Lester Young

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Lester Young
Young (left) in 1944
Young (left) in 1944
Background information
Birth nameLester Willis Young
Also known as"Pres" or "Prez"
Born(1909-08-27)August 27, 1909
Woodville, Mississippi, U.S.
DiedMarch 15, 1959(1959-03-15) (aged 49)
New York City, U.S.
GenresJazz
Occupation(s)Musician
Instrument(s)Tenor saxophone, alto saxophone, clarinet
Years active1933–1959
Labels

Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.

Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called "a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike".[1]

Known for his hip, introverted style,

jargon which came to be associated with the music.[3]

Early life and career

Lester Young was born in

drums, and joined the Young Family Band touring with carnivals and playing in regional cities in the Southwest.[6][2] Young's early musical influences included Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, and Frankie Trumbauer
.

In his teens, he and his father clashed, and he often left home for long periods.[6] His family moved to Minneapolis in 1919 and Young stayed there for much of the 1920s, first picking up the tenor saxophone while living there.[7] Young left the family band in 1927 at the age of 18 because he refused to tour in the Southern United States, where Jim Crow laws were in effect and racial segregation was required in public facilities.[8] He became a member of the Bostonians, led by Art Bronson, and chose the tenor saxophone over the alto as his primary instrument. He made a habit of leaving, working, then going home. He left home permanently in 1932 when he became a member of the Blue Devils led by Walter Page.[6]

With the Count Basie Orchestra

In 1933, Young settled in

C-melody saxophone (between the alto and tenor in pitch).[10]

Young left the Basie band to replace Hawkins in

Franklin Roosevelt, the "greatest man around" in Billie's mind.[13] Playing on her name, he would call her "Lady Day." Their famously empathetic classic recordings with Teddy Wilson
date from this era.

After Young's clarinet was stolen in 1939, he abandoned the instrument until about 1957. That year Norman Granz gave him one and urged him to play it (with far different results at that stage in Young's life—see below).

Leaving Basie

Young left the Basie band in late 1940. He is rumored to have refused to play with the band on Friday, December 13 of that year for superstitious reasons, spurring his dismissal,[11] although Young and drummer Jo Jones would later state that his departure had been in the works for months. He subsequently led a number of small groups that often included his brother, drummer Lee Young, for the next couple of years; live and broadcast recordings from this period exist.

During this period, Young accompanied the singer

recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. Small record labels not bound by union contracts continued to record, and Young recorded some sessions for Harry Lim's Keynote
label in 1943.

In December 1943, Young returned to the Basie fold for a 10-month stint, cut short by his being

Harry "Sweets" Edison, and fellow tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet in Gjon Mili's short film Jammin' the Blues
.

Army service

In September 1944, Young and

Ft. McClellan, Alabama, Young was found with marijuana and alcohol among his possessions. He was soon court-martialed. Young did not fight the charges and was convicted. He served one traumatic year in a detention barracks[15] and was dishonorably discharged in late 1945. His experience inspired his composition "D.B. Blues" (with D.B. standing for detention barracks).[16]

Post-war recordings

Young at the Famous Door, New York, N.Y., c. September 1946. Photo by William P. Gottlieb.

Young's career after World War II was far more prolific and lucrative than in the pre-war years in terms of recordings made, live performances, and annual income. Young joined Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe in 1946, touring regularly with JATP over the next 12 years. He made many studio recordings under Granz's supervision as well, including more trio recordings with Nat King Cole. Young also recorded extensively in the late 1940s for Aladdin Records (1945-1947, where he had made the Cole recordings in 1942) and for Savoy (1944, 1949 and 1950), some sessions of which included Basie on piano.

Struggle and revival

From around 1951, Young's level of playing declined more precipitously as his drinking increased. His playing showed reliance on a small number of clichéd phrases and reduced creativity and originality, despite his claims that he did not want to be a "repeater pencil" (Young coined this phrase to describe the act of repeating one's own past ideas).

nervous breakdown
.

