Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet made the saxophone an indispensable part of jazz, and helped define the role of the soloist in jazz performance. Born in New Orleans in 1897, Bechet proved himself a musical prodigy, mastering the cornet from an early age. He played in local jazz bands, and his skills convinced cornetist Bunk Johnson to ask him to join the Eagle Band, where he gained much of his early experience. At the age of 19, Bechet went to Chicago with pianist Clarence Williams and his variety show, and a few years later left for London with Will Marion Cook's Southern Syncopated Orchestra. While in London, Bechet acquired and mastered a soprano saxophone, the instrument that he would become most famous. He played this instrument and the clarinet with a broad and forceful vibrato, a passionate style that would inspire later jazz musicians, including Duke Ellington. His passage through the recording studio yielded some remarkable performances, including a series of duets with Louis Armstrong. Much of Bechet's career was spent abroad, a fact that is recorded in the many songs he wrote as a tribute to France, his second homeland. Shortly after dictating his autobiography, Treat It Gentle, Sidney Bechet died in 1959 in Paris.
