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Bobby Hackett
Bobby Hackett
Background information
Birth name	Robert Leo Hackett
Born	(1915-01-13)January 13, 1915
Origin	Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Died	June 7, 1976(1976-06-07) (aged 61) Chatham, Massachusetts USA
Genres	Big band Swing Jazz
Occupations	Bandleader, Sideman
Instruments	Trumpet Cornet Guitar
Years active	1920's–1976
Labels	Storyville, Project 3 records, ADD, Classics, Segal Enterprices, DBK Jazz, Bluebird
Associated acts	Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, Tony Bennett, Benny Goodman, Ray McKinley, Jackie Gleason, Pee Wee Russell, Lee Wiley, Horace Heidt

Ernie Caceres, Bobby Hackett, Freddie Ohms, and George Wettling, Nick's, NYC, 1940s.
Photography by William P. Gottlieb.

Robert Leo "Bobby" Hackett (January 31, 1915 – June 7, 1976) was an US jazz musician who played trumpet, cornet and guitar with the bands of Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman in the late thirties and early forties.

Biography[link]

Hackett was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He made his name as a follower of the legendary cornet player Bix Beiderbecke: Benny Goodman hired him to recreate Bix's famous "I'm Coming Virginia" solo at his (Goodman's) 1938 Carnegie Hall concert.^[1] In the late 1930s Hackett played lead trumpet in the Vic Schoen Orchestra which backed the Andrews Sisters. Bobby Hackett can be heard on the soundtrack to the 1940 Fred Astaire movie Second Chorus.^[2] In 1939 the talent agency MCA asked Bobby Hackett to form a big band with their backing. Unfortunately the band failed and Hackett was in substantial debt to MCA after it folded. Bobby Hackett joined the bands of Horace Heidt and then Glenn Miller to pay down this debt.^[3] To make matters worse, his lip was in bad shape after dental surgery, making it difficult for him to play the trumpet or cornet. Glenn Miller came to Hackett's rescue, offering him a job as a guitarist with the Miller Band. "When I joined the band and I was making good money at last, [...] [jazz critics] accused me of selling out. Hell I wasn't selling out, I was selling in! It's funny, isn't it, how you go right into the wastebasket with some critics the minute you become successful".^[4] Despite his lip problems, Hackett could still play occasional short solos, and he can be heard playing a famous one with the Glenn Miller Orchestra on "A String of Pearls."^[5] A dream come true for Hackett was his inclusion in Louis Armstrong's 1947 Town Hall Jazz Concert.^[6] During the 1950s, he made a series of albums of ballads with a full string orchestra, produced by Jackie Gleason, exhibiting a dreamy, vibrato-free sound.^[7]

In 1954, Hackett appeared as a regular on the short-lived ABC variety show, The Martha Wright Show, also known as The Packard Showroom.^[8] In 1965, he toured with singer Tony Bennett. In 1966 and 1967 Hackett accompanied Bennett on two European tours.^[9] In the early 1970s, Hackett performed separately with Dizzy Gillespie and Teresa Brewer.^[10]

Personal Life[link]

Sometime in the 1930s, Bobby Hackett married Edna Hackett. He had two children with her, Barbra Hackett(†) and Ernie Hackett.

Partial Discography[link]

As leader:

• Giants (Perception, 1971) - with Dizzy Gillespie and Mary Lou Williams
• Thanks Bobby, Bobby Hackett Quartet, Dobre Records

As sideman:

• With Glenn Miller
• A String of Pearls1941, Bluebird records.
• Rhapsody In Blue 1942, Victor records.
• With Frank Sinatra
• I've Got A Crush On You 1947, Columbia Records http://216.69.142.236/IveGotACrushOnYou.rm
• Body and Soul 1947, Columbia Records http://216.69.142.236/BodyAndSoul.rm

With George Wein

• Wein, Women and Song and More, George Wein Plays and Sings (Arbors Records)

