John Coltrane (soprano sax), McCoy Tyner (piano), Steve Davis (bass) and Elvin Jones (drums). From the album Coltrane Plays the Blues (1962).
Bechet was probably a friend of Coltrane to whom he dedicated this theme. But Bechet are also many other things too. It is a village on the banks of the Danube River and a tributary of the Ghibav River in Romania. It’s also a High School located in South Africa, an important port on the banks of the Danube River and a disease. Bechet's Syndrome is a disease that involves sores in the mouth, genital ulcers and inflammation in the inner chamber of the eye. Sidney Bechet was an important jazz soprano saxophonist and clarinetist in the 1920s, and Ron Bechet is a modern painter.
Coltrane exposes a different blues to the traditional ones. His phrases are more eccentric, it goes out of the ordinary. Sometimes it becomes entangled in a convoluted bunch of notes, and then return to a more understandable language. With each new chorus, it reaffirms its rebelliousness towards the established. Then play a simple chorus, as if to show that things can be said clearly and concisely. He continues his litany reaffirming his positions in an incisive way, and with a more relaxed phrase his speech ends.
© Atlantic Records