resurrection, suffering, redemption. It's one of a handful of the most important recordings of the twentieth century, a meditation that unites thought, feeling, meaning, and soul as one.

The last of that day's recorded triptych was "Pounding Heart Blues", a traditional tune perhaps hinting, too, at Ladnier's death. The mood is solemn, respectful, reflective, bringing to a close this important moment in recorded history.

Tommy Ladnier playing was so soulful, he was nicknamed "The Praying Cornet" during his lifetime. On this session, Bechet would leave us one of his most heartfelt performances, bookended with emotionally solemn, yet warm hearted remembrances.

The Port of Harlem Seven were never to record under that name again, but they made their permanent mark on jazz history that day.

Sidney Bechet with Noble Sissle 1931-1938

After the brilliance of Sidney Bechet's playing on the recordings with the Clarence Williams Blue 5, his releases with Noble Sissle and His Orchestra in 1931 are a disappointment. Relegated mostly to section playing on baritone sax, there is little to hear beyond the occasional eight or twelve bar solo during competent (but decent) commercial dance arrangements.

Despite this, the increasing public demand for big bands must have made the stability of such gigs attractive, and Bechet returned to the studio with Noble Sissle and His International Orchestra in 1934. There's nothing bad about the arrangements; the band sounds good enough, especially when compared to similar outfits from the early '30s, but Bechet was a bad fit in this sort of music, and for the most part seems disinterested even in the brief solo passages he's given. An artist like Bechet was just never meant to be used as filler between a vocalist and an arrangement. If he was a basketball player, he'd be described as a "volume shooter" or one "needing the ball in his hands." Musically he was a point guard, rather than a center. On this set, even his more inspired playing on "Polka Dot Rag" seems out of place. This didn't stop him from continuing, however, fully into the Swing Era, and it didn't stop Sissle from featuring him on numbers. 

Considering the great success of Benny Goodman after 1935, it is somewhat surprising to hear Bechet still on soprano sax for his solos on tunes such as 1936's "You Can't Live in Harlem." With all of the band's forces at work, the soprano has difficulty distinguishing itself timbrally, and however good Bechet's solo, he doesn't soar the way Benny could in an eight bar break, or how he himself could in a small ensemble context. If nothing else, recordings like these can help us recognize the comparative brilliance of Goodman in similar orchestral circumstances, demonstrating how difficult it is to musically succeed in them. The one occasion Bechet seems properly used comes on their final orchestral recording with him on "Dear Old Southland" where he's given a bravura introduction and multiple choruses. Working within an arrangement that fits his playing better, we're given us a tantalizing glimpse of what could of been, had his talents been better showcased in this large ensemble setting. 

Perhaps inspired by the success of combos such as the Goodman Quartet, by 1937 Noble Sissle seems to have realized small group work would be worth pursuing with Bechet, and the results were far more interesting. Of the six sides that were recorded by "Noble Sissle's Swingsters" and "Sidney "Pops" Bechet with Noble Sissles Swingsters" in 1937 and '38, five were written or co-written by Bechet, and several of them are important examples of Bechet's work as a player and composer. "Okey Doke" and "Characteristic Blues" are chock full of clarinet blues techniques and, on the latter, even a High Society 'test solo' quote, rounded off with a glissando. Sidney seems far more relaxed and in his element, able to stretch and give fuller range to his musical thought. Likewise, "Viper Mad", "Blackstick", and "When the Sun Sets Down South (Southern Sunset)" are good examples of his work from this era.    

  

So what are we to make of the Noble Sissle era? We can be grateful that the bandleader kept Bechet employed and active in music, documented on recordings, and that he eventually decided to record to his great soloist's strengths. While the lion's share of the recordings with Sissle aren't representative of Bechet's importance or brilliance, there are few, especially from the last sessions, which no student of Bechet would want to miss.

Treat It Gentle: The Autobiography of Sidney Bechet

To this day, even the very name of Sidney Bechet evokes intense images and stories. Feisty, explosive, operatic, mellifluous; his blazing, intelligent eyes staring back at us from photos: we know all the stories of his temper and his prodigal career. If Bix Beiderbecke was the prototypically alienated young man with a horn; the distanced aloof genius; Bechet was the first of the unyielding, spiritually restless reedmen who found themselves at odds with the crass commercialism of the music business. His abandonment and intense re engagement of a musical career, multiple times, was to echo through jazz history in the careers of Artie Shaw and Sonny Rollins. Likewise, his expatriation to Europe became the template for later luminaries such as Dexter Gordon and Kenny Dorham.

