Sydney Bechet—”I’ve Found A Baby” (1932)

On September 15, 1932 Sidney Bechet directed the first recording session under his own name in the RCA Victor studios in New York. The small group was called Sidney Bechet & his New Orleans Feetwarmers and they recorded 6 titles for the Bluebird label, including Spencer Williams’ composition “I’ve Found A New Baby.”

Tommy Ladnier-trumpet; Teddy Nixon-trombone; Sidney Bechet-soprano sax; Henry Duncan-piano; Wilson Meyers-double bass; and Morris Morland-drums. Even during the dark days of depression, these lads knew a thing or two about swing and this record shows us how they played with vigor and vitality.

Sidney Bechet was born in New Orleans on May 14, 1897, the youngest of seven children of a shoemaker, and displayed a marked musical ability at the age of six on a clarinet borrowed from his brother. He was taken in hand by another early jazzman, George Baquet, but none the less remained largely self-taught.

From the age of 18 Bechet started playing regularly with various local bands and subsequently traveled throughout the United States and Europe, playing the clarinet at first but later turning to the soprano saxophone, the instrument that is now inseparably linked with his name. His musical career was linked with virtually all the famous names of the jazz world at one time or another and he displayed a great facility at holding his own against such figures as Louis Armstrong, Bunk Johnson, King Oliver and Jelly Roll Morton.

His forceful, melodic style cut through unmistakably in any company and his broad vibrato and singing tone were entirely individual. At his best Bechet was responsible for some of the most exciting music in jazz. As well as an instrumentalist Bechet was a composer of talent in the jazz idiom. His melodies have the same lilting, slightly melancholy quality as much of his playing and they were mostly intended as vehicles for himself. Of one of his tunes -- “Petite Fleur”-- more than a million records have been sold.

For the last ten years of his life, Sidney Bechet, had been living in France, where he died in his villa in Garches, near Paris, on May 14, 1959, his 62nd birthday.