Artist: Lester Young
Genre(s):
Jazz
Discography:
Lady Day and Pres 1937-1941 (Vol. 1)
Year: 2002
Tracks: 18
Ken Burns JAZZ Collection: Lester Young
Year: 2000
Tracks: 19
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 8
Year: 1999
Tracks: 30
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 7
Year: 1999
Tracks: 14
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 6
Year: 1999
Tracks: 11
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 5
Year: 1999
Tracks: 11
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 4
Year: 1999
Tracks: 13
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 3
Year: 1999
Tracks: 21
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 2
Year: 1999
Tracks: 20
The Complete Lester Young Studio Sessions on Verve Disc 1
Year: 1999
Tracks: 22
Jazz Masters 30
Year: 1994
Tracks: 15
Ken Burns Jazz Series: Lester Young
Year:
Tracks: 19
Lester Young was one of the true jazz giants, a strain saxophonist world Health Organization came up with a altogether different conception in which to play his horn, floating over bar lines with a light tone sooner than adopting Coleman Hawkins' then-dominant forceful approach. A nonconformist, Young (nicknamed "Pres" by Billie Holiday) had the dry have in the fifties of hearing many young tenors try to reasoned incisively like him.
Although he dog-tired his earlier days near New Orleans, Lester Young lived in Minneapolis by 1920, playing in a fabled family band. He studied violin, trumpet, and drums, starting on countertenor at historic period 13. Because he refused to go in the South, Young left base in 1927 and rather toured with Art Bronson's Bostonians, shift to tenor. He was second with the family band in 1929 and then freelanced for a few years, playing with Walter Page's Blue Devils (1930), Eddie Barefield in 1931, second with the Blue Devils during 1932-1933, and Bennie Moten and King Oliver (both 1933). He was with Count Basie for the first time in 1934 merely left to interchange Coleman Hawkins with Fletcher Henderson. Unfortunately, it was expected that Young would try to emulate Hawk, and his laid-back well-grounded angered Henderson's sidemen, resulting in Pres not long-lasting long. After a go with Andy Kirk and a few brief jobs, Lester Young was second with Basie in 1936, hardly in time to ace with the band as they headed East. Young made history during his long time with Basie, not only active on Count's book dates merely leading with Billie Holiday and Teddy Wilson on a series of classical small-group sessions. In addition, on his rare recordings on clarinet with Basie and the Kansas City Six, Young displayed a very original cool wakeless that most sounded like alto saxophonist Paul Desmond in the fifties. After departure Count in 1940, Young's life history became a piece aimless, not capitalizing on his celebrity in the idle words world. He co-led a low profile band with his brother, drummer Lee Young, in Los Angeles until re-joining Basie in December 1943. Young had a well-chosen nine-spot months gage with the band, recorded a memorable quartet sitting with bassist Slam Stewart, and starred in the poor celluloid Jammin' the Blues ahead he was drafted. His experiences transaction with racialism in the military were frightful, poignant his mental state of intellect for the residual of his life.
Although many critics hold scripted that Lester Young never sounded as good afterwards acquiring out of the military, despite planetary health he actually was at his premier in the mid to late-'40s. He toured (and was good paid by Norman Granz) with Jazz at the Philharmonic on and off through the '40s and '50s, made a terrific series of recordings for Aladdin, and worked steady as a unmarried. Young besides adopted his stylus well to bop (which he had helped pave the way for in the 1930s). But mentally he was suffering, building a wall between himself and the external world, and inventing his have colorful vocabulary. Although many of his recordings in the fifties were fantabulous (viewing a greater emotional depth than in his earlier days), Young was bothered by the fact that some of his white imitators were making much more money than he was. He drank immense amounts of pot liquor and virtually stopped up eating, with predictable results. 1956's Wind Giants album establish him in eyeshade cast as did a well documented date in Washington, D.C., with a quartette and a last-place reunion with Count Basie at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival. But, for the 1957 telecast The Sound of Jazz, Young generally played sitting mastered (although he stole the show with an emotional one-chorus blue devils solo played to Billie Holiday). After becoming ill in Paris in early 1959, Lester Young came home and fundamentally drank himself to death. Many decades after his dying, Pres is still considered (along with Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane) one of the trey most authoritative tenor saxophonists of all fourth dimension.
