1944 - December 20

Sidney Bechet’s Jazz Men – December 20 1944

 

The Record Changer – July 1945 

These two new releases by Blue Note are exceptionally fine. If there was ever a healthy tune it is Muskrat Ramble by Kid Ory. Not a blues but neither is it a popular tune. The men play it with the greatest joy. The first section is repeated—it is so fine it needs repeating. The gusto of the third section is terrifically exciting. The trombone blasts out the beginning of each phrase in this section and makes some other renderings I have heard seem anemic. Dickerson has a very melodic and gracious solo. It is a little out of the Muskrat Ramble spirit, but I suppose we need a little change after the vigorous beginning. Bechet takes two very good choruses, growling a lot in the second. The finale builds well with de Paris playing a good lead. 

Blue Horizon is an extraordinary solo record. Bechet's tone is like nothing I have ever heard. His vibrato is so pronounced that we nearly hear the very rattle of it. There is nothing forced in his tone as this vibrato seems to flow of its own account, especially on the deep low notes with which he usually ends his phrases. The choruses are simply conceived, in fact are a little too simple. Or first hearing I was taken with the sound of his clarinet. Hearing it again seemed to reveal a lack of inventiveness. The choruses seemed to hinge on an unchanging pattern. Subsequent hearings, however, revealed the piece as being quite just in its composition and when one does not expect startling invention the piece takes on an overall quality of good composition. The different choruses take on just enough newness to carry the piece along without protruding in themselves. Bechet did a fine job and a job not as easy as it looks; he could have very easily become repetitive. 

The Record Changer – April 1946 

When Handy published his St. Louis Blues the second or 16-bar section was written in the Habanera  
rhythm. Abbe Niles in his introduction to the "Blues" by Handy, says, "To Handy also is to be credited the introduction in the accompanying bass of some of his blues, of the Habanera or tango rhythm...” Granting that this rhythm originated in Africa and that there may have been some trace of it in early or pre-jazz music, its deliberate use in the published form, the accentuating of it in bands since then, has always given this section a non-jazz quality. The Blue Note men play the theme fairly straight in order to set it. On a one-chorus blues this is like a stated theme. The b a a b arrangement used here lengthens the whole theme too much, especially when the Habanera rhythm is so pronounced in the repeat of b.  

There is a great change with Bechet's reedy clarinet solo. He plays his two choruses with invention, great tone and an over-all feeling for register. The band behind him keeps up a good subdued busyness, While on Bechet, it must be noted that his work before his solo is excellent. His improvising on the harmonic part gives great interest to this secondary voice. 

Dickenson's solo is very good although a little easy after Bechet's intensity. Hodes' piano comes through with some interesting material while at the end of his solo we can hear Pops Foster plucking away at the bass. It is a good touch. The last two choruses led by de Paris are good but a little under the best of this record.  

Jazz Me Blues, that old jazz tune, is certainly a healthy specimen. The band plays it with great feeling for its style. In the second section Bechet takes some of the most wonderfully intriguing breaks I have ever heard him take.  

De Paris's solo is in his best manner of playing. He twists the tune just enough to give it a wonderful lilt. When he plays this way I feel that his whole musical spirit is coming forth. It is a very rhythmic style of playing and is one of the best off-straight styles there is. 

Dickenson's solo is good and varied but he is between two very great players so that he is a little dwarfed. Bechet's solo is most plaintive. It is legato in feeling as a contrast to that of the whole piece. Again he has a wonderful break and the whole solo is Bechet in his best form. Hodes' solo is especially good in the second half. He has a nice phrase that he repeats in different registers. The ensemble is fine at the end again with Bechet playing his wonderful break.  

All through this side Bechet can be heard. He is behind every solo and his playing gives the whole thing a wonderful contrapuntal "punch.” 

Down Beat May 6 1946 Volume 13 Issue 10 

Sidney gives us Jazz Me Blues and Saint Louis Blues on Blue Note 44. His outfit is made up of trumpeter Sidney De Paris, trombonist Vic Dickenson, clarinetist Bechet, pianist Art Hodes, bassist Pops Foster, and drummer Manzie Johnson. It’s hard to name the high spots of two such perfect hot records. De Paris’s lead and Dickenson’s solo on Jazz Me, Bechet’s solo and the rhythm backing on Saint Louis are perhaps tops. A greater jazz coupling has seldom appeared, even on Blue Note! 

Leonard Feather BLP 1201 Liner Notes 

IT IS POSSIBLE that there is in the world a more famous saxophonist than Sidney Bechet, though I am inclined to doubt it. It is beyond dispute that no other musicians has come within wailing distance of him on the particular saxophone of his choice, the soprano, an instrument he has virtually monopolized through most of his life. 

