porter ullman sidney bechet and his long song
TRANSCRIPT
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Sidney
Bechet and His
Long
Song*
BY LEWIS PORTER AND MICHAEL
ULLMAN
IN
1923,
clarinetist and
soprano-saxophonist
Sidney
Bechet
(1897-1959)
was
arguably
the
greatest
soloist
in
jazz,
although
soon
afterwards he was overtaken
by
his
lifelong
rival,
Louis
Armstrong (1901-1971).1 In the early twenties Bechet played with
a
rhythmic
drive
and technical skill
then
unparalleled,
and
he
improvised
more
freely
than
most other
jazz
musicians.
In
1923,
jazz
players
tended to think of
the solo as a set
piece,
an
original
composition
to
be
worked on
and
polished
in
private,
and to
be
played
in
roughly
the same
way
at each
performance.
Bechet
and
Armstrong,
however,
improvised
their
solos
to the
fullest
extent,
and influenced
others
to follow
their direction in what
turned
out
to
be the
way
of
the
future,
although
the difference
may
best
be
seen as a change in emphasis rather than a complete break with the
past.
We know more
about Bechet
than about most of his contem-
poraries,
for
fortunately
he
left behind
an
autobiography,
Treat It
Gentle
(published
posthumously
in
1960),
which
serves
as
a
primary
source of
documentation.2
All
references
to,
and comment
by
Be-
chet in
the
present
article
are based
on
the
autobiography
unless
otherwise indicated.
Bechet
was
"discovered" when
he
was about six
years
old. He
started as a clarinetist by surreptitiously picking up his brother's
clarinet,
and
teaching
himself
to
play.
According
to
legend
and to
his own
testimony,
the
first tune
he
learned
was
the
prophetic
"I
don't know where I'm
going
but
I'm
on
my way."
Within
a rela-
tively
short
time he
gained
some
measure of
competence
and
soon
found an
occasion to
demonstrate
it. His mother
had
planned
a
birthday
party
for
brother
Leonard,
an
amateur trombone
player
who
was
studying
to be
a
dentist,
and
had hired
Freddie
Keppard's
jazz
band to
provide
the
music.
But the
clarinetist,
George
Baquet,
failed to show up. Consequently, the assembled guests were startled
to
hear,
softly
in
the
background,
the
sound of
a
clarinet
sweetly
improvising.
After
searching
through
the
house,
they finally
came
into the
office
area,
and
there,
sitting
in
the
dark in
a
dentist
chair,
*
Much
of
this
material
will
appear
in
a
forthcoming
history
of
jazz
by
the
present
authors,
to be
published
by
Prentice-Hall,
nc.
Some of
its
material
previously
appeared
in
a
liner
essay
written
by
Lewis Porter for
the LP
reissue
Smithsonian
R026,
Louis
Armstrong
nd
Sidney
Bechet
n
New York.
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THE
BLACK
PERSPECTIVE
IN
MUSIC
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SIDNEY BECHET
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
orna-
mental
notes.
The
trombonist created a
slower
countermelody
based
on chord
progressions,
while the
clarinetist,
the least con-
cerned with the written
melody,
played
florid
obbligatos,
using
scales and
arpeggios.
But Bechet
was
unwilling
to
accept
this
tradi-
tional
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 Or-
leans 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."
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THE
BLACK
PERSPECTIVE
IN
MUSIC
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
pro-
grams
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
"Charac-
teristic
Blues,"
wrote:
There is in the SouthernSyncopatedOrchestraan extraordinaryclarinet
virtuoso who
is,
so it
seems,
the
first
of
his
race to have
composed perfectly
formed
blues
on
the
clarinet.
I've
heard two
of
them
which
he
had elabo-
rated 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
pitiless
ending
like
that
of
Bach's
second
Brandenburg
Concerto.
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
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SIDNEY
BECHET
grace
note an
octave
below.
