[1] He was known for his wide vibrato (wavering pulsations) and daring improvisations,[21] exploiting the full range of the soprano saxophone.

[22] Down Beat editor, Paul E. Miller wrote "The sounds of jazz and the fullest implications of their meanings have never been more brilliantly delineated than by Bechet.

[note 3] His engagements at Jazz, Ltd. between 1947 and 1949, drew big crowds,[29] and he reveled in the praise bestowed upon him by guests after he completed a music set at the venue.

[note 4] After having gone to live and work in France, Bechet made two tours of the United States, in 1951 and 1953.

[1] Just a Closer Walk with Thee,[33] Jazz Me Blues,[34] The Charleston,[34] Tin Roof Blues,[34] High Society,[34] Sensation,[35] Original Dixieland One-Step,[35] Royal Garden Blues,[35] I've Found a New Baby,[35] Slide Frog Slide, Wolverine Blues Carl Sandburg (writer), Eddie Foy Jr. (actor and one of the "Seven Little Foys"),[14] Bert Lahr (actor),[36] Tallulah Bankhead (actress),[36] Miguel Covarrubias (illustrator),[36] Nelson Algren (writer),[36] Jan Sterling (actress),[36] Sybil Burton (actress, wife of Richard Burton),[37] Tom Ewell (actor), Mrs. Rose Movius Palmer (wife of grandson of Potter Palmer—retail magnate),[36] Dr. John T. Reynolds (famous surgeon),[36] Squirrel Ashcraft (jazz musician),[36] Billy House (vaudevillian, actor),[14] Jack Teagarden (jazz musician),[38][14][39] Walter Cronkite (news reporter),[40] Ernest Ansermet (Swiss conductor and composer who famously reviewed Sidney Bechet in 1919).

[48] The club featured a visiting headliner and a house ensemble patterned after the "hot five": (trombone, clarinet, piano, saxophone or trumpet and drums).

They compiled a large and select mailing list to promote their club to: the social set, psychiatrists, doctors, lawyers, newspapermen, business executives and few musicians.

It is a club for the discriminating, the fun-loving and well-mannered person who likes to frequent a well run and safe night spot.

[51] A business card reads: "The BEST DIXIELAND BAND in the MOST intimate atmosphere, Superb Liquors, Genteel Clientele, Acclaimed by The Press everywhere"[15] To entice people to Jazz, Ltd., Reinhardt dispelled half a century of common misperceptions about jazz music.

[36][note 5]By the 1960s, Jazz, Ltd. was doing radio commercials for Ford automobiles and Kleenex tissue, magazine advertisements for Hannah & Hogg Whiskey, newspaper ads for women's clothing, club advertisements in cabaret and tourist magazines.

[52][53] Ned Williams, a publicist and managing editor of Down Beat for ten years and an old friend of the Reinhardts, helped them get their club started.

[14][54] Noted jazz critic and columnist, Paul Eduard Miller, helped the Reinhardts with a mailing list.

[55] As far as jazz is concerned, 52nd Street is gasping for breath...Jimmy Ryan's remains to champion the cause that made the famous block a national institution.

[56] 52nd St razed by housewreckers[57] Bill and Ruth knew that the failure of many jazz clubs from the 1910s through the 1940s can be attributed to bad management, mob connections, illegal speakeasies, gambling, drugs, prostitution and drunkenness.

[58] With this one set of rules they prevented prostitution, maintained high standards for dress, prevented under age drinking, maintained a comfortable environment and, from a financial perspective, avoided a 20% federal cabaret excise tax on singing, dancing and admissions from 1947 to 1960:[note 7][66] Additional rules are that Jazz, Ltd.: "Ruth remembered faces, names.

But his bar bill was paid up in full, and he never knew what had hit him...Ruth had a soft, generous side to her, too.

[75][40][58] When Jazz, Ltd. opened in June 1947 editors of the Chicago Tribune proclaimed that the club would not last more than two weeks to a month.

When a patron observed that Ruth threw out many customers for bad behavior, he threatened to open a competitor across the street to accommodate them.

[71] Ruth admitted this club would have plenty of business, but she was more concerned with the happiness of the majority of their clientele, the respectable ones.

[50] The bandstand walls were made of spring steel to help resonate the band, which was on a small round carpeted deck in the back.

Bill Reinhardt installed air-conditioning and customized acoustics in which "The softest note makes itself heard all the way to the north wall.

"[16] Booths lined the walls along perimeter of the main room and while the middle was filled with small square pedestal tables having lacquered tops, surrounded by ladder-back wood chairs.

In 1960, the 11 East Grand locale was vacated when the American Medical Association bought the property for their high-rise office building.

[82] The new location was twice the size of the former one, with more seats, a larger stage to accommodate a bassist and guitarist, and a dance floor.

Due to the union's limit of five-day regular gigs, Franz Jackson's Original Jass All Stars played on Thursday nights.

Trombonist Munn Ware, seeing Bechet sit down after playing a solo on Tiger Rag, believed he was done.

One night when friend and actor Donald McKee visited Jazz, Ltd., Ruth confided to him that she was remiss in managing Sidney Bechet's misbehaving.

The "doc" took Bechet to the back room, removed a terrible looking green liquid filled vaccine (nail polish) in a large syringe from a doctor's bag and scolded him sternly with it while holding it up to his nose: "You get out of line once more, and Ruth will give you a jab with this that will make you wish you'd behaved."

While Jazz, Ltd. was moving to their new address on Grand Avenue, a frequent guest of theirs, Mr. McCorkle, asked Ruth Reinhardt to save a particular thing from the first club of great interest to him, no matter how odd it seemed.

[88] Original Jazz, Ltd. band members: Bill Reinhardt (cl), Doc Evans (c), Don Ewell (p), Danny Alvin (d), Munn Ware (tb).