Clark Dean is one of the only soprano saxophonists still playing in the spirit of Sidney Bechet and Bunk Johnson. Clark met Bechet in Paris and saw him play at the Olympia Music Hall and saw him again in Chicago. "He had more effect on me than Louis Armstrong -- I was able to hear what he was doing. Nobody could touch that unique sound. I've never tried to play like Bechet , that's impossible, but people say they love my sound, and that's encouragement enough to keep playing and learning."

Clark wrests everything from his lithe soprano horn solos in what seems a joyful agony. His introductory choruses to Cherry, for example, are an aural ecstasy that sets the evening's tone and transports the listener to another time.

"I first started listening to the great tenors -- Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster then Zoots Sims and Lester Young. I had a tenor but couldn't get that sound. I hung onto my soprano but I didn't play for 30 years -- but I was always listening."

Those years were spent as a photographer and his work has appeared on recordings by Sunnyland Slim, Little Brother Montgomery and on all the Jazz Me Blues releases. He's recorded with pianist Erwin Helfer (with Odie Payne) for the Red Beans label and with Saffire the Uppity Blues Women for Alligator.

Master musician and mastermind musical matchmaker that he is, it was Clark who persuaded John to sing, recognizing the great potential in developing duets with Yoko. "Sometimes I think I created a monster," he says with affection.

"We're very, very lucky in finding the wonderful musicians in the band: people that we like to be with as people. After that comes the fact that they're superb musicians and entertainers. That's as good as it gets."

Clark Dean can be reached by email at: clarkdean@jazzmebluesmusic.com