We know this Bechet: Bechet the misunderstood, under appreciated icon. We also know the Bechet Duke Ellington referred to as the "symbol of jazz", preeminent over even Louis Armstrong as the foundation of jazz itself.

We can listen to all the old recordings, hearing a sound that shakes us internally, sometimes soaring lyrically, sometimes shouting, often pushing the bounds of whatever group he is playing with: Bechet the master; Beethovenian Bechet.

Then there is the Bechet of the mugshot. Bechet the violent, who got in a gun fight at rush hour in Paris. Bechet the deported. This is the Bechet of the Documentary Videos: Bechet of the Ten O'Clock News.

But there is another Bechet to know: a reflective, older Bechet. This is the Sidney Bechet described by Desmond Flower as "warm, wise, kind and gentle." A Bechet whose words rolled like warm poetry, who humbly sought to place his journey in perspective of the music. This is the Sidney Bechet whose wisdom radiates from what might be the finest autobiography of any musician, and an essential work of American literature.

To write a real analysis of Treat it Gentle would require a book length study longer than the brilliant text itself. Some quotes here will have to suffice as an introduction to a work that has the potential to change our understanding of America, jazz, and the nature of music itself. From the very beginning of the book, he sets out to shift our understanding, to give us something (the concept of giving, united to music, is a central aspect of Bechet's philosophy of music). So I'll start there:

You know there's people, they got the wrong idea of Jazz. They think it's all that red-light business. But that's not so. And the real story I've got to tell, it's right there. It's Jazz. What it is--how it come to be what it is.

People come up to me and they ask me 'Are you going to play Tin Roof Blues?' They ask me, 'What's bebop?' or what do I think of some record Louis Armstrong put out. But if I was to answer that, I'd have to go a long way back. [pg. 1]


On what Jazz is:

Bechet was once told by an enthusiastic man in Paris, "This music is your music."

But, you know, no music is my music. It's everybody's who can feel it. You're here...well, if it's music, you feel it--then it's yours too. You've got to be in the sun to feel the sun. It's that way with music too.

The man persisted, however. He wanted to know what would happen when men like Bechet passed on.

..you know, Jazz isn't just me. It isn't just any one person who plays it. 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 a there's a melody there's Jazz, there's rhythm. [pg 2]

But here's what I really mean. All God's children got a crown. My race, their music...it's their way of giving you something...of showing you how to be happy. It's what they've got to make them happy. The spiritual, that's sad; but there's a way in it that's happy too. We can be told: 'Maybe you don't belong in Heaven, and you haven't got a place on this earth; you're not in our class, our race.' But somewhere, God's children wear a crown, and someday we're going to wear ours too. [pg 3]



On inspiration and the reason to play music:

The real reason you play...it's just because you're able to play, that's all.

Inspiration, that's another thing. The world has to give you that, the way you live in it, what you find in your living. The world gives it to you if you're ready. But it's not just given...it has to be put inside you and you have to be ready to have it put there. All that happens to you makes a feeling out of your life and you play the feeling. But there's more than that. There's the feeling inside the music too. And the final thing, it's the way that life-feeling comes from in you...even if you start playing a number from a love-feeling, it has to become something else before you're through. That love-feeling has to find the music-feeling. And then the music can learn how to get along with itself.

But drinking and reefers and all that stuff, most times they just mess up all the feeling you got inside yourself and all the feeling the music's got inside itself. When a man goes at the music that way, it's just a sign that there's a lot inside himself he don't know how to answer. He's not knowing which way he needs to go. He's not going anywhere at all. [pg 128]


On contracts, the music business, and commercialism:

My answer--all I can say of it--it's just to be giving, giving all you're life, finding the music and giving it away. God maybe punishes a man for wanting too much, but He don't punish a man for giving. Maybe He even fixes it so that what you give away, it's the mostest thing you've got.

And maybe there's another thing why so many of these musicianers ended up so bad. Maybe they didn't know how to keep up with all this commercializing that was happening to ragtime. If it could have stayed where it started and not had to take account of the business it was becoming--all that making contracts and signing options and buying and selling rights--maybe without that it might have been different. If you start taking what's pure in a man and you start putting it on a bill of sale, somehow you can't help destroying it. In a way, all that business makes it so a man don't have anything left to give.