With Tony Bennett

• The Very Thought of You 1965, Columbia Records http://216.69.142.236/TheVeryThoughtOfYou.rm
• A Time for Love (1966)

Rendezvous Glenn Osser Orchestra

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bobby Hackett at Solid!
• "Bobby Hackett: Accomplished musician with a beautiful sound". http://www.libertyhall.com/bobby.html. Retrieved 2006-04-12. 
• audio Bobby Hackett, His Life and Music, retrieved 2008-10-18
• "Bobby Hackett:1915-1976". http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0352446/. Retrieved 2010-10-10. 

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Vic (Victor) Dickenson (August 6, 1906 – November 16, 1984) was an African-American jazz trombonist. Dickenson's career started out in the 1920s and led him through musical partnerships with such legends as Count Basie (1940–41), Sidney Bechet (1941) and Earl Hines . Also a soloist of wide acclaim, Vic Dickenson was known for the distinctive sound he coaxed out of the trombone.

He studied Organ from 1922 but changed to Trombone with local bands. Vic made his recording debut in December 1930, as a vocalist with Luis Russell's band. He later joined Blanche Calloway's Orchestra in the early 1930s. Led his own groups both in east & west coast between 1947 to mid fifties. From then he was a session man for many legendary dates, among them CBS Sound Of Jazz 1957 with many great jazz musicians including: Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Gerry Mulligan, Billie Holiday.

He was a favorite of many musicians, in large part because of the melodic sound he got from his horn, and for a keen sense of humor which was often evident in his playing.

Dickenson recorded several albums, many of which are still in print. But if you're looking for more, listen to these recordings under the name of other jazz musicians with Vic as a sideman: Jimmy Rushing (Vanguard Rec.), Coleman Hawkins (Capitol Rec.), Pee Wee Russell (Black Lion Rec.), Benny Carter (BlueBird & Black & Blue Rec.), Lester Young (Blue Note & Verve Rec.), Count Basie (Columbia & Pablo Rec.), Sidney Bechet (BlueBird, Black & Blue & Blue Note Rec.) In 1953, he recorded 'The Vic Dickenson Showcase' for Vanguard. The front line included Ed Hall (clarinet) and Ruby Braff (Trumpet). This album is thought by many as one of the finest examples of mainstream jazz ever recorded.

At one time he was a member of "The World's Greatest Jazz Band," which was the house band at The Roosevelt Grill in NYC. He also performed at the same venue in a smaller group that featured Dickenson with trumpeter Bobby Hackett.

Dickenson is in Art Kane's photograph, A Great Day in Harlem... which also includes (another trombonist) Miff Mole.

Dickenson, for all his lively musical talent, was a laconic man who often liked to be alone between sets. During his long time association with bands playing at Eddie Condon's, he would often retire to a single chair which sat in a small alcove just outside the men's room, instead of gathering with fellow musicians in the band room. When men mistook him for the men's room attendant and offered him dollars, he took them.

Dickenson was born in Xenia, Ohio and died in New York City.

Albert Edwin Condon (16 November 1905 – 4 August 1973), better known as Eddie Condon, was a jazz banjoist, guitarist, and bandleader. A leading figure in the so-called "Chicago school" of early Dixieland, he also played piano and sang on occasion.

Biography[link]

Condon was born in Goodland, Indiana, the son of John and Margaret (née McGraw) Condon. He grew up in Momence, Illinois and Chicago Heights, Illinois, where he attended St. Agnes and Bloom High School. After some time playing ukulele, he switched to banjo and was a professional musician by 1921. He was based in Chicago for most of the 1920s, and played with such jazz notables as Bix Beiderbecke, Jack Teagarden and Frank Teschemacher.

