Nobody Knows the Way I Feel Dis’ Mornin’
RCA Victor LPM-535
Here’s another good Sidney Bechet record in the Vintage series. When he became a leader in the recording studio for the first time in his career, Sidney Bechet used the name New Orleans Feetwarmers and the name was also used for most of his later sessions with RCA Victor.
This record starts with the band that filled the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem with its frenetic music and made a historical record session in 1932.
Then, during the depression, he was either inactive running a Taylor shop with Tommy Ladnier, or went on tour with Noble Sissle. We have to jump forward eight years for the next Victor session, and now the music is quite different. Gone is the hot collective playing, and the subsequent material of the LP from 1940–41 is reflecting other moods within the jazz idiom. The chosen tune is rather unusual. That Sidney Bechet liked to build up his performances with the aid of riffs is quite evident in his later period in France, and here we have the same method. The repeated short phrase throughout the tune gives the effect that the group is playing in a trance, and you do not hear that kind of getting into a groove and keeping on until later in the more modern jazz. Maybe there is something of the kind in Mean Blues from 1923 with Clarence Williams Blue Five featuring Bechet.
The music on the LP, ranging from performances with a trio to larger groups, is well-prepared and is a fine example of first class jazz music.