I got a feeling inside me, a kind of memory that wants to sing itself...I can give you that. I can send it out to where it can be taken, maybe, if you want it. I can try to give it to you. But if all I've got is a contract, I've got nothing to give. How'm I going to give you a contract? [pg 124]


 On the Blues:

And it was when I was in jail...that I played the first blues I ever played with a lot of guys singing and no other instruments, just the singing. And, oh my God, what singing that was! It was my first experience that way, hearing someone right next to me start up singing...Got a life so full of punishment, Got me a feeling. Come down Jesus. Oh why don't they put God on this earth where you can find Him easier. Hearing someone else come in after a minute, just hearing his voice in the dark and knowing right away his life has a long way to go. Seeing someone hungry and beat up, seeing his face all bloody and knowing he can't speak your language to tell you what it is, knowing that the only way he has to explain himself is being human, suffering, and waiting....

I'll never forget what those blues did to me. I can't remember every single line, but some I remember. And how it was, the thing it was saying inside itself--I remember that entire. This blues was different from anything I ever heard. Someone's woman left town, or someone's man, he'd gone around to another door...then there was something that took every thought I had out of my mind until it had me so close inside it I could taste how it felt...I was seeing the chains and that gallows, feeling the tears on my own face, rejoicing in the Angel the Lord sent down to that sinner. Oh my God, that was a blues. The way they sang it there, it was something you would send down to earth if it had been given you to be God. What you'd send to your son in trouble if he was on earth and you was in Heaven. [pgs 106-107]

[Both] of them, the spirituals and the blues, they was a prayer. One was praying to God and the other was praying to what's human. It's like one was saying 'Oh God, let me go,' and the other was saying, 'Oh Mister, let me be.' And they were both the same thing in a way; they were both my people's way of praying to be themselves, they had a kind of trance to them, a kind of forgetting. It was like a man closing his eyes so he can see a light inside him. That light, it's far off and you've got to wait to see it. But it's there. It's waiting. The spirituals, they're a way of seeing that light. It's far off music; it's a going away, but it's a going away that takes you with it. And the blues, they've got that sob inside, that awful lonesome feeling. It's got so much remembering inside it, so many bad things to remember, so many losses. [pgs 212-213]

There have been countless books written on the Blues, countless interviews with experts on the matter, but these quotes constitute the best explanation I have ever read or heard in words of what the blues actually do, what they are, how I experience them, and what they're meant for.

I could keep quoting until the whole book was reprinted on this blog...these have only scratched this surface of Bechet's wisdom. Just as Bechet is foundational for jazz clarinet, and jazz itself, I believe his musical philosophy and analysis ought to be treated as a foundational hermeneutic for jazz. 

Treat it Gentle is a book to be returned to, regularly, through the course of one's musical life.   

 

Sidney Bechet * May 26, 1938 * with Trixie Smith and Grant & Wilson * Decca

May 26, 1938 was unique in Sidney Bechet's career: on this day he recorded ten tunes, all of them entirely on the clarinet. Maybe his soprano sax was in the shop, maybe he forgot it, or maybe he simply didn't feel like playing it that day, but whatever the reason, his clarinet chops were ready to go. One thing we can say without reservation: the sides he cut on May 26, 1938 in Decca's New York studios with singer Trixie Smith document some of his finest clarinet work.

What can I say about his playing on "Freight Train Blues"? It's an anthology of his greatest clarinet techniques, and he is so well miked that we really, finally, get a sense of his total sound quality. Trixie Smith is laid back as a singer, but a perfectly cool partner to Bechet's heat. The rest of the band includes Charlie Shavers on trumpet, Sammy Price on piano, Teddy Bunn on guitar, Richard Fullbright on bass, and O'Neill Spencer on drums. On "Trixie's Blues" the band gets the perfect soft bumping groove, and imprompu head riffs are woven and embellished by Bechet and Shavers throughouot. Bechet's clarinet is really in astonishing form for this date, and he delivers as close to a definitive performance as we could hope for on "My Daddy Rocks Me With One Steady Roll" (Parts 1 & 2). In his sound we can hear everything--from his warmest pumpkin bread chalumeau to muscular, biting altissimo. The interplay between Bechet and the muted Shavers is a type of contrapuntal perfection: they seem ideally suited for this sort of vocalist-fronted combo. Trixie is at her best when she's singing a blues; the more popular tunes like "Jack, I'm Mellow" or "My Unusual Man" are less convincing, and she falls a bit into vaudeville style. But the masterful blues sides by this band more than make up for anything else.

