Word: bechets
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Almost a decade has passed since Sidney Bechet replaced Louis Armstrong as the unquestioned King of Jazz. Bechet is a complete original. He invented his own instrument, the soprano saxophone, a metal clarinet which is both reedier and brassier than the wooden version. With it he produces soaring, melodious, and fanciful clarinet passeges; deep, throaty, and emotional "trombone" interjections; and the clear, fiercely driving attack associated with the trumpet. Usually he does all at once, with a tone so magnificent one feels he could drive a truck down it and with such imagination and variety that one actually...
This immensity of tone and variety enables, almost compels, Bechet to dispense with a trumpeter. In his present quarter, "Big Chief" Russell Moore plays a sound and steady fill-in trombone, and his occasional solos are clean and imaginative, though not inspired. Art "Traps" Trappier keeps a driving beat on the drums without submitting to that urge for flashiness that often wrecks a band. Pianist Red Richards, the only new man in the group, is a skillful accompanist...
...Bechet is, of course, the whole show. He takes the standard classics-"Muskrat Ramble," "That's Aplenty," "Tin Roof Blues," etc.-and gets something different out of each of them. I have heard him play "High Society" at least five times, once for almost twenty minutes, and never did he repeat or borrow from any source other than his limitless creative inspiration. And he takes such surprising tunes as "Casey Jones" and turns them into jazz classics...
...When the Saints Go Marching In" is as astounding stylistically as is "High Society" creatively. Bechet slams into the opening chorus with a piercing, ringing attack that few trumpeters can match, flows into an inventive clarinet approach with more intensity and artistry than even Johnny Dodds at his most stirring, and drives on and on in the fashion which can be defined in only one way: Bechet...
...Bechet is fast and loud, of course. On blues numbers he packs so much emotion into lowregister laments and heart-breaking high-register flights that one expects to see tears streaming down his cheeks...