Jazz - General & Miscellaneous, New Orleans Jazz, African American Arts & Entertainment Biography, Jazz & Blues Musicians - Biography

Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz

Name: Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz
Author: John Chilton
ISBN: 9780306806780

by John Chilton

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Overview

Fifty years after hearing Sidney Bechet (18971959) in 1923, Duke Ellington recalled, "I have never forgotten the power and imagination with which he played." The first great jazz soloist, Bechet was a genius of the clarinet and the notoriously difficult soprano saxophone. In a career that spanned five decades and two continents he worked with Bunk Johnson, King Oliver, Duke Ellington, Josephine Baker, Jelly Roll Morton, and Louis Armstrong. He was a giant in early New Orleans jazz and a pioneer of improvisation whose contribution to the music, from the traditional to the avant-garde, has been a vital and lasting one. This biography reveals with insight and precision the man and his music, and illuminates the many events obscured by Bechet's own highly readable but factually suspect autobiography, Treat It Gentle.

Synopsis

"Fifty years after hearing Sidney Bechet (1897–1959) in 1923, Duke Ellington recalled, ""I have never forgotten the power and imagination with which he played."" The first great jazz soloist, Bechet was"

About the Author, John Chilton

About the Author:
John Chilton is one of Britain's preeminent jazz critics, and has written seven other books on jazz, including the definitive Who's Who in Jazz. He is also a trumpet player, and his band has accompanied many jazz greats, including Buck Clayton, Bill Coleman, Roy Eldridge, and Ben Webster.