Later that day, the same backing band recorded with Coot Grant & Sox Wilson, a girl/boy vocal duo with more vaudeville pretensions, and a considerable step down from the musical quality of the Trixie Smith recordings. Bechet's clarinetistry is good and solid; once again the Decca recording engineers capture him exceptionally well, but these are comparatively forgettable sides. By the last tune of the day, "Blue Monday on Sugar Hill", Bechet seems to have run out of inspiration, delivering a competent but very common solo by his standards. Still, on the whole, this was a remarkable day in Bechet's recorded output, especially from the standpoint of the clarinet. Fans of Sidney Bechet are going to want to hear them.


[ Note: My review is based upon the remastered versions found in the Universal boxed set. I can't vouch for other transfers...]

Featured Recording: Sidney Bechet * Blue Horizon * December 20, 1944

Sidney Bechet * Blue Horizon

Sidney Bechet, clarinet
Sidney de Paris, trumpet
Vic Dickenson, trombone
Art Hodes, piano
George 'Pops' Foster, bass
Manzie Johnson, drums

December 20, 1944, NYC

Here is a recording every clarinetist should know and understand--even if at first the approach to the instrument is different from anything they've heard.

Sidney Bechet was called the greatest jazz musician of all by none other than Duke Ellington, and he has been credited with a fully formed jazz solo concept predating even Louis Armstrong. Because of his enigmatic career, and his sometimes intense personality (he once got deported from France for a gunfight at rush hour in the Paris metro) he is certainly less well known to the general public. Despite this, his music is of such profound value that I consider him a kind of American Muhlfeld. Rich, deep, intense, bursting with joy or sorrow, Bechet poured his soul through the horn, and the crackle he got from the wood was inimitable.

Bechet grew up in New Orleans, that garden of exotic clarinet sounds which quickly spread over the rest of the country, but never gained institutional acceptance in music schools. It was (and is) a "talking style" of playing, reminiscent of the way some historians have suggested early clarinetists in Europe played as well. Clinical and sterilized sounds are not considered a virtue in this style of playing, and every timbre from the sweet to the rough, the sublime to the piercing, is expected, exploited, and extended.

Part of the mission of The Jazz Clarinet is to reacquaint or introduce clarinetists to a variety of approaches, sound concepts, and styles which are often frowned upon or banned from the American conservatory establishment. Several of the recordings I've already shared fall into this category, the present being no exception.

"Blue Horizon" is one of the finest blues played on any instrument. I encourage every clarinetist, regardless of background or aspirations, to transcribe this solo--it will only make you a better, more flexible, and more emotional player.



Big Band Jazz Clarinet: Essential Performances (9)

9. Barney Bigard & the Duke Ellington Orchestra * Mood Indigo * 1931


Barney Bigard (1906-1980) was an unusual figure in the history of jazz clarinet. From New Orleans, he was taught by the legendary Lorenzo Tio, Jr., instructor of nearly every great NOLA player we remember from that era--including Sidney Bechet, Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds, Omer Simeon, and Albert Nicholas. Yet of them all, Bigard was the only one who spent significant time, both touring and recording, with a prominent Big Band. That it was Duke Ellington's, arguably the most creative Big Band of them all, is a decided bonus.

Ellington had a love for the clarinet, fostered by his early experience hearing Sidney Bechet, who he referred to as "the foundation" and "symbol" of all jazz. (Dance, p10) For a time early in his career, Duke was able to get Bechet in the band, though Bechet never stayed with one group for very long, and was notoriously in and out of the music business for various reasons. Perhaps it was Ellington's love of the New Orleans Albert-system sound that made Bigard such a perfect fit. It remains one of Duke's great achievements that the New Orleans sound could be so well integrated into such a large ensemble.

The clarinetists of the Ellington band have been sometimes neglected by critics, sometimes over praised. Bigard himself was remarkably outspoken and shrewd in his opinions of the clarinetists inside and outside the band. For those of us distant from the era, it's helpful to read the words of an accomplished player from that era:

What [ Artie ] Shaw did to begin with was to make the clarinet sound unusually beautiful in the upper register. He wasn't a low-register guy, but he was more creative than Benny Goodman. Benny did all the popular tunes and standards, but Shaw made up his own and played them so well. The guy could execute like mad. Benny could also execute, and had much more drive than Artie, but I like Artie for the things that are almost impossible to do on the clarinet.
 

