The Fabulous Sidney Bechet (Blue Note)

There’s better Bechet to be sure, but this comp collecting a deuce of early 50s sessions by the aging straight horn savant has several advantages, sonically speaking. First there’s the fidelity afforded by studio tape technology that renders both bands in clarity not present on earlier shellac sides. Next there’s the ensembles themselves: two sextets manned by specialists of Nawlins swing vernacular both elder and acolyte who are clearly enamored of their famous front man and more than happy to follow his lead. Trombonist Jimmy Archey is the only sideman shared between the two and his staccato tailgate style jibes jovially with wailing soprano in the customary layered horn polyphony. Bear-shouldered bassist Walter Page lends a slightly more modernist bent to the second session by straying from the usual slap time syncopations with frequent walking detours. It’s great fun juxtaposing his Basie-born approach with that of the venerable Pops Foster who pounds his own strings with merciless glee on the first clambake. A similar contrast arises between brassmen Sidney de Paris and Jonah Jones, the former firing away with crisp clarion clusters while the latter, on the cusp of his career as a mood music cash cow for Capitol, plays it with greater degree of lissome cool. And the drummers display fealties to different eras too. Johnny Blowers’ tribal tom rolls on “Rose of the Rio Grande” recall classic Chick Webb while Manzie Johnson’s lively cowbell and woodblock accents on “Original Dixieland One-Step” give nod to Baby Dodds. The tunes on both dates represent little remove from Bechet’s usual repast. Hardscrabble blowers like “Ballin’ the Jack” and “Sweet Georgia Brown” alternate with cerulean dirges like “Black and Blue.” Bechet’s rapaciously tilted horn holds court at the center of the action, manhandling melodies and subjugating rhythms with a sumptuous vibrato that swells to fill the rooms. “Fabulous” isn’t superlative enough to describe the half of it.