He emerged from this treatment improved. In January 1956, he recorded two Granz-produced sessions including a reunion with pianist Teddy Wilson, trumpet player

Washington, DC, with the Bill Potts
Trio. Live recording of Young and Potts in Washington were issued later.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Young occasionally played as a featured guest with the Count Basie Orchestra. The best-known of these appearances is the July 1957 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, with a line-up including many of his 1940s colleagues: Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Illinois Jacquet and Jimmy Rushing. In 1952 he was featured on Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio, released in 1954 on Norgran.[18] In 1956, he recorded two LPs with his 1930s collaborators Teddy Wilson and Jo Jones. Allmusic's Scott Yanow, reviewing one of the albums, Pres and Teddy, commented:

Although it has been written much too often that Lester Young declined rapidly from the mid-'40s on, the truth is that when he was healthy, Young played at his very best during the '50s, adding an emotional intensity to his sound that had not been present during the more carefree days of the '30s. This classic session finds the great tenor in particularly expressive form.[19]

Family life

Lester married three times. His first marriage was to Beatrice Tolliver, in

Albuquerque, on 23 February 1930.[20]
His second was to Mary Dale.

His third wife was Mary Berkeley; they had two children.[21][22]

Final years

On December 8, 1957, Young appeared with Billie Holiday, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, and Gerry Mulligan in the CBS television special The Sound of Jazz, performing Holiday's tune "Fine and Mellow." It was a reunion with Holiday, with whom he had lost contact over the years. She was also in physical decline, near the end of her career, yet they both gave moving performances. Young's solo was brilliant, acclaimed by some observers as an unparalleled marvel of economy, phrasing and extraordinarily moving emotion; Nat Hentoff, one of the show's producers, later commented, "Lester got up, and he played the purest blues I have ever heard ... in the control room we were all crying."[23]

Young made his final studio recordings and live performances in Paris in March 1959 with drummer Kenny Clarke at the tail end of an abbreviated European tour during which he ate next to nothing and drank heavily. On a flight to New York City, he suffered from internal bleeding due to the effects of alcoholism and died in the early morning hours of March 15, 1959, only hours after arriving back in New York, at the age of 49.[24]

According to jazz critic Leonard Feather, who rode with Holiday in a taxi to Young's funeral, she said after the services, "I'll be the next one to go."[25] Holiday died four months later on July 17, 1959, at age 44.

Influence on other musicians

Young's playing style influenced many musicians, including

B.B. King, John Lewis, Zoot Sims, Al Cohn, Warne Marsh, Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, and Paul Desmond. Paul Quinichette modeled his style so closely on Young's that he was sometimes referred to as the "Vice Prez" (sic).[26] Sonny Stitt began to incorporate elements from Lester Young's approach when he made the transition to tenor saxophone. Lester Young also had a direct influence on the young Charlie Parker, and thus the entire bebop movement.[27]

Non-musical legacy

Young also influenced non-musicians such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He is also said to have popularized use of the term "cool" to mean something fashionable.[28] Another slang term he is rumoured to have popularized was the term "bread" for money. He would ask, "How does the bread smell?" when asking how much a gig was going to pay.[29]

Posthumous dedications

Charles Mingus dedicated an elegy to Young, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", only a few months after his death, and released it on his 1959 album Mingus Ah Um.[30] Mingus re-released "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" under the name "Theme for Lester Young" on his 1964 album Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus. At Mingus’s request, Joni Mitchell wrote lyrics to “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” which incorporated stories Mingus told Mitchell about Young; the song was featured on Mitchell’s 1979 album release, Mingus, a collaboration instigated by Mingus during the last year of his life as he struggled with the ALS that would kill him. The resulting song then became both an elegy to Young, and, implicitly, Mingus as well.

Wayne Shorter, then of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, composed a tribute called "Lester Left Town," which was released on the Jazz Messengers' 1960 album The Big Beat.[31]

In 1981

Manhattan Theater Club, New York City, with a four-piece jazz combo led by Dwight Andrews.[32]

In the 1986 film Round Midnight, the fictional main character Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon, was partly based on Young – incorporating flashback references to his army experiences, and loosely depicting his time in Paris and his return to New York just before his death. Young is a major character in English writer Geoff Dyer's 1991 fictional book about jazz, But Beautiful.

The

A Great Day in Harlem
" photograph of jazz musicians in New York, contains many remembrances of Young. For many of the other participants, the photo shoot was the last time they saw him alive; he was the first musician in the famous photo to pass away.