I thought Buster Bailey was one of the fastest clarinetists there ever was. He had his own style, and I could always tell his playing. He was a good musician with good execution, but he didn't have the jazz drive or the soul in there like Goodman and some other guys. In other words it didn't have the oomph to it. Where Buster was great was in a studio or a show. That's the same way I figure with [ fellow Ellingtonian] Jimmy Hamilton. He's a terrific clarinetist, but he doesn't have that soul to go with what he's doing. He should have been in classical music. He's got that studio tone to begin with, and he plays straight and fluent, but it's not jazz.

Omer Simeon was a fine musician, an unsung hero, and a great clarinet player. 

[from Stanley Dance's The World of Duke Ellington. pgs88-89]

To those of us who have read some rather strange scholarship on jazz clarinet, these words are a refreshingly clear headed assessment of the era, and worth remembering.

 

100 Jazz Tunes Everyone Should Hear (#8) Sidney Bechet in 1946

#8 - Sidney Bechet - 'Bechet's Fantasy' - 1946

One of the finest soprano saxophone recordings ever captured; a perfect representation of Bechet's tonal beauty and melodic mastery. Jazz doesn't get better than this.

[ This is not a comprehensive list, nor is it representative of the "most important" or "best." Instead, following Duke Ellington's adage that the greatest music and musicians are "beyond category", I'm starting 2020 by sharing 100 jazz tunes I feel everyone should have the chance to hear--really just tunes and performances that I love. ]

Conn or Buescher? The Question of Sidney Bechet's Soprano Sax

Conventional wisdom and several websites suggest that Sidney Bechet played a Buescher True Tone Soprano Sax from the 1920s throughout his later career. I'm pretty sure I've seen plenty of footage and photographs of him with that Buescher, so this video surprised me. In it, he seems to be playing not a Buescher but a Conn, with the distinctive right hand thumb ring clearly displayed in the first number on this video ("Buddy Bolden's Stomp").

If anyone knows about this and Bechet's use of a Conn Soprano Sax, please let me know! It would be interesting to find out if there is any documentation of when he played this other than the video.

Jelly Roll Morton 1928-29 (featuring Russell Procope, George Baquet, Albert Nicholas, & Barney Bigard) * CD 322 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

When starting this blog over six years ago, I knew it would take a while before addressing recordings like these. The repertoire is important, because many of the tunes are great and the composer/bandleader was a giant of jazz, but the clarinet playing is generally bad and sometimes awful. My goal for this blog was (and remains) to build a substantial body of reviews demonstrating true greatness of clarinetists throughout the various eras. Unfortunately, the overall recorded catalog of music that was created in the 1920s and 30s, which is arguably the most important era for the clarinet, was a bit indiscriminate as to the quality of players. Many of the greatest virtuosi (Jimmie Noone, Benny Goodman) were recorded right alongside some of the worst clarinetists ever documented in the studio. The poor players are almost universally flat, can't handle high notes especially, their tone is overwraught and weak from overblowing,  they break notes, their tonguing his ham fisted, their rhythm is bad, and unfortunately, they are too often copied as "authentic" by amateurs and doubling professionals alike.

While blues grittiness and pitch inflection are an essential part of playing jazz clarinet, an overall flat and flabby tone is not competent playing, no matter who is doing it. Neither Sidney Bechet nor Jimmie Noone played this way--their styles, while far apart in terms of timbre and instrumental approach, are worthy models of imitation. The same can be said of many Johnny Dodds recordings, such as the sides he cut with King Oliver. But Dodds, like many others, struggled at times with his pitch, and we should be honest about those moments. Now a word of caution: we shouldn't take this too far as no one plays spot on in tune, in a mechanical sense, every time. You can find plenty of examples of variable intonation, especially if you're tracking note to note, in any of the great players--including classical virtuosi who work within even more limited intonational parameters. But as a rule, the great players aren't sagging consistently below pitch, or riding a quarter tone sharp either.

