Search - Sidney Bechet :: Sidney Bechet 1923-1936

While Sidney Bechet may have represented Louis Armstrong's only real competition as a soloist in the 1920s, the great New Orleans clarinetist-soprano saxophonist was inevitably cast as a sideman on his early recordings. The earliest tracks here capture Bechet providing adroit accompaniments to the undistinguished singer Rosetta Crawford at the height of the first blues craze. The CD then leaps ahead to 1931 to find Bechet in the orchestra of Noble Sissle. Sissle led a commercial dance band that often featured his own vocals. While there's little to suggest jazz in Sissle's own voice, he often featured "hot" accompaniment, here provided by trumpeter Tommy Ladnier along with Bechet. The real interest on this disc comes in a 1932 session by the New Orleans Feetwarmers. In this context, Bechet and Ladnier are free to unleash their talents, and the result is six superb tracks of classic New Orleans counterpoint, including excellent versions of "I've Found a New Baby" and Scott Joplin's classic "Maple Leaf Rag." The rest of the disc is given over to 1934 and 1936 sessions by Sissle and his orchestra. While Bechet is occasionally given the spotlight--he makes the most of it with a dancing solo on "Polka Dot Rag"--he's often inaudible in the large ensemble. The most interesting facet of the final Sissle session is the recording debut of a teenaged Lena Horne, sounding hesitant on "That's What Love Did to Me" and "I Take to You." While the Chronological Classics series is generally comprehensive, this represents only a small part of Bechet's recorded output in the period, many of his sessions appearing in the series under other artists' names. --Stuart Broomer