Sidney Bechet: The Fabulous

Stephanie is reading in her suzani print wing-back, smothered by a charcoal fur throw, while I putter around the piano attempting to time the bridge within Joplin’s Solace.

She looks at me and says “I want to hear Sidney Bechet”.

Bechet, hmmm…  You sly girl, I don’t know how to play Bechet. (I’m certain she knows my limitations and is actually angling to halt the torture of my poor Knabe).

So be it.  A post about Sidney Bechet.

Bechet (1897-1959) was a well-known, Louis Armstrong era, jazz soloist who became a notorious world traveler. He played the Royal Philharmonic Hall in London, yet the Brits decided to deport Bechet after he served 13 days in jail for assault. Soon after, Bechet traveled to Paris where he played Théåtre des Champs-Élysées, and then, of course, he was deported – this time for challenging a heckler to a duel, he consequently served jail time after a passerby was shot.

His troubled past aside, Bechet managed to craft quite a career, some calling him the greatest jazz saxophonist in the world.  He returned to France and released a string of hits before dying on his sixty-second birthday.  Not to be deported again, Bechet remains buried at the Cimetiere de Garches just outside of Paris.

That’s it, back to the piano.

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0 thoughts on “Sidney Bechet: The Fabulous

  1. This is classy stuff for government geology work. I will definitely be popular with this blasting out of the office. Props to Steph for her demand!

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    1. she’s pretty damn classy

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