Sidney Bechet (pronounced Be-shay), who looks like a sleepy Pullman porter, has been talking through a clarinet for more than 40 years. Last week, in a smoky joint called Jimmy Ryan's on Manhattan's brassy 52nd Street, Sidney was proving again that he is the best Dixieland two-beat jazzman anywhere on clarinet or soprano saxophone (which looks like an oversize clarinet).
Up front on the bandstand, his chunky bulk overlapping a fragile barroom chair, sat Sidney, his shiny golden saxophone in hand. Behind was Lloyd Phillips, grinning at an upright piano with its insides laid bare. A Neolithic-looking fellow named Freddie Moore stared...
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