This collection demonstrates the big step down in clarinetistry in Jelly Roll Morton's bands after the initial recordings with Omer Simeon and Johnny Dodds. A young Russell Procope (who had improved somewhat by the time he played with Ellington) plays flat on December 6, 1928's "Red Hot Pepper" and his solo on "Deep Creek Blues" is a real disappointment for such a beautiful tune. We can only imagine what a player like Noone or Bechet would have done.

By July 9, 1929, Procope had been replaced by George Baquet, who isn't any better. His clarinet is particularly bad on the out chorus of "Burnin' the Iceberg" and haunts "Courthouse Bump" and "Pretty Lil" from the same date as well. His intonation is so bad it sounds almost like a drunken parody at times. His low level playing continues on the next day's session, flabbing his way through a solo on "Sweet Aneta Mine" and sticking out horribly for his flatness on "New Orleans Bump (Monrovia)."

The torture continues on July 12, 1929, when Baquet rasps, flabs, and squeaks his way through "Down My Way", "Try Me Out", and "Tank Town Bump." I can't stress it enough: This is not 'authentic' jazz clarinet playing; it's just incompetent. Frankly, this sort of playing is unlistenable for any serious clarinetist, revealing that the standards for our very difficult instrument were sometimes poorly maintained on recordings, even by the most important band leaders. The clarinet playing is so bad the recordings would have better without a clarinet--and unfortunately, perhaps in part because of hideous performances like these, many bandleaders started deciding exactly that.

By November 13, 1929, Jelly Roll had replaced his clarinetist again, this time for a Red Hot Peppers session featuring Albert Nicholas, the childhood friend of Sidney Bechet who was to record successfully with him later in life. These recordings are not Nicholas's greatest recorded work by a long shot--he tends to be on the flat side, and his solos aren't great-- but he's at least a step up from the truly abysmal playing of Baquet.

Even Barney Bigard can't rescue this album, though his clarinet playing is better than most on the disc. The final four tunes, recorded on December 17, 1929, feature the Jelly Roll Morton Trio with Bigard on clarinet and Zutty Singleton on drums. Bigard struggles with his high clarion, altissimo intonation, and his attacks. Even though his ideas tend to be decent (he was a far more competent clarinetist at this point than anyone else on the Jelly Roll Morton sessions from these years) that really isn't saying much. His playing is excruciatingly out of tune on tunes like "Turtle Twist" and "My Little Dixie Home." This isn't good Bigard...it's actually embarrassingly bad for someone who was to play better (if inconsistently) in the future.

So why bother writing a review like this? Well, there are a couple of reasons. One of them is to say there have to be professional standards. If  a player can't handle the instrument on a basic level of musicianship, they can do real damage to the estimation of the instrument overall. Players like Buddy DeFranco and Artie Shaw routinely dismissed or disparaged the early New Orleans players, implying or openly saying they weren't important to the history of the instrument in jazz. If all anyone had heard were these Jelly Roll Morton sides, or some of the Hot Fives session where Johnny Dodds struggled with his intonation, this could be understood as an act of professional self preservation as much as anything else. This disc features such bad clarinet playing, it makes you want to go back in time with a saw and savagely adjust their barrels. But to dismiss all of New Orleans clarinet because of this would be terribly wrong. All one has to do (and should do) is listen to some Jimmie Noone as an antidote.

This disc earns a broken reed for clarinetists.

Book Review : Tom Sancton * Song for My Fathers: A New Orleans Story in Black and White

Jazz clarinetists are particularly fortunate when it comes to autobiographies. Contributions to the genre include some of the most important players in the history of the instrument: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Barney Bigard, Woody Herman, Pete Fountain, and Mezz Mezzrow have each published volumes, and at least one of them—Sidney Bechet’s Treat It Gentle—ought to be considered a masterpiece of American literature in its own right. Among the more recent books written by jazz clarinetists, however, is an extremely important memoir by Tom Sancton: New Orleans native, one time Paris Bureau chief for Time magazine, and trad jazz clarinetist.

Sancton’s book is entitled Song for My Fathers: A NewOrleans Story in Black and White (Other Press, New York, 2006). Beginning with the New Orleans jazz funeral of Doc Celestin on December 18, 1954, we’re given more than a glimpse into a crucial two decades of Crescent City history, unfolding through the eyes of young Tom Sancton. Son of a reporter and aspiring novelist, whose mother was a southern belle, he is thrown into the world of Creole and black jazz musicians during the foundation of Preservation Hall. His perspective is unique: a white kid in that milieu, at a point in time that will never be repeated—when musicians like George Lewis, Creole George Guesnon and Sweet Emma Barrett pioneered the early jazz revival.