As
early
as
1923,
he had
a
practice
on
fast numbers
of
hanging
a few
daringly lazy
notes
tantalizingly
over
the
rhythm. Just
when he seemed
ready
to stumble, he would
pick
himself
up
with
several
rapidly
executed
staccato
figures
that
re-
turned
him
squarely
to the
beat.
Bechet liked
to talk about music
as
if
it had a will of its
own;
the
job
of
a
musician
was
to find
out where the
music wanted to
go.
But
in
his
own
playing
he
typically
seemed to drive the music
before
him,
especially
in
his last choruses.
His
performance
on the
mar-
velous
"Maple
Leaf
Rag"
of
1932
ends with
several choruses
of
roof-raising
fervor
that
seemed to
surprise
all the
players exceptBechet
himself. He knew how
to build
a
performance,
chorus
by
chorus,
so
that he
always
made
a
splash
at the end. He
loved
melodies,
including
some
that seem
corny today; by
the
fifties,
"La
Vie
en
Rose,"
"Dear Old
Southland,"
"Song
of
Songs,"
and
even
"Swanee
River" were
a
regular
part
of
his
repertoire.5
Bechet
returned to New
York from
Europe
late
in
1922.
On 30
July
1923,
he
went into
the
studios to
make his
earliest
surviving
recordings.6
(An
earlier
session with
Bessie Smith
has
been
lost.)
The sessions were led by Clarence Williams (c1893-1965), a pianist
and
songwriter,
who
was
more
important
in the
music
world
as
a
music
publisher
and
record
producer.
Bechet
dominates the
"Wild
Cat
Blues"
and
"Kansas
City
Man
Blues,"
overshadowing
the
more
reticent
cornetist,
Thomas
Morris. "Wild
Cat Blues"
is not a
blues,
neither in
form
nor
mood.
Following
in
the
multi-thematic
ragtime
tradition,
it
has
four
themes,
each
sixteen
bars
long,
which
appear
in
the
following
order:
(four-bar
intro)
A
B
A C
D C
D C
(coda
based
on
D).
Bechet's
handling
of
the
breaks
in
the
minor-key
D
sections is particularly revealing. For the most part, he simply
arpeggiates
chords,
albeit
with
great
precision.
But
his
second
break in
the
second
D
section
is
more
rhythmically
creative: with
its
long,
initial
high
note and
syncopated
accent on
the
fourth
beat,
it
anticipates
Armstrong's
confident
breaks of
a
few
years
later.
Example
2.
Bechet's
break
from
"Wild
Cat
Blues."
/=intense
vibrato
Bechet
states the
theme of
the
"Kansas
City
Man
Blues,"
a
genuine,
twelve-bar
blues,
in
vibrant
long
tones
and
sharp
yips.
He
plays
his
soprano
saxophone
with
such
vigor
that
it
is
clear from
the
beginning
he
will
not
be
bound
by
the
restraints of
the
usual
accompanying
role
of
the
clarinetist.
Morris
is
overwhelmed
by
Bechet's
wonderfully
vocalistic
approach
to
blues-vocalistic
espe-
cially
in
its
rhythmic
freedom.
In
measure
4
of
the
first and
second
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THE
BLACK
PERSPECTIVE
IN MUSIC
choruses,
Bechet
plays
a
characteristic
descending
formula,
which
will
reappear
in later
solos.
Example
3.
Bechet's
formula
from
"Kansas
City
Man
Blues."
=
88
Growl
/ *i
2r
V
/
+?
jj
Bechet's blues solos
are full of
heavy
blues
inflections,
but he
often ends a chorus, as he does on "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues"
(recorded
in
October
1923),
with
a
major
third,
which
helps
to
resolve the
tension
created
by
the
preceding
"blue" thirds.
This
strategy
is
used
also on
later
records;
it
appears
twice,
for
example,
during
the
first
chorus of
his
"Blue
Horizon"
recording
of
1944.7
Example
4.
Bechet's blues formula.