In 1928 Condon moved to New York City. He frequently arranged jazz sessions for various record labels, sometimes playing with the artists he brought to the recording studios, including Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller. He organised racially-integrated recording sessions - when these were still rare - with Waller, Armstrong and Henry 'Red' Allen. He played with the band of Red Nichols for a time. Later, from 1938 he had a long association with Milt Gabler's Commodore Records.

From the late 1930s on he was a regular at the Manhattan jazz club Nick's. The sophisticated variation on Dixieland music which Condon and his colleagues created there came to be nicknamed "Nicksieland." By this time, his regular circle of musical associates included Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett, George Brunies, Edmond Hall and Pee Wee Russell. In 1939, he appeared with "Bobby Hacket and Band" in the Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film musical short-subject, "On the Air".

Condon also did a series of jazz radio broadcasts from New York's Town Hall during 1944-45 which were nationally popular. These recordings survive, and have been issued on the Jazzology label.

From 1945 through 1967 he ran his own New York jazz club, Eddie Condon's. In the 1950s Condon recorded a sequence of classic albums for Columbia Records. The musicians involved in these albums - and at Condon's club - included Wild Bill Davison, Bobby Hackett (cornet), Billy Butterfield (trumpet), Edmond Hall, Peanuts Hucko, Pee Wee Russell, Bob Wilber (clarinet), Cutty Cutshall, Lou McGarity, George Brunies (trombone), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Gene Schroeder, Dick Cary, Ralph Sutton (piano), Bob Casey, Walter Page, Jack Lesberg, Al Hall (bass), George Wettling, Buzzy Drootin, Cliff Leeman (drums).

Condon toured Britain in 1957 with a band including Wild Bill Davison, Cutty Cutshall, Gene Schroeder and George Wettling. His last tour was in 1964, when he took a band to Australia and Japan. Condon's men, on that tour, were a roll-call of top mainstream jazz musicians: Buck Clayton (trumpet), Pee Wee Russell (clarinet), Vic Dickenson (trombone), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Dick Cary (piano and alto horn), Jack Lesberg (bass), Cliff Leeman (drums), Jimmy Rushing (vocals). A nice touch was that Billy Banks, a vocalist who had recorded with Condon and Pee Wee Russell in 1932, and had lived in obscurity in Japan for many years, turned up at one of the 1964 concerts: Pee Wee asked him "have you got any more gigs?".

In 1948 his autobiography We Called It Music was published. The book has many interesting and entertaining anecdotes about musicians Condon worked with. Eddie Condon's Treasury of Jazz (1956) was a collection of articles by various writers co-edited by Condon and Richard Gehman.

A latter-day collaborator, clarinetist Kenny Davern, described a Condon gig: "It was always a thrill to get a call from Eddie and with a gig involved even more so. I remember eating beforehand with Bernie (Previn; trumpet) and Lou (McGarity; trombone) and everyone being in good spirits. There was a buzz on, we'd all had a taste and there was a great feel to the music."^[1]

Eddie Condon toured and appeared at jazz festivals through 1971. He died in New York City.

He is survived by his daughter Maggie Condon and his only grandchild Michael Repplier, who both live in Greenwich Village in New York City. It has been falsely reported that he has another grandson, Zach Condon, lead singer and instrumentalist of the band Beirut, but this is incorrect.

References to Condon are common in the BBC Radio 4 parody series Down the Line.

Select discography[link]

With Kenny Davern[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• We Called It Music by Eddie Condon (London: Peter Davis, 1948)

External links[link]

• Eddie Condon complete discography
• Albert "Eddie" Condon at redhotjazz.com

Sidney Bechet
Sidney Bechet in 1922
Background information
Born	(1897-05-14)May 14, 1897 New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Died	May 14, 1959(1959-05-14) (aged 62) Garches, France
Genres	Jazz Dixieland
Occupations	Clarinetist Saxophonist Composer
Instruments	Clarinet Soprano saxophone
Years active	1908–1957
Associated acts	Louis Armstrong Tommy Ladnier

Sidney Bechet (May 14, 1897 – May 14, 1959) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer.

