Sydney Bechet - Really The Blues (2018) [DSD128]

This remastered collection focuses on American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, & composer Sidney Bechet. His legendary quintet, the Mezzrow-Bechet Quintet, brings to life some of Bechet’s most influential & acclaimed compositions & arrangements.
From the time that Mezz Mezzrow 1st heard Sidney Bechet playing with the Original New Orleans Creole Jazz Band in Chicago in 1918, he nursed a burning ambition to record with him, inspired by the duets Bechet played with the band’s clarinettist leader, Lawrence Dewey. It took Mezzrow 20 years to realise that ambition, finally achieving his goal when French critic Hugues Panassie made his recording safari to New York in November 1938.
The 12 tracks on this album are of later vintage, a selection from the sides that Mezzrow made in the mid-40s when he was president of the King Jazz record company.
The Mezzrow-Bechet partnership was a conspicuously 1-sided match because Mezzrow had nothing like Bechet’s stature as a musician. But he was undoubtedly a good catalyst for Bechet, for whom he had a boundless admiration, & he made no secret of his inability to measure up to Bechet’s almost overpowering virtuosity.