The book is masterful, combining many genres seamlessly. A coming of age story, a chronicle, an analysis of oral tradition music making, with the flair and page-turning quality of a novel, this is simply one of the best books about jazz, and about New Orleans, I’ve ever read. Through much of it, Sancton’s adolescence on display as he learns to play clarinet, falls in love for the first time, and tries to balance his passion for jazz with school and other obligations. We overhear him taking music lessons from Lewis and Guesnon; in the process becoming privy to their struggles, ambivalences, and hesitations, as they were finally showcased and given a share of success for the music they helped pioneer and preserve. Throughout the book, the figure of his father looms large: the younger Sancton’s admiration, then disillusionment, with his father is skillfully and poignantly told, settling into a sober middle aged reassessment. None of this interferes with the musical aspect of the story—instead, like the quality of New Orleans jazz itself, Sancton’s life and the music become inseparable.

Like Sidney Bechet’s autobiography, this written demonstration of the life becoming the music, and the two flowing in and out of each other, is the most remarkable aspect of the book. Anyone who seriously involves themselves with New Orleans jazz must eventually come to this conclusion: it is the life one lives, and the depth of one’s soul, that must come through the music. There is no faking it. And Tom Sancton fakes nothing: you can smell the Zatarain’s, feel the humidity, taste the danger of bullets being thrown during a parade, get lost in the tunes—you can experience with him a type of hero worship turning bitter, then mellowed, then resolving into something like pure gratitude. I picked this volume up on the recommendation of a friend from NOLA, and at first wasn’t so sure what to think. It ended up giving me a far deeper appreciation of music, life, and the relationship of the two.

[ This review first published in the September 2015 edition of the EARLYJAS Rag ]

Jelly Roll Morton 1930 (featuring Lorenzo Tio, Jr; Albert Nicholas and others ) * CD 323 from JSPCD Jazzbox903 * Remastered by John R.T. Davies

For as disappointing as Volume Two of JSP's Jelly Roll Morton box is from a clarinetist's perspective, Volume three is a real treat, at least for most tracks. This disc covers the Red Hot Peppers recordings from sessions in 1930. Of particular interest to clarinetists will be two gems, "Little Lawrence" and "Harmony Blues", featuring Lorenzo Tio, Jr.. Tio was the youngest of a family of clarinet players and teachers whose influence on the history of jazz clarinet would be difficult to exaggerate. Junior taught Sidney Bechet, Jimmie Noone, Omer Simeon, Johnny Dodds, Barney Bigard, Albert Nicholas, and other important jazz clarinetists of the early 20th century, and the foundation of the New Orleans sound is evident in his playing on these records--lush, round, and soulful. Despite his activity in both New Orleans and New York over the course of his career, he actually recorded very little (only a few sessions with Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet, and Morton), so these sides are an absolute must for jazz clarinet aficionados.

The rest of the CD is taken up with various clarinetists who generally do a good job, including Happy Caldwell, a mystery clarinetist who might have been Ernie Bullock or Jerry Blake, and Albert Nicholas, who is in much better form for these recordings than the ones from a year or so earlier. His tone is full and mellow--the sound we generally associate with his playing. His chalumeau solo on "Low Gravy" sounds particularly influenced by Jimmie Noone, and he's focused on even more on "Strokin' Away." "Blue Blood Blues" is perhaps the best of the bunch, beginning with a truly beautiful chalumeau melody, which seems to portend the chalumeau work of Acker Bilk and Terry Lightfoot some thirty and forty years later.

The disc is rounded out with two tunes featuring a mystery clarinetist of lesser quality, but the songs themselves ("Gambling Jack" and "Fickle Fay Creep") are well worth hearing.

"No America, No Jazz": Some Reflections on the Place of Jazz in American Culture on the Anniversary of 9/11

Art Blakey summarized and resolved many historical and philosophical difficulties when uttering his compact assessment of the origins of jazz:

"Jazz is known all over the world 

as an American musical art form 

and that’s it. 

No America, no jazz."  

Though he was addressing specific issues within the jazz community at the time, his observation had long reaching implications. Jazz musicians are often viewed as a fringe of society, rather than central to it; as an anachronism rather than of contemporary relevance; as a protest to the established culture rather than culture itself. The central paradox is that the jazz musician, arguably more than any other artist in the nation's history, has developed the artform most inextricably linked to that history, yet not answering to the materialism and consumerism which most people assume (for better or for worse) are the substance of America. 

