Sidney Bechet All Stars Tribute Octet - Master Of Soprano Sax & Clarinet

Doors open at 6:00pm. Try to be seated by 6:30pm to have your dinner order taken. Showtime begins at 7:00pm when we transform the space into a theater.

Out of respect for the performers and other patrons, please keep talking to a whisper during the performance.

Very Limited Occupancy. Tables seating 2, 4, 5 guests, with tables for 6, 8, 12 available upon request. Single, general admission tickets are also available. See The Attached Seating Chart. Admission Is $15.00 - $25.00 Per Person, Ticket prices may be higher for special performances. Having problems with the ticketing system? Call 203-247-4273

Parking: Please park in LaZingara's lot or on Greenwood Ave. or School Street. Please avoid parking in P.T. Barnum Square.

Check out the band:

Beloved Musician Sidney Bechet

Sidney Bechet is one of the best-loved musicians of early jazz. His music is fundamental to its development and central to the story of New Orleans clarinet. And he was the first to introduce soprano saxophone to jazz.

Bechet was a contradictory musician. He was uniquely talented with a keen understanding of music, yet never learned to read or write it. Despite his prodigious gifts he failed to achieve wide success, in part because he distrusted managers and bookers and never stayed in one place long.

By age 30 he had taken Europe by storm alongside Josephine Baker. Though he toured Europe (including the Soviet Union) twice, he was once deported from France, and from Britain, despite a command performance at Buckingham Palace. Decades later he settled in France, becoming a national icon.

Bechet enchants the ear with a wide range of sounds and inventive tricks: growls, blue and bent notes, and of course his pronounced vibrato. He improvises on the chords while keeping melody subordinate to his own conception of the music. And he has an unmatched feeling for the blues. Creating rhapsodic micro-concertos, Bechet had a special talent for lyrically concertizing in a jazz context.

The distinctive husky reed tone that Bechet developed was also heritage of an earlier generation of New Orleans Creole reed players. His bravura, almost operatic interpretation of blues and ballads may echo the French Opera in New Orleans and his brief studies with some of the Creole clarinet masters who had played there before 1900.

Building on that legacy Sidney created richly expressive virtuoso performances full of hushed theatricality and bravura expression. Excellent examples are his treatment of composer Victor Herbert’s “Indian Summer,” Bechet’s original “Out of the Gallion,” the melodramatic “Egyptian Fantasy,” and his greatest masterpiece, "Blue Horizon."

Bechet developed a wide range of tone qualities ranging from a round oboe-like richness, to a cutting harshness that rang out like a brass instrument. At times he would drown out unwary trumpeters who might attempt competition for the limelight.

Like many New Orleans Creole clarinetists Bechet grew up playing in the older Albert keying-system clarinet (vs the modern Boehm system) which tend to have a richer fuller sound. Sidney amplified that, switching to soprano sax which has a greater sound volume and even more assertive timbre. On soprano sax, Sidney built up a huge sound that could easily compete with the brass, at times even utilizing a steel reed in his mouthpiece.

Financial success eluded Bechet most of his life, due in part to his distrust of bookers and managers, his wanderlust, arrogance, and enigmatic, unpredictable ways. Only after a permanent move to France in the 1950s did he achieve the widespread respect, success and adulation he craved . . . and deserved.

Living in France during the last decade of his life, Sidney married a German woman he’d known in the Twenties and kept a mistress with whom he had a son. Bechet bought a small estate outside Paris and drove a fancy coupe at high speeds through the countryside. He seems to have been very happy in France -- where he made a lot of money and was worshiped like royalty. Almost forgotten in America at the time of his passing in 1959, his death was practically a national day of mourning in France.

A complex and contradictory individual, Bechet was a man of swift passions: which was his strength as a musician but weakness as a man. Clearly a musical genius, he was a brilliant and intuitive composer, unparalleled soloist, and skilful musical director. Until the later emergence of John Coltrane he completely dominated the field of soprano saxophone.

As love for Sidney Bechet’s music endures, estimation of his genius and vision has continued to grow.

Bio courtesy of: http://jazzhotbigstep.com/

We're sorry, there are no refunds after tickets have been purchased. In the event of a pandemic, rain, snow, or other forms of weather which prohibit a performance, the performance date will be postponed and rescheduled for another date within a reasonable amount of time. If the new date is postponed, a future alternate date will be picked at the discretion of Bethel Jazz and the musical artist. The ticket holder will be notified of postponements, cancelations, and rescheduled dates via email. Tickets are non-refundable and may be transferred to another person in the event a purchaser can not make the rescheduled date. In the event, an artist cancels a date, and Bethel Jazz is unable to reschedule the artist, Bethel Jazz reserves the right to provide a substitute performer of equal quality without notice to the ticket purchaser. If a date is canceled and not rescheduled, Bethel Jazz will provide a refund (in some cases minus the Eventbrite fee) or credit for another performance at the choice of the ticket holder. Bethel Jazz will always do its best to accommodate for changes in seating, table sizes, or changes to tickets.

Host or Publisher Bethel Jazz