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Sidney Bechet
(1897 – 1959)

Over the course of a long career, New Orleans-born clarinetist/soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet was an early pioneer of jazz improvisation and an ardent defender of the Dixieland style in his later years. He was one of the first jazz expatriates, taking up residence in cities like Paris and London (where he discovered the soprano sax), but legal problems forced his return to the U.S. He was a large influence on the development of Swing and gave lessons to a number of its great stars, including Jimmie Noone and Johnny Hodges. The development of bebop eclipsed Bechet's music in the U.S., but in the Fifties Bechet found acceptance as a musical hero in France, and he made his home there until his death in 1959.