Sidney Bechet - Si tu vois ma mére
We'll Always Have Paris
There’s a word in German – fernwah – which is farsickness, or a longing for far-off places, especially those you’ve not yet visited. I understand. I want to be where Sidney Bechet was when he decided to give this to the world. Wherever he was, whatever he saw that inspired him to write and play this the way he played it – that is exactly where I want to be. There should be a plaque on that exact spot. Si tu vois ma mére is an Impressionist painting in B flat that’s as lovely and as deep as it is wide. It’s a sentimental ballad that’s just as capable of swaying in the sun as it is drinking wine in the moonlight.
On me your voice falls as they say love should,
Like an enormous yes.-Philip Larkin, For Sidney Bechet
I went digging for an explanation about this. I found drafts of lyrics, long-winded explanations of Bechet and his tumultuous career, comparisons to Louis Armstrong, but I couldn’t find much about this piece. Guess it’s on me. This is elemental magic. Si tu vois ma mére is a skilled conjurer’s demonstration of his mastery - pulling as elegant a melody as has ever been crafted straight out of the air and sending it through a soprano saxophone (John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter would be exhilarated). These things we hear, pieces of blue moan and red hot licks, take us to places. They’re transport, they’re teleportation. They describe that which is too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words. This is exactly why we have music in the first place.
John Berger wrote, “Paris, I believe, is a man in his twenties in love with an older woman.” Sidney did this when he was 55. Paris is the older woman. The city itself is the lead character and has always been. It’s her name above the title on the movie poster. When Europe gets sick, Paris is the medicine, Si tu vois ma mére is the delivery vehicle.