In this month’s installment of OffBeat’s “Masters of Louisiana music” series, John Swenson examines the life and legend of Sidney Bechet, the only musician Louis Armstrong couldn’t outplay. As early as 1917, Bechet’s music was declared “the highway where tomorrow’s world traffic will stream.”

Now that we have wrapped up two years of tributes to the great Louis Armstrong it's worth pointing out that there was one musician out there in Armstrong's time who he couldn't outpla...