Don Byron recorded the album Ivey-Divey in gratitude for what he learned from studying Lester Young's work, modeled after a 1946 trio date with Buddy Rich and Nat King Cole. "Ivey-Divey" was one of Lester Young's common eccentric phrases.

Young was the subject and inspiration of Prez. Homage to Lester Young (1993), a book of poetry by Vancouver writer Jamie Reid.

Young was the subject of an opera, Prez: A Jazz Opera, that was written by Bernard Cash and Alan Plater and broadcast by BBC television in 1985.[33]

Peter Straub's short story collection Magic Terror (2000) contains a story called "Pork Pie Hat", a fictionalized account of the life of Lester Young. Straub was inspired by Young's appearance on the 1957 CBS-TV show The Sound of Jazz, which he watched repeatedly, wondering how such a genius could have ended up "this present shambles, this human wreckage, hardly able to play at all".[34]

On 17 March 2003, Young was added to the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame, along with Sidney Bechet, Al Cohn, Nat "King" Cole, Peggy Lee and Teddy Wilson. He was represented at the ceremony by his children Lester Young Jr and Yvette Young.[35]

Discography

As leader

Norgran Records

Catalog No. Album Notes Recorded Released
MGN 5 Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio #1 10' 1952 1954
MGN 6 Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio #2 10' 1952 1954
MGN 1005 The President 1950-1952 1954
MGN 1022 It Don't Mean a Thing 1954 1955
MGN 1054 The President Plays with the Oscar Peterson Trio with Oscar Peterson 1952 1955
MGN 1043 Pres and Sweets with Harry Edison 1955 1956
MGN 1056 The Jazz Giants '56 1956 1956
MGN 1071 Lester's Here 1951-1953 1956
MGN 1072 Pres 1950-1951 1956?
MGN 1074 The Lester Young Buddy Rich Trio with Buddy Rich 1946 1956
MGN 1093 Lester Swings Again Reissue of MGN 1005 1950-1952 1956
MGN 1100 It Don't Mean a Thing Reissue of MGN 1022 1954 1956?

Verve Records

[36]

Catalog No. Album Notes Recorded Released
MGV 8134 Pres and Sweets Reissue of Norgran MGN 1043 1955 1957
MGV 8144 The President Plays with the Oscar Peterson Trio Reissue of Norgran MGN 1054 1952 1957
MGV 8161 Lester's Here Reissue of Norgran MGN 1071 1951-1953 1957
MGV 8162 Pres Reissue of Norgran MGN 1072 1950-1951 1957?
MGV 8164 The Lester Young Buddy Rich Trio Reissue of Norgran MGN 1074 1946 1957?
MGV 8181 Lester Swings Again Reissue of Norgran MGN 1005 1950-1952 1957?
MGV 8187 It Don't Mean a Thing Reissue of Norgran MGN 1022 1954 1957
MGV 8205 Pres and Teddy with Teddy Wilson 1956 1957
MGV 8298 Going for Myself with Harry Edison 1957-1958 1958
MGV 8308 The Lester Young Story Compilation 1950-1956 1959
MGV 8316 Laughin' to Keep from Cryin' with Roy Eldridge and Harry Edison 1958 1959?
MGV 8378 Lester Young in Paris Live 1959 1959
MGV 8398 The Essential Lester Young Compilation 1949-1957 1959

Charlie Parker Records (company)

Catalog No. Album Notes Recorded Released
402 Pres Live. Early "in person" recordings. Recorded on a home recorder. First commercially issued collection of Young as band leader. Multiple years 1961
405 Pres is Blue Live (Savoy Ballroom) 1950 1963
409 Just You, Just Me 1948-1949 1961
504 Live at the Savoy (aka The Pres) Live ? 1981
828 An Historical Meeting At The Summit with Charlie Parker ? 1961

Pablo Records

Catalog No. Album Notes Recorded Released
2308219 Pres, In Washington, DC 1956, volume 1 Live 1956 1980
2308225 Prez, In Washington, DC 1956, volume 2 Live 1956 1980
2308228 Pres, In Washington, DC 1956, volume 3 Live 1956 1981
2308230 Pres, In Washington, DC 1956, volume 4 Live 1956 1981

Compilations (as leader)