He was one of the first important soloists in jazz (beating cornetist and trumpeter Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months^[1] and later playing duets with Armstrong), and was perhaps the first notable jazz saxophonist. Forceful delivery, well-constructed improvisations, and a distinctive, wide vibrato characterized Bechet's playing.

Bechet's erratic temperament hampered his career, however, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim.

Biography[link]

Bechet's childhood home in the 7th Ward of New Orleans.

Bechet was born in New Orleans to a middle-class Creole of color family. Sidney's older brother Leonard Bechet (1877–1952) was a part-time trombonist and bandleader. Sidney Bechet quickly learned to play several musical instruments kept around the house, mostly by teaching himself; he soon decided to focus on clarinet. At the age of six, Sidney started playing along with his brother's band at a family birthday party, debuting his talents to acclaim. Later in his youth, Bechet studied with such renowned Creole clarinetists as Lorenzo Tio, "Big Eye" Louis Nelson Delisle, and George Baquet. Soon after, Bechet would be found playing in many New Orleans ensembles, improvising with what was "acceptable" for jazz at that time (obbligatos, with scales and arpeggios, and "variating" the melody). These ensembles included parade work with Henry Allen's celebrated Brass Band, the Olympia Orchestra, and John Robichaux's "genteel" dance orchestra. In 1911-1912, he performed with Bunk Johnson in the Eagle Band of New Orleans, and in 1913-1914, with King Oliver in the Olympia Band.^[2]

Although Bechet spent his childhood and adolescence in New Orleans, from 1914 to 1917 he was touring and traveling, going as far north as Chicago, and frequently teaming up with another famous Creole musician, Freddie Keppard. In the spring of 1919, he traveled to New York, where he joined Will Marion Cook's Syncopated Orchestra. Soon after, the orchestra journeyed to Europe where, almost immediately upon arrival, they performed at the Royal Philharmonic Hall in London. The group was warmly received, and Bechet was especially popular, attracting attention near and far.^[2]

While in London, Bechet discovered the straight soprano saxophone, and quickly developed a style quite unlike his warm, reedy clarinet tone. His saxophone sound could be described as "emotional", "reckless", and "large". He would often use a very broad vibrato, similar to what was common for some New Orleans clarinetists at the time.

After being found guilty of assaulting a woman, Bechet was imprisoned in London from September 13 to 26, 1922. He was subsequently deported back to the USA, leaving Southampton on November 3 and arriving back in New York on November 13, 1922.

On July 30, 1923, he began recording some of his earliest surviving studio work. The session was led by Clarence Williams, a pianist and songwriter, better known at that time for his music publishing and record producing. Bechet recorded "Wild Cat Blues" and "Kansas City Man Blues". "Wild Cat Blues" is in a multi-thematic ragtime tradition, with four themes, at sixteen bars each, and "Kansas City Man Blues" is a genuine 12-bar blues. Bechet interpreted and played each uniquely and with outstanding creativity and innovation for the time.

On September 15, 1925, Bechet and other members of the Revue Negre, including Josephine Baker, sailed to Europe, arriving at Cherbourg, France, on September 22. The revue opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées,^[3] Paris, on October 2. He then toured Europe with various bands, reaching as far as Russia in mid-1926. In 1928, he led his own small band at the famous Bricktop's Club in Montmartre, Paris.

Bechet was jailed^[4] in Paris, France, when a female^[5] passer-by was wounded during a shoot-out. After serving time in prison, Bechet was deported. The most common version of the story, as related in Ken Burns's jazz documentary, reports that the initial shoot-out started when another musician/producer told Bechet that he was playing the wrong chord. Bechet challenged the man to a duel;^[4] critics^{[citation needed]} assert, however, that Bechet was essentially ambushed by a rival musician.

