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 trumpeter Louis Armstrong to the recording studio by several months. His erratic temperament hampered his career, and not until the late 1940s did he earn wide acclaim.

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

Bechet was jailed for 11 months in Paris when a woman passerby was wounded during a shoot-out. The most common version of the story, as related in Ken Burn’s documentary film Jazz, is that the shoot-out started when another musician-producer told Bechet that he was playing the wrong chord. Bechet challenged the man to a duel and said, “Sidney Bechet never plays the wrong chord.

In the 2016 film La La Land, the character played by Ryan Gosling tries to persuade the character played by Emma Stone that jazz is not “relaxing”, saying: “Sidney Bechet shot somebody because they told him he’d played a wrong note, that’s hardly relaxing

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