Editing Sidney Bechet (section)

=== Early life ===
Bechet was born in [[New Orleans]] in 1897 to a middle-class [[Creole of color]] family. Bechet's father Omar was both a [[Shoemaking|shoemaker]] and a [[flute]] player, and all four of his brothers were musicians as well.<ref name=":12">{{Cite web|title=Sidney Bechet {{!}} Association for Cultural Equity|url=http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/friends/bechet|access-date=2021-11-12|website=The Association for Cultural Equity|language=en}}</ref>

His older brother, Leonard Victor Bechet, was a full-time [[dentist]] and a part-time [[Trombone|trombonist]] and [[bandleader]]. Bechet learned and mastered several musical instruments that were kept around the house (he began on the [[cornet]]), mostly by teaching himself; he decided to specialize in the [[clarinet]] (which he played almost exclusively until about 1919).<ref name=":12" />

At the age of six, he started performing with his brother's band at a family birthday party, debuting his talents to acclaim. Later in his youth, Bechet studied with [[King Oliver|Joseph "King" Oliver]], [[Bunk Johnson]], [[Freddie Keppard]],<ref name=":22" /> [[Lorenzo Tio]], "Big Eye" [[Louis Nelson Delisle]], and [[George Baquet]].<ref name="Sidney Bechet and His Long Song2">{{cite journal|last1=Porter|first1=Lewis|last2=Ullman|first2=Michael|date=1988|title=Sidney Bechet and His Long Song|journal=The Black Perspective in Music|volume=16|issue=2|pages=135–150|doi=10.2307/1214805|jstor=1214805}}</ref>