The
"New
Orleans
Hop Scop
Blues" is
another
genuine
blues;
from
the
third chorus
on
it has a
strong boogie-woogie feeling.
In
an
example
of
long-range
planning
that was rare
in
1923,
Bechet
develops
in
the final chorus
a distinctive
idea
he
has
introduced
in
the fourth
chorus.
The idea forms the
basis
of
his final chorus.
Example
5.
Motive
in
Bechet's solo
on
"Hop
Scop
Blues"
chorus
4,
mm.
4-6.
3
In
October
1924
Bechet
joined
Louis
Armstrong
for
a
record-
ing
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
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SIDNEY
BECHET
most
glorious
three minutes in all of
jazz,
was made
8
January
1925.
The
unlikely
vehicle was the
Clarence
Williams
song
"Cake
Walkin' Babies from Home." It was
sung
on this date
by
Williams's
wife,
Eva
Taylor.
While her
sprightly
voice
lights up
this
pop-style
song,
the
joy
of the
performance
comes
with
its last two
ensemble
choruses,
during
which the
intensely
competive
Bechet
and
Armstrong
push
and
prod
each
other in
a
kind of
incandescent
free-for-all.
It is
a
masterpiece
of
what we
might
call
the "new" New
Orleans
style.
After
a
couple
of
stunning
Bechet
breaks,
Armstrong
sud-
denly explodes
with
several
repeated notes, higher
and louder
than
anything
he had
played
before,
that
sound like a
wake-up
call to
the
jazz
age.
He
seems
to
be
inventing
a
new,
harder kind
of
swing by
an act of sheer will.
Later,
Bechet
would
talk,
from his
unique
perspective,
about
what
made
these
sessions
so
valuable:
We were
working together.
Each
person,
he
was
the other
person's
music;
you
could feel
that
really
running
through
the
band,
making
itself
up
and
coming
out so new
and
strong
(Bechet,
176)
The
period
of
Bechet's
greatest
fame in the
United States
came
in the thirties after he
began
recording
under his own name for
Victor
and for
Blue
Note. In
1932
he
assembled a band with
his
friend,
trumpeter
Tommy
Ladnier,
also a
native
of
New
Orleans,
and recorded
six
numbers for
Victor.8
Among
them were
"Maple
Leaf
Rag;"
an
intense,
skittish
version of
"I've
found a new
baby";
and
a
sunny
rendition
of
a
novelty
number,
"Lay
Your
Racket"-all
presided
over
by
Bechet's
graceful
soprano
figures.
After
a
six-year
gap,
Bechet
again
recorded
with
Ladnier. Their
"Really
the
Blues,"
written
by
the
second
clarinetist
on
the
date,
Milton
"Mezz"
Mezzrow,
became
something
of
a hit.
During
1939
and
1940,
Bechet
recorded
regularly
with
a
quartet
that
included
the
young
Kenny
Clarke,
soon
to
become
a
formative
drummer of
modern
jazz.
These
titles
include
some
rare
Bechet
vocals,
among
them,
the
relaxed
and
informal
"Sidney's
Blues,"
which
has him
singing
about a
cat who
stood
up
"and
talked
like
a
natural man."
Bechet
was not
trying
to
rival
Bessie
Smith.
He
was
adventurous in
other
ways.
In
1939,
for
example,
he
recorded, with "Willie the Lion" Smith and "Zutty" Singleton, a
group
of
rhumbas and
Haitian
meringues,
emphasizing
their
infec-
tious
Carribean
dance
rhythms.9
Bechet
must
have
enjoyed
this
enterprise,
because he
totally
subsumes
himself
to the
music,
play-
ing
the
melodies
and
harmony
parts
simply,
without
elaborate
improvisation.
Perhaps
he
remembered
hearing
such
material in
New
Orleans
during
his
youth.
More
important
was his
recording
in
1939
of
the
celebrated
"Summertime"
for
Blue
Note.
