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June 15, 2008 Pres I was in college when I began in earnest to build a collection of jazz LPs, and my method was somewhat haphazard. My guidance came from liner notes on LPs and the late Ralph J. Gleason’s pieces in Rolling Stone. I’d go to the jazz section of the record store and start looking for names I recognized. Fantasy Records and Verve were reissuing titles from their back catalogs, and I often found reasonably priced two-LP sets by great jazz musicians. One of the Verve sets I bought comprised two 1950s sessions by tenor saxophonist Lester Young. I knew Young was one of the key figures in jazz because of what Gleason and other jazz critics, such as Nat Hentoff, had written about him. As Gleason wrote in an obituary about Young, reprinted in Celebrating the Duke: And Louis, Bessie, Billie, Bird, Carmen, Miles, Dizzy, and Other Heroes, "He was one of the three great instrumental soloists of jazz who changed the course of this music; the other two: Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker." Young had a profound influence on countless musicians, including Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, and Charlie Parker. Unfortunately, that was not the figure whose playing was featured on Mean to Me, the LP collection I’d bought. On one of the sessions, from 1954, Young sounds fine, if a bit restrained. On the second session, from 1955, he sounds like an amateur who slipped the producer a few bucks to let him sit in. To hear what Lester Young had really accomplished, I’d have to look elsewhere. Sessions on Aladdin, Commodore -- even some on Verve -- are indisputable evidence of his importance. But Young secured his reputation at the beginning of his career, with Count Basie, and that period is the focus of a recent collection from Mosaic Records.
Basie and Young begin their recording history together playing faster and more assertively on "Shoe Shine Boy" than one would normally expect from two musicians known for the economy of their styles. Basie soon settles into what Loren Schoenberg, in his excellent liner notes, calls "a far leaner accompaniment. Here is the genesis of the contemporary jazz piano style." And while Young’s solo is quick, he doesn’t rush. Even at a fast tempo and with a desire to show off his chops, he stretches time, anticipating the beat here, playing behind it there. He takes time to make his statements, letting the beat come to him. The Basie band spent the next two-and-a-half years on Decca Records, where Young further solidified his stature on tenor sax (those sessions can be found on Count Basie’s The Complete Decca Recordings). The next session on the Mosaic set picks up Young’s association with Basie in February 1939. On this recording Basie led an octet in which Young plays clarinet in addition to tenor. The full Basie orchestra is on hand for the next session, from March 1939, though they begin on a bland note with "What Goes Up Must Come Down," which even the great vocalist Jimmy Rushing can barely save. The next tune, however, is Young’s showcase, "Taxi War Dance," which he cowrote with Basie and in which his clear tone, impeccable timing, and sure melodic feel are on full display. The hard-swinging Basie we know and love is here for this March session, and Young’s playing swings right along with him. A track from the next session, from later that March, illustrates how far Young’s influence reached. The timing and feel of his playing on "Don’t Worry ’Bout Me" sounds uncannily like Frank Sinatra’s, a comparison I have often found myself making while listening to either musician. Schoenberg notes Young’s admiration for the singer and Sinatra’s reciprocation, and quotes Quincy Jones’s observation that "Frank’s greatness . . . was that he phrased like Lester Young." Schoenberg also highlights Young’s use of "sounds as equal partners with the notes he played in conveying the message of the music." Young had a singer’s feel for drama and expressiveness, and was an unusually sensitive accompanist for singers, as demonstrated by his work on this set with Helen Humes and Jimmy Rushing, and elsewhere by his work with Billie Holiday. Young’s appearances on Holiday’s records were as important in establishing him as a force in jazz as was his tenure with Basie. He called her "Lady Day," and she named him "Pres," as in "the President."
And not just Young. The Basie band was so prodigiously filled with talent that one wonders if at least some of Young’s greatness was the result of his being among a group of musicians who were bound to bring out his best. (In fact, some critics have suggested that Young’s inconsistency in later years was a simple matter of incompatibility.) A list of only a few of these players tells the story: Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison on trumpet, Dicky Wells and Benny Morton on trombone, Freddie Green on guitar, Walter Page on bass, and Jo Jones on drums. The Lester Young/Count Basie Sessions 1936-1940 is filled with great arrangements, powerful ensemble playing, and brilliant soloing, and the inclusion of sessions with the Bennie Goodman Septet and organist Glenn Hardman complete the picture of Young at this point in his career. Charlie Christian is the guitarist for the Goodman session, and Young had clearly left his influence on his playing. Young left Basie in late 1940, then returned in late 1943, only to leave early the following year. A harrowing, forced stint in the Army followed (he was stationed in Georgia), and many trace Young’s decline to that experience. Some jazz historians claim to hear a dimming of Young’s abilities immediately after his time in the service, but on his sessions for Aladdin and Savoy he sounds confident and strong. Beginning in the early 1950s, however, the effects of alcohol abuse and mental illness began to take their toll. There were moments, sometimes even whole sessions, of the old brilliance on some of Young’s Verve dates, but often he played beneath his gifts. Lester Young died in March 1959, just a few months before the passing of his friend Billie Holiday. His early playing, as documented on this set, shows how decisive was his influence on popular music. He anticipated bebop -- Charlie Parker would take Young’s concept of time in music to its limits -- and inspired a host of musicians who carried on his ideas. Lee Konitz, quoted in the book that accompanies The Lester Young/Count Basie Sessions 1936-1940: Classic Columbia, Okeh, and Vocalion, has the last word: "How many people Lester influenced. How many lives!" …Joseph Taylor
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The Lester Young/Count
Basie Sessions 1936-1940: Classic Columbia, Okeh, and Vocalion [4 CDs, Mosaic
MD4-239] opens with Young’s very first session, with Jones-Smith Incorporated, in
1936, originally released by Vocalion Records. The group comprised six members of the
Basie band, including the leader himself, but couldn’t record under Basie’s name
because he’d just signed with Decca. Young had played with Basie a few years earlier,
then done a brief, unsuccessful stint with Fletcher Henderson’s band before rejoining
Basie in 1936. "Shoe Shine Boy" was the first track the band tackled, and
Young’s mastery is immediately apparent. His sound is vastly different from that of
Coleman Hawkins, the dominant tenor player of the time, and after whom Henderson’s
band wanted Young to pattern himself. Hawkins was a more aggressive, on-the-beat player;
Young was more rhythmically playful, his tone lighter, more fluid.
The rest of the Mosaic set
follows Young’s work with Basie through 1939 and up to nearly the end of 1940. Some
of Young’s definitive work is here, such as his composition "Lester Leaps
In." Basie and Young recorded that tune, and "Dickie’s Dream," with a
small group, the Kansas City Seven, in September 1939. "Lester Leaps In," which
remained Young’s signature tune for the rest of his life, is represented in two takes
here, and in the second Young approaches his solo with fresh, exciting ideas. The group
takes three runs at "Dickie’s Dream," cowritten by Young and Basie, each
showing how differences in tempo and approach can spur on improvisational musicians. As
Mosaic often does, they include many alternate takes with this set, but these are not
merely of academic interest. Each one shows Young playing with renewed energy and
inspiration.