When commercialism pushes hedonism, jazz still sings about true love. When our musical mainstream glorifies violence (whether urban or militaristic), jazz reminds us of greater values than brute strength. When materialism denies a spiritual component to public discourse, jazz counters with Bechet, Ellington, Coltrane, contemporary works by Wynton Marsalis, Don Byron, Dave Douglas, and countless artists in between. 

Alexis de Tocqueville noted almost two centuries ago that the American myth was dependent, in part, upon a rhetoric of individuality masking a practice of rigid conformity. Jazz ignores and rejects that hypocrisy, demanding a fully developed, responsible individuality. 

America prefers huge corporate entities with elaborate hierarchies; Jazz remains purest when practiced in small groups of equally responsible members.

Finally, the ultimate paradox: Jazz is respected in many places globally more than its homeland. Big name jazz musicians more frequently play in Tokyo, London, or Paris than they do in many American cities.       

Considering this bleak and strange relationship, what is the jazz musician to think about patriotism? Is there a place for the jazz musician in the discussion of country? 

On this anniversary of 9/11, I look back and think about the roots of it all. Blakey was right: No America, no jazz. If we love jazz, we must in some very deep and often paradoxical ways love America. We must love that something beautiful, life-affirming, intensely creative, inexhaustible was brought out of the darkest of experiences of inhumanity here--that the oppressed and abused were given a place to sing, praise, and shout the complexities of redemptive suffering through the medium of sound. We must acknowledge that it grew here, that the soil was good enough for it, that there was indeed enough air, sunshine, and nutrition to bring it all about and sustain it.  

Jazz, this unique system which allows humanity that utterance of joy, even if we walk the Via Dolorosa, was born and raised here. That wasn't an accident. Sometimes, our consciences aren't appreciated--they seem to keep us from having fun, or getting what we think we want. And jazz can be like the conscience of America--it reminds us we're not perfect, that we don't always make the right decisions, that our sense of morality, progress, and self-congratulatory attitude is suspect. But at the same time, the conscience reminds us of the real things, the beautiful things, the eternal things. And jazz does that too. One moment, Coltrane is screaming, howling--the pain of injustice blazing through his horn. The next, he's soothing, comforting, praising with a Psalm. One moment Bechet is moaning in sorrow, giving voice to an existential weight; the next, he's lightening our load and our feet--reminding us, like Ellington, that if today is Friday, Sunday is on the way. Sonny Rollins, Artie Shaw, Charles Lloyd, Sidney Bechet, and countless others did the disappearing act at one time or another: dropping out of the commercial scene altogether for years at a time. They taught us how to prioritize the music and the soul first, for the truth it was supposed to contain, and to come back when ready--when it was good for themselves and America. 

Jazz reminds us of a place we've never been: a place we're supposed to be. Then it paradoxically whispers and shouts of an America that is always there, but overlooked, sometime trampled on. Jazz is freedom above ideology, love above violence, truth above mammon. It's true there is no Jazz without America, but it's also true that Jazz Happened Here--there is, in essence, No America (as we know it) without Jazz. 

America needs Jazz: needs a truth-teller, a reminder, an art challenging it to live up to its rhetoric. And Jazz musicians can never forget their humble roots in this American soil. So today, when we raise our horns to our lips, on whatever gig we're playing, or wherever we're shedding, I hope we're blowing out blessings on this people, this place that needs us, that we love, even when it doesn't recognize us, and even when it's hard for us to try.     



[ Prayers and Peace to all who lost loved ones on or after September 11, 2001].

Announcing: 2018 Concert Series at BLU Jazz +

HAPPY NEW YEAR JAZZ CLARINET FANS! 

Mark your calendars and be sure to join us this Saturday, January 6th at 8pm as we launch our 2018 Concert Series at Akron's DownBeat rated Night Club: BLU Jazz + 

Our concert series is entitled "Jazz Clarinet Composers from Bechet to Today." 

We'll be featuring original tunes by Sidney Bechet, George Lewis, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Acker Bilk, Eric Seddon, and others--a century of Trad Jazz originals--many of which are brilliant tunes rarely heard live! This is your chance to hear living jazz history...

We lead off with Bechet this Saturday!