(He
would
switch
between
Victor
and Blue Note until 1943, the year he did his last session for
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THE
BLACK
PERSPECTIVE IN
MUSIC
Victor.)
Played
by
Bechet on the
soprano,
"Summertime"
begins
with
a
sweetly
restrained statement of the
melody.
Bechet holds
his
vibrato in check until the second
chorus,
then
suddenly
growls
menacingly
and
opens up,
rising
in
pitch,
volume,
and
intensity
until he
reaches
the
striking
break
with which the
piece
ends.
Just
as
potent
is
the
celebrated
blues,
"Blue
Horizon"
of
1944,
which
Bechet
plays-one
is
tempted
to
say
sings-with
slow-motion
dig-
nity,
bending
notes
in
and out
of
pitch, moving
pensively
through
the chalumeau
register
of
the
clarinet,
and
building
up
to
long high
notes of
hair-raising
intensity.
There were
other
magnificent recordings
in the forties.
Among
the Victor
recordings
of
the
period
are several
pieces
by
Ellington,
including
"The
Mooche" in a
version that
Ellington
himself
was
said
to
admire,
and
"Mood
Indigo."
There
is little of a
middle-
eastern
tone about the
"Egyptian Fantasy"
of
1941,
especially
after
the
loosely
swinging
second
theme is
introduced,
but the
piece
is
distinctive
for
its calm
atmosphere
and
Bechet's clarinet breaks.
Other
recordings
for
Victor,
made
in
1940
and
1941,
show that
Bechet did not
feel wedded to New
Orleans ensemble traditions.
In 1940 Bechet recorded Earl Hines's "Blues in Thirds," an
unorthodox blues
waltz,
with
Hines and
Baby
Dodds,
and
in 1941
he
made the
haunting
instrumental version of
"Strange
Fruit" with
Willie
the Lion
Smith.
For
Blue
Note,
Bechet made
in
1946
the
magnificent
two-clarinet version
of
"Weary
Way
Blues,"
which Be-
chet shares with Albert
Nicholas.
The
performances-there
are
two
takes-begin
with the
clarinets
playing
the
minimal
theme in
tight
harmony;
then
almost
miraculously,
they
peel
off from
one
another,
and
spend
the
rest
of
the time
weaving
in
and
out of
each
other's lines with insinuating grace.
In 1941
Bechet
created two
curiosities for
Victor
with his
re-
cordings
of
"Sheik of
Araby"
and
"Blues of
Bechet"
as a one-man
band.
Perhaps,
as Mezz Mezzrow
believed,
Bechet
despaired
of
finding
the
ideal
accompaniment
according
to New
Orleans tradi-
tions,
so he
decided to
provide
his
own
accompaniment,
playing
as
many
as six
instruments himself
through
an
early
use
of
overdub-
bing.
Later,
he
complained
that
the
sides
would
have
been
better
if
he
had been
able
to
rehearse more
with the
recording
engineer.
Mezzrow, a clarinetist himself, blamed the lack of good accom-
panists
on
a
world
insensitive to
artistry.
He
said that
these records
were
among
"the
greatest
New
Orleans
jazz
performances
ever
recorded,
with
a
perfect
blend
and
balance between
all six
pieces,
and
it had
to be
done
by
Bechet
single-handed."10
Some
of
the
Blue
Note
sessions
in
the
later
forties were
marred
by
a
trite
Dixieland
background-Bechet
employed
several
awful
drummers.
But
the
date in 1945
with New
Orleans oldtimer
Bunk
Johnson
(1879-1949)
was
memorable.
Johnson,
who
preceded
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10/17
SIDNEY BECHET
Recording
Session of
the One-Man
Band,
1941.
All
photographs
of
Bechet
courtesy
of
the
Institute
of
Jazz
Studies,
Rutgers University.
143
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8/10/2019 Porter Ullman Sidney Bechet and His Long Song
11/17
144
THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC
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