Sidney Bechet with Evan Christopher at Jazz at Lincoln Center

Sidney Bechet, a New Orleans Jazz pioneer who played clarinet and soprano saxophone, was the most compelling and virtuosic improviser of all the music’s earliest players. Sidney Bechet’s inventions are pivotal to Jazz’s transition from a folk music whose center was a collective ensemble into the art form of individual spontaneous expression. This new course will be taught in intensive fashion – back-to-back days of classes – by Evan Christopher, the New Orleans based Jazz clarinetist and specialist.

Evan Christopher joins the Swing University faculty to teach his course on Sidney Bechet...

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Sidney Bechet, a New Orleans Jazz pioneer who played clarinet and soprano saxophone, was the most compelling and virtuosic improviser of all the music’s earliest players. Sidney Bechet’s inventions are pivotal to Jazz’s transition from a folk music whose center was a collective ensemble into the art form of individual spontaneous expression. This new course will be taught in intensive fashion – back-to-back days of classes – by Evan Christopher, the New Orleans based Jazz clarinetist and specialist.

Evan Christopher joins the Swing University faculty to teach his course on Sidney Bechet. Mr. Christopher, himself a New Orleans Jazz clarinet virtuoso, has appended teaching Jazz to his performance activities with an emphasis on New Orleans music, culture, and the Creole clarinet tradition.

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