  • The Kansas City Sessions (recorded in 1938 and 1944) Commodore Records
  • The Complete Aladdin Recordings (1942–47) – the 1942 Nat King Cole session and more from the post-war period
  • The Complete Savoy Recordings (recorded 1944–50)
  • The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve – 8-CD boxed set (includes the only two Young interviews known to exist)

As sideman

With the Count Basie Orchestra

With Jazz at the Philharmonic

  • The Complete Jazz at the Philharmonic on Verve: 1944-1949 (Verve, 1998)
  • The Drum Battle (Verve, 1952 [1960])

With Billie Holiday

References

  1. ^ DeVeaux 2011, p. 172.
  2. ^ a b DeVeaux 2011, p. 171.
  3. ^ "Charlie [Parker] was shy of hipster elaborations. He added nothing to the vocabulary, as did Lester Young, one of the great hip verbalists." Russell, Ross (1973). Bird Lives: The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie (Yardbird) Parker. DaCapo Press, p. 186
  4. ^ a b Gelly 2007, p. 1.
  5. ^ Gelly 2007, p. 3.
  6. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-539970-7
    .
  7. ^ Daniels, Douglas Henry (Fall 2004). "Lester 'Pres' Young in Minneapolis: The Formative Years" (PDF). Minnesota History Magazine. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  8. ^ 24 part "Interview with Lester Young", conducted in the 1950s.
  9. ^ Gelly 2007, p. 43-44.
  10. ^ "Frankie Trumbauer - Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
  11. ^ a b Berendt, Joachim (1976). The Jazz Book. Paladin. pp. 79–80.
  12. ISBN 978-0818012020
    .
  13. ^ "Lester Young - Biography, Albums, & Streaming Radio - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  14. ^ Hillshafer, Linda (May 4, 2019). "Stories of Standards: Lester Leaps In by Lester Young". KUVO. Retrieved October 19, 2020.
  15. ^ "The Prez, Lester Young", The African American Registry
  16. ^ Gelly 2007, p. 106.
  17. ^ Gelly 2007, p. 114.
  18. ^ "Lester Young With the Oscar Peterson Trio - Lester Young | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic.
  19. ^ "Pres & Teddy | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic.
  20. OCLC 154707878.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  21. OCLC 57344030
    .
  22. OCLC 22861212.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  23. ^ Ward, Geoffrey C., and Ken Burns. Jazz: A History of America's Music (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000) p.405
  24. ^ "Lester Young | Encyclopedia.com". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved August 3, 2021.
  25. ISBN 978-0-306-80302-4
    .
  26. ^ Gelly 2007, p. 124.
  27. ISBN 0-87930-308-5
  28. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  29. ^ "Lester Young: 'The Prez' Still Rules At 100". Npr.org. Retrieved August 5, 2016.
  30. Allmusic
    . Retrieved July 17, 2009
  31. ^ Fletcher, Rob (December 22, 2011). "Lester Left Town – Lester Young, Wayne Shorter and honoring your influences". Quixote Consulting - Rob Fletcher's Blog.
  32. ^ Mel Gussow, THEATER: 'Lady Lester', The New York Times, November 14, 1981.]
  33. ^ Gelly 2007, pp. ix–x.
  34. ^ "Peter Straub interview". Infinity Plus. Retrieved June 18, 2014.
  35. ^ "Seven Music Greats Added to ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame". Ascap.com. Retrieved December 20, 2018.
  36. ^ "Verve Records Discography Project". Jazzdisco.org. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
  37. ^ "Lester Young at Mosaic Records". MosaicRecords.com (Official site). 2021. Retrieved July 12, 2021.
  38. ^ "Lester Young - Mosaic Records".

Bibliography

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lester Young.
  • Büchmann-Møller, Frank (1990) You Just Fight for Your Life: The Story of Lester Young. Praeger.
  • Büchmann-Møller, Frank You Got to Be Original, Man! The Music of Lester Young (discography)
  • Daniels, Douglas Henry (2002) Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester 'Pres' Young. Beacon Press.
  • Delannoy, Luc (1993) Prez: The Story of Lester Young. University of Arkansas Press.
  • Porter, Lewis (1991) Lester Young: A Reader. Smithsonian Institution Press .
  • Porter, Lewis (2005, revised edition) Lester Young. University of Michigan Press.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lester_Young&oldid=1217042518"