Sidney Bechet was born in New Orleans three years before Louis Armstrong. The clarinetist left the Storyville District for Europe in 1919 where he also mastered the saxophone. He spent most of his career in abroad. While in France he wrote Petite Fleur.

British trombonist Chris Barber formed his first jazz band in 1949. Clarinetist Monty Sunshine and banjo virtuoso Lonnie Donegan were members of the band during the fifties. In 1958 Chris Barber’s version of “Petite Fleur” became a world-wide hit.