Musicien cosmopolite dès sa jeunesse, Sidney Bechet est à l'origine de la première critique de jazz un peu sérieuse. En 1919, il est le clarinettiste soliste du Southern Syncopated Orchestra dirigé par le compositeur Will Marion Cook, qui refusait d'utiliser le mot «jazz» mais tenait beaucoup à avoir Bechet en vedette. Le chef d'orchestre suisse Ernest Ansermet, qui eut plusieurs fois l'occasion d'écouter cette formation à Londres, écrivait à propos de Bechet: (Il) ne peut rien dire de son art, sauf qu'il suit sa propre voie... et c'est peut-être la route sur laquelle le monde entier swinguera demain.

Prodige musical, né au sein d'une famille créole, il a étudié auprès de Louis dit "Papa" Tio et Lorenzo Tio fils à la Nouvelle- Orléans. Il se joint, en 1917, à l'exode vers Chicago et y travaille avec deux célèbres exilés, le trompettiste Freddie Keppard et le pianiste Tony Jackson. Puis il accompagne Cook à Londres où il découvre le saxophone soprano, instrument plus dominant que la clarinette et avec lequel il peut aisément produire le palpitant vibrato qui est son signe distinctif.En juin 1924, Sidney Bechet, joint le groupe de Duke Ellington et commence la deuxième tournée en Nouvelle-Angleterre avec eux. Moins de trois mois plus tard, Duke le renvoie après qu’il ne se soit pas présenté à trois concerts.

Expulsé de Grande-Bretagne pour cause de bagarre dans un hôtel, Bechet s'installe à New York où le pianiste Clarence Williams veut à tout prix le faire enregistrer, en particulier aux côtés de Louis Armstrong. C'est ainsi qu'a lieu une première rencontre entre ces géants du jazz. Cependant, de nouveaux problèmes le ramènent en Europe où il passe quatre ans au sein de la Revue Nègre dont Joséphine Baker est la vedette. Pendant qu'Armstrong réalise ses enregistrements classiques, son principal rival comme soliste de jazz est en tournée en Europe et en Russie.

Après un retour triomphal au Festival de jazz de Paris en 1949, il décide de s'établir en France. Bechet y devient une super vedette hexagonale, régnant sur ses accompagnateurs et attirant les foules. Son thème Petite Fleur est un succès mondial, même si lui-même était probablement plus fier des partitions de ballets telles que La Nuit est une sorcière qu'il compose pour le danseur et chorégraphe Pierre Lacotte à la manière des musiques de film de Charlie Chaplin.

Il est le premier à avoir trouvé un son original pour le saxophone soprano et qui ne soit pas une imitation de celui de la clarinette. Son vibrato est l'un des plus expressifs du jazz et ouvrira la voie à bien des saxophonistes des années 30-40 (Ben Webster, les saxos du big-band de Duke Ellington).

À l'instar de Muggsy Spanier, trompettiste sensible mais puissant, c'est un modèle de sobriété, laissant même le vétéran Bunk Johnson être le premier trompette dans des orchestrations proches de l'idéal d'un contrepoint décontracté, cher à La Nouvelle- Orléans.

Parmi ses plus célèbres enregistrements il faut faire figurer le remarquable trio Blues in Thirds, avec Earl Hines et Baby Dodds, Blue Horizon, Out of The Gallion avec Mezz Mezzrow, Petite Fleur et n'importe laquelle de ses versions de Summertime ou de Weary Blues, un thême qui aurait pu être composé pour lui.

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Sidney Bechet was a proponent of Dixieland Jazz who played the clarinet and was the first person to play Jazz on a Soprano Saxophone. Domineering is a word often used to describe his music. His various fights showed he had a short temper that shows in his music. His solo’s were often soaring and passionate, endlessly inventive, direct rather than ornate, and quite unmistakable. Early recordings show him as Louis Armstrong’s equal and, as he commands the ensemble with his burnished sound, his timing seems more in keeping with a trumpet lead than with the contrapuntal line usually adopted by saxophones and clarinets. Throughout his life, he never had the discipline needed to play in a regular band, he always preferred to be a soloist and worked in many different bands.

1897 Sidney Bechet was born on May 14, in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a "Creole" family. His father ran a shoe shop. All of Bechet’s brothers were keen musicians, but Sidney was the most talented.

1903 Without telling his family, he practiced secretly on his brother Leonard’s clarinet. During a family party he played along side Freddie Keppard. His playing was heard by George Baquet who was amazed by his promise and decided there and then to give him free lessons.

1908 At the age of just 11, he was hired by Bunk Johnson’s Eagle Band.

1910 His mother gave him permission to play in the Storyville clubs, provided that Bunk Johnson, who acted as a kind of guardian, brought him home each night.