After his release, Bechet relocated back to New York. Having arrived right after the stock-market crash, Bechet joined up with Noble Sissle’s orchestra and traveled around Berlin and Russia. In 1932 he returned to New York City to lead a band with trumpeter Tommy Ladnier. The band, consisting of six members, performed at the Savoy Ballroom. He went on to play with Lorenzo Tio, and also got to know Roy Eldridge, another trumpeter.^[6]

Over time it became progressively more difficult for Bechet to find jobs until eventually he started a tailor shop with Ladnier. During this time they had visits from various musicians, and played in the back of their shop. Throughout the 1940s Bechet played in several bands, but his financial situation did not change until the end of that decade.^[6]

By the end of the 1940s Bechet was getting tired of playing in the United States. His contract with Jazz Limited, a Chicago-based record label, was limiting the events he could perform at, such as the 1948 Festival of Europe in Nice. He also believed that the jazz scene in the US had little left to offer him and was getting stale.^[6]

Bechet relocated to France in 1950 after performing as a soloist at the Paris Jazz Fair. His performance at the fair resulted in a surge in his popularity in France. After that, Bechet had little problem finding well-paid work in France. In 1953, he signed a recording contract with French Vogue, which lasted for the rest of his life.^[6] He recorded many hit tunes, including "Les Oignons", "Promenade aux Champ Elysees" and the international hit "Petite Fleur". He also composed a classical ballet score in the late Romantic style of Tchaikovsky, called "La Nuit est sorcière" ("The Night Is a Witch"). He married Elisabeth Ziegler in Antibes, France, in 1951. Existentialists in France called him "le dieu".^{[citation needed]}

Shortly before his death in Paris, Sidney dictated his poetic autobiography, Treat It Gentle. He died from lung cancer on his sixty-second birthday.

Career highlights[link]

Bechet successfully composed in jazz, pop-tune, and extended concert work forms. He knew how to read music but chose not to, due to his highly developed inner ear; he developed his own fingering system and never played section parts in a big band or swing-style combo.^[5] His recordings have often been reissued.

Some of the highlights of his career include 1923 sides with Louis Armstrong in the Clarence Williams Blue Five; the 1932, 1940, 1941 New Orleans Feetwarmers sides; a 1938 Tommy Ladnier Orchestra session ("Weary Blues", "Really the Blues"); a hit 1938 recording of "Summertime"; and various versions of his own composition, "Petite Fleur".

In 1939, Bechet co-led a group with pianist Willie "The Lion" Smith that recorded several early versions of what was later called Latin jazz, adapting traditional méringue, rhumba and Haitian songs to the jazz idiom.

Bechet in New York in 1947

On July 28, 1940, Sidney Bechet made a guest appearance on NBC Radio's The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street show, playing two of his show-pieces ("Shake It and Break It" and "St. Louis Blues") with Henry Levine's dixieland band. Levine invited Bechet into the RCA Victor recording studio (on 24th Street in New York City), where Bechet lent his soprano sax to Levine's traditional arrangement of "Muskrat Ramble." On April 18, 1941, as an early experiment in overdubbing at Victor, Bechet recorded a version of the pop song "The Sheik of Araby", playing six different instruments: clarinet, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, piano, bass, and drums. A hitherto unissued master of this recording was included in the 1965 LP Bechet of New Orleans, issued by RCA Victor as LPV-510. On the liner notes, George Hoeffer quotes Sidney as follows: "I started by playing The Sheik on piano, and played the drums while listening to the piano. I meant to play all the rhythm instruments, but got all mixed up and grabbed my soprano, then the bass, then the tenor saxophone, and finally finished up with the clarinet."

In 1944, 1946, and 1953 he recorded and performed in concert with Chicago jazz pianist and vibraphonist Max Miller, private recordings that are part of the Max Miller archive and have never been released. These concerts and recordings are covered completely in John Chilton's authoritative book on Bechet.

Bechet was an important influence on alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, who studied with him as a teenager.

