Sidney Bechet was a clarinet player first, and then adopted the soprano sax, which is a very similar* instrument. By the time he had become firmly and permanently settled in France, he had largely switched over from clarinet to soprano, and was arguably the first jazz soprano player.

(*For those who don't already know: the standard soprano sax is straight like a clarinet, not bent like the other saxophones ~ although there is such a thing as a soprano shaped like a standard sax; it looks like a miniature instrument.)

I think it's pretty harsh to pass judgement on the ODJB as "out and out racists." How can we know that? They obviously loved black music enough to adopt it as their own, and were the first to bring the music of Black New Orelans to the rest of the world. At this late date, there's no way for us to know what was in the heart and mind of each individual band member, whether or not his affection for the music extended to respect for black people, etc.

I suppose that we can make our own judgements about how well they understood the music they had set out to emulate, but then we don't have recordings of jazz being played by anyone earlier than the ODJB, black, white, or Creole. So, we'd only be guessing about how faithfully the white guys were recreating the sound of jazz as it existed at that very early stage of development.

We do know (from letters, oral history, etc.) that white musicians played with the first generation of black jazz players, but only in "private" jam sessions, house parties, etc. Integrated bands could not legally appear in public in Louisiana at that time ~ in fact, not until the early 1970s (!?!)