1913 He started playing with King Oliver

1915 He made a tour of Texas in a band led by Clarence Williams.

1917 From clubs in Perdido Street in New Orleans he moved to Chicago, first with King Oliver and then Freddie Keppard. Later he left Keppard to play in other bands.

1919 With a band of Will Marion Cook he achieved great personal success in England, earning the admiration, among others, of the conductor Ernest Ansermet. When the band broke up he decided to stay in London with some other members of the band. He stayed there until, following a somewhat immoral adventure, he was hauled before the magistrates and expelled from the country. In addition to his love of traveling, Bechet was also well known for his love of the opposite sex, a fact that often got him into serious trouble.

Also while in London he brought a Soprano Saxophone, a more domineering instrument than the clarinet.

1921 He returned to the United States and got a job with the musical show "How Come?", in which the unknown Bessie Smith made her debut.

1923 He made his first recording with Clarence Williams in the Blue Five and also recorded with Louis Armstrong.

During this period he started to prefer the Soprano Saxophone to the Clarinet.

1924-25 In these years he worked with Mamie Smith, James P. Johnson and Duke Ellington’s Washingtonians. He also found time to manage a night club in Harlem the "Club Basha", but soon gotten tired of that. He also made his debut in Paris in a band led by Claude Hopkins, taking part in a show featuring Josephine Baker. When the show finally ended, in Berlin, Bechet once more indulged his love of traveling by taking part in a tour with Benny Peyton. He ended up in Russia and in Moscow he met Tommy Ladnier, who was also on tour. After this he toured all over Europe before finally going back to Harlem.

1929 He returned to Paris where after an episode of violence in which 3 people were wounded he was sentenced to 11 months in jail and expelled from France.

1928-31 Bechet continued to move back and forth between Europe and the United States. He went to Berlin and (clandestinely) to Paris with Noble Sissle’s band, then to New York and then back to Berlin. He also made a brief appearance with Duke Ellington’s orchestra, just enough to influence the style of Johnny Hodges.

1932 He formed "The New Orleans Feetwarmers" with Tommy Ladnier and recorded some real "gems".

1933 At the end of the year he suddenly decided to give up music to open , in partnership with Tommy Ladnier, a shop for mending and ironing clothes, which they called the "Southern Tailor Shop".

1934 Tired of his business life, Bechet again joined Noble Sissle’s band and made some excellent recordings.

1938 He left Sissle and free-lanced for a while. He took part in the "Panassie Session" with Tommy Ladnier and Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow.

1939 He made a superb recording of "Summertime" with Meade "Lux" Lewis and Teddy Bunn. He also recorded with Jelly Roll Morton.

1940 An extremely important year. He recorded four masterpieces with Louis Armstrong, including "Perdido Street Blues". He also made some excellent recordings with a group known as the "Bechet-Spanier Big Four". He also recorded again with the "New Orleans Feetwarmers", reformed as a studio band. One result was the magnificent "Blues In Thirds" with Bechet on Clarinet and Earl Hines on Piano.

1944-48 During these year’s Bechet used many jazz soloists in his recording sessions: Sidney De Paris, Vic Dickson, Art Hodes, Pops Foster, Max Kaminsky, Albert Nicholas and others. He recorded a series of numbers with Mezz Mezzrow. In 1946 he had an idea of setting up a music school in Brooklyn; his most important pupil was Bob Wilber who recorded with him on several occasions. In 1947 he was a guest on several editions of Rudy Blesh’s radio show "This Is Jazz". In 1948 he played at the Jazz LTD in Chicago.

1949 He took part in the Paris Jazz Festival, organized by Charles Delauney, with triumphant success. The French finally forgot about the sad episode of 1929.

1950-54 Apart from some brief visits to the United States, Bechet lived and worked in Paris; he was literally adored by the French who knew him affectionately as "Le Dieu". His music was praised by Jean Paul Sartre’s existentialists, along with that of Juliette Greco. Bechet played mostly with the traditional bands of Claude Luter and André Reweillotty. In 1952 is song "Petite Fleur" became a world wide hit, and in 1953 his ballet score "La Nuit Est Une Sorciere" premiered in Paris.

1955 Bechet settled in Paris for good.

1957 He recorded an album with Martial Solal, Pierre Michelot and Kenny Clarke, entitled "When a Soprano meets a Piano".

1959 Sidney Bechet died on his sixty-second birthday, May 14. He had 3 wives over his life and kept a mistress to which he had a son to till he died.

The inhabitants of Jean-Les-Pins erected a monument in his honour.