In 1968, Bechet was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame.

The New York Times music writer Robert Palmer wrote of Bechet that, "by combining the 'cry' of the blues players and the finesse of the Creoles into his 'own way,' Sidney Bechet created a style which moved the emotions even as it dazzled the mind."^[5]

Tributes[link]

In 1919, Swiss concert conductor Ernst Ansermet wrote one of the earliest (if not the first) tributes to a jazz musician from the classical field of music, even linking Bechet's music with that of Bach.

Renowned blues harmonica player Sugar Blue took his name from the Bechet recording "Sugar Blues". The former has stated: "I needed a nickname ... all the good ones were taken! You know 'Muddy Waters', 'Blind Lemon', 'Sonny Boy' ... until one night a friend and I were leaving a concert — a Doc Watson concert — when somebody threw out of the window a box full of old 78s: I picked one up and it said "Sugar Blues" by Sidney Bechet ... That's it! I thought it was perfect ... so here I am".^[7]

Philip Larkin wrote an ode to Bechet in The Whitsun Weddings.

Bechet is said to have served as a prototype for the saxophonist "Pablo" in the novel Steppenwolf, since it was almost certainly through listening to his playing in Europe in the 1920s that Hermann Hesse became acquainted with the world of jazz music.

Bechet to me was the very epitome of jazz ... everything he played in his whole life was completely original. I honestly think he was the most unique man to ever be in this music. — Duke Ellington.

In the 1997 documentary Wild Man Blues, film maker and clarinet aficionado Woody Allen repeatedly referred to Bechet. One of Allen's adopted children with Soon-Yi Previn also is named Bechet. Raquel Bitton pays tribute to Sydney Bechet in her CD Paris Blues, singing "Petite Fleur" (2006). French chanteuse Patricia Kaas also recorded a song, "L'Enterrement de Sidney Bechet" ("The Funeral of Sidney Bechet"), on her 1990 album Scène de vie.

Bechet, portrayed by Jeffrey Wright, appeared as a character in two episodes of the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

Bechet performs at an underground Paris jazz club in the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood. This appearance is slightly anachronistic, as the scene takes place in 1963 even though Bechet died in 1959.

Bob Dorough, who played with Bechet, recorded a tribute song, called "Something for Sydney," on his Right On My Way Home album.

Van Morrison mentions Bechet in his song "See Me Through Part II (Just A Closer Walk With Thee)".

Music[link]

Sidney Bechet's primary instruments were the clarinet and the soprano sax. His playing style is intense and passionate, and had a wide vibrato. He was also known to be very proficient with his instruments and a master at improvisation (both individual and collective). Bechet liked to have his sound dominate in a performance, and trumpeters found it very difficult to play alongside him.^[6][8]

Bechet's song Si tu vois ma mère was prominently featured in the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris (2011).

Partial discography[link]

Singles[link]

• "Texas Moaner Blues" (recorded with Louis Armstrong) - 1924

• "Cake Walkin' Babies from Home" (with Red Onion Jazz Babies) - 1925

• "Blues In Thirds" - 1940

• "Dear Old Southland" - 1940

• "Egyptian Fantasy" -1941

• "Muskrat Ramble" - 1944

• "Blue Horizon" - 1944

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Treat It Gentle by Sidney Bechet (Twayne 1960, Da Capo 1978).
• Sidney Bechet the Wizard of Jazz by John Chilton (Macmillan 1987).
• American Peoples Encyclopedia Yearbook for 1953, page 542.
• Metronome Magazine, December 1946, article by George Hoefer.
• Best of New Orleans

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sidney Bechet

• The Sidney Bechet Society, Ltd.
• Sidney Bechet on redhotjazz.com
• Profile with pictures
• Profile of Sidney Bechet from the Association for Cultural Equity
• A Bechet discography
• Sidney Bechet at Find a Grave
• 1921 passport photo; Sidney Bechet