Bechet has, of course, a second ax to grind in the clarinet, which he began to play not long after the turn of the century. Born May 14, 1897 in New Orleans, he was six years old when he borrowed his brother Leonard's instrument, and eight when he became a protégé of George Baquet, clarinetist with the John Robichaux orchestra. Bechet's career has been so fabulously colorful that it is possible in this brief space to touch only on a few of the highlights. 

Kid Ory's Muskrat Ramble in which Bechet is joined by Sidney de Paris and Vic Dickenson. De Paris' incisive, powerful trumpet and Dickenson's versatile, swinging trombone contributed greatly to the success of this session. Blue Horizon presents another classic performance by Sidney. In somber, soulful phrases he masterfully builds to an exciting climax. This is without doubt one of his greatest clarinet solos. 

Dan Morgenstern Hot Jazz on Blue Note CD Liner Notes 

St. Louis Blues was [W.C.] Handy’s biggest hit and is one of the most frequently performed and recorded songs of this century. Bands, singers, and instrumentalists of every description and derivation have tackled it, and it survives. Louis Armstrong made several prime versions and backed Bessie Smith on her masterful rendition. This is one of the best interpretations by a jazz band. Here is a great front line: Sidney De, Paris, the inimitable Vic Dickenson, and Bechet on clarinet. And a most compatible rhythm section: Hodes, Pops Foster, and rock-steady Manzie Johnson. They open with the famous tango (or, more accurately, habanera) strain, then go into 12-bar blues. This is collective ensemble playing at its best; hear it through, then check out each individual part, then listen again. Bechet starts the solo sequence, growling in his lower register, spurred on by brass riffs. He goes up high for his second helping, moaning and preaching (he was quite a tonguer). Vic's "in there," as they used to say (now it's "in the pocket"). The rhythm section is hitting on all four behind him, and his second chorus is based on an Armstrong riff. Art takes one, Pops slapping behind him, and in the closing ensemble, which rocks, the trumpet part is almost a solo, yet functions perfectly as the lead. (I first acquired this recording in 1947 and must have heard it more, than a hundred times since then, but it hasn't lost its magic. This is a 
masterpiece. ) 

Max Harrison - The Complete Blue Note Recordings of Sidney Bechet - Mosaic Records MR6-110 

The December 1944 session was in many respects the most standardized of this Blue Note series, though a predictable choice of themes was offset by one magnificent surprise. It is no surprise that the clarinet solo is the best feature of ST. LOUIS BLUES, yet one feels, here and in both versions of JAZZ MEN BLUES, that Bechet is saving it up for something else. The conventionalisms of De Paris and the trombonist serve to highlight Bechet's individuality, and his ensemble parts remind us of Wilber's assertion that "He had a fantastic ear for finding the note that nobody else was playing," and that "He was very conscious of what everyone else was doing and he wanted everything to be related". The latter point is confirmed by the secondary part he plays to the trumpet and trombone solos in both accounts of JAZZ ME BLUES; for the MUSKRAT RAMBLE he switches to soprano saxophone and urges the other soloists on with background riffs instead of the melodic secondary parts he contributes to JAZZ ME BLUES. Quite different, and in fact one of the masterpieces of recorded jazz, is BLUE HORIZON. A major achievement of jazz improvising has been the discovery that melody can transcend the simple, mechanical repeating chord sequences upon which it is based, and here the melody is "endless" yet has perfect overall form, its wide arches being the creation of a master builder. A blues in E flat, it is taken at around quarter-note = 70, about as slow as jazz in the earlier styles can safely be played. There are many long notes whose pitch Bechet inflects both upwards and downwards to acutely emotional effect, distant brass riffs setting off his phrases beautifully. Even Hodes is affected, and he contributes more sympathetically then anywhere else in the series. 

Session Information 

Sidney DeParis, trumpet; Vic Dickenson, trombone; Sidney Bechet, soprano sax, clarinet; Art Hodes, piano; George "Pops" Foster, bass; Manzie Johnson, drums. 

WOR Studios, NYC, December 20, 1944 

BN205-1, Muskrat Ramble, Blue Note rejected 

BN206-1, St. Louis Blues, Blue Note 44, BLP 7003, BLP 1202; Mosaic MR6-110 

BN207-0, Jazz Me Blues (alternate take), Mosaic MR6-110 

BN207-3, Jazz Me Blues, Blue Note 44, BLP 7003, BLP 1202; Mosaic MR6-110 

BN208-0, Blue Horizon, Blue Note 43, BLP 7002, BLP 1201, BST 89902; Mosaic MR6-110 

BN209-0, Muskrat Ramble, Blue Note 43, BLP 7002, BLP 1201; Mosaic MR6-110