The Young Sidney Bechet

by Mark Berresford
(from the liner notes of The Young Sidney Bechet 1923 – 1925 on Timeless Records)

The October 1920 edition of The Dancing World, an English publication owned by and ran to primarily publicise the Hammersmith Palais de Danse, carried an article by Benny Peyton, leader of The Jazz Kings, then resident at the Hammersmith Palais and Rector's night club. In it he wrote: "I would like to mention Mr. Sidney Bechet, our clarionetist (sic), and it is no exaggeration to say that he is in a class by himself. Bechet is regarded by many who are competent to judge, as the most original and possibly the greatest of known clarionet (sic) players (at least of dance music) in the world, in saying which I would like to emphasise this is a statement of fact. He is, in many respects, the pride of our band and the envy of his rivals."

Praise indeed, if somewhat publicity-minded, for a musician who had already been lauded by the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet, in a famous critique, regarded by most jazz scholars as the first serious writing on jazz. The subject of Ansermet's article was the Southern Syncopated Orchestra, a vast organisation of African-American instrumentalists and vocalists, presided over by conductor/composer Will Marion Cook. Buried between the symphonic pieces and plantation ballads was some genuine jazz, most notably Bechet's instrumental feature Characteristic Blues, with which Ansermet was so impressed. 

Sadly, Bechet's playing at that time was unrecorded, or at least unissued; rumour has it that the Jazz Kings recorded High Society and Tiger Rag for Columbia, but the results were rejected. In view of the evidence of the band's repertoire being preserved in another Dancing World article, and consisting almost entirely of popular dance tunes of the day, it seems likely that the wish was the father of the thought!

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