To ballast Young

Style and legend

Lester Young was not called " Prez" for nothing: it was indeed one of the musicians of most influential Jazz of all times, as well by its revolutionary play as by its personality. As of his first engagements with Count Basie, at one time when the aggressive and powerful play of Coleman Hawkins defined the sound of the saxophonists of jazz, Young opposed to him air solos, pretense to float on the tempo of the orchestra, such of the volutes of smoke. Its major knowledge of the Harmony, very rare at the time - there were no schools of jazz! - allowed him to improvise in all the situations, and it was known never to be repeated of a Solo on the other, which constitutes the absolute ideal of a musician of Jazz.

Remaining completely with the service of the song - he affirmed that one was to be able " entendre" the words in the instrumental melody, Young was a major influence for number of musicians of his time who dreamed of a softer and elegant Jazz, being opposed inter alia to the Be-bop. It was in particular the case of the movement " Cool Jazz " Years 1950, instituted by Miles Davis.

If To ballast Young were an extremely original musician, its life itself is not in remainder. Eccentric character, it liked to speak in a way coded to be included/understood only his circle of friends and to impress the others, and to get dressed in an original way - it almost never took off its famous hat " Black and white Pork Hat". Lester Young remains known today to have been the first of a long line of jazzmen original with strong personality. This influence extends on the world from the entire jazz, to start with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, which was both large fans of the " Président".

Biography

A youth under the sign of the music

Lester Young was born with Woodville, in the State of the the Mississippi in 1909. It is plunged as of its childhood in the music, through his father, Willis Handy Young, which directs a scenic orchestra of music, and his brother Lee Young, beater remarkable. With several other parents, all professional musicians, they form a family group of Minstrel show which turns in the circuit of the Light comedy. Whereas Lester is still child, its family moves with La Nouvelle-Orléans in Louisiana, then in Mineapolis. His/her father teaches the trumpet, the Violon, and the battery to him, in addition to the Saxophone, in order to allow him to occur with the family group. He will leave it in 1927, refusing to accompany to them his in round in the states by the South where reign the law Jim Crow.

Prez in Kansas City: the take-off

In 1928, Young is devoted definitively to the Saxophone tenor, instrument on which it develops a style personal very soft and air, contrary to that of Coleman Hawkins, that all seek at the time imitating. It settles in 1933 with Kansas City, capital of the jazz at the same time as of the play, the prostitution, the drug and the alcohol traffic - at that time, the Prohibition makes the fortune of the gangsters of any hair through the United States. After having belonged to several groups, it is engaged in 1936 in the orchestra of large the Count Basie. It becomes acquainted with several people who will mark her life forever, in particular the singer Billie Holiday, with whom it will live a strong friendship and a great musical complicity, and Teddy Wilson, which will direct the small formations where Billie and Lester will be able to express their talents. It is in Billie that it owes its nickname of Prez , the President of the saxophone tenor!

Indeed, meanwhile, Young gained his gallons by measuring in Coleman Hawkins itself in the jam sessions of Kansas City, which are as many keen confrontations where the reputations are done and demolish themselves very quickly. To ballast there gains the respect and the admiration of its pars by holding one night whole vis-a-vis the Hawkins giant, who according to the legend flees in the small hour, exhausted and amazed to be able to eliminate this strange competitor with the so light play…

Young leaves finally the group of fine Basie 1940, according to the legend because, being extremely superstitious, he refused to play one Friday the 13th. He creates then several small formations, often at the side of his Lee brother, who provide him the ideal framework for his revolutionary play. He records several discs during this period, in particular with Billie Holiday and, in June 1942, Nat King Cole. In December 1943, Young reinstates the orchestra of Count Basie for a 10 months engagement, stopped by his military service, event which was to upset forever its existence and its Article.

Military service and precarious rebirth

Being constantly moving between the places of their various engagements, the musicians of jazz of this time often manage to escape their military obligations only while appearing impossible to find. In September 1944, Young, in company of beater OJ Jones, is however caught up with by the American army whereas it is in Los Angeles with Count Basie. Contrary to the majority of the white musicians of the time, integrated into military brass bands, it is mobilized in the regular army, to which it appears singularly unsuited. Head of Turkish of his superiors since they discovered that he is married with a white woman, it tries to hold while making use massive of Marijuana and others Drugs, which is worth to him to be imprisoned for insubordination and use of Narcotique S. This experiment of the military prisons, who will give rise to the piece dB Blues ( Detention Barracks Blues ) marks it considerably, certain historians affirming even that she destroys most of her creative potential. It plunges gradually in the depression. However the following years are far from constituting a decline: with his demobilization, the producer Norman Granz takes it under his wing within the Jazz At the Philharmonic. From 1945 to 1947, it records historical faces for the Alladin label with the head of small formations in particular including the trombonist Vic Dickenson and the young pianist Dodo Marmarosa. They include/understand in particular dB Blues and the revolutionary version of These Foolish Things where Lester begins its improvisation without preliminary exposure of the topic, which constitutes a first at the time. The rounds of the Jazz At the Philharmonic multiply and give the opportunity to him to play side of Charlie Parker in 1946 and 1949. Within JATP, To ballast offer a perfect contrast with the tenors expressionnists like Illinois Jacquet and Flip Philips which take part in these concert-jam-sessions.

Last years of the President

At the beginning of the Years 1950 play of " Prez" start to degrade itself. Its solos become less imaginative, and it is able to him even to be repeated by copying its own preceding recordings, which forever be the case before. If one compares his recordings of 1954 with those of 1952 for example, one notes a degradation of the control of his instrument, and even of the tempo. Supporting very badly these musical problems, Young starts to drink even more than it did it already, which does not arrange the things. He could however draw part of degradation from his average physiques to transform his art and to return it more close friend. He thus puts in music his depressive impulses and implies with the listeners impossibility to play the ideal music. All faults, gapings present in its last recordings as in " They Can' T Take That Away From Me " (1958) are not only due to its physical degradation but are also of the proper will of the artist. They express with wonder its melancholy.

In November 1955, it cracks and is interned in psychiatric hospital. It leaves a few months there later to know a clearing which will be only provisional. Eating less and less and drinking more and more, Young becomes starting from 1957 a kind of phantom nourished with the Whiskey, always at the edge of physical collapse and sometimes too exhausted to simply be able to raise his instrument. He however manages always to carry out performances of an emotional force out of the commun run, like that of December 1957 at the side of Billie Holiday, which he had not re-examined since of the years, and during which he delivered a solo completely shining, all in saving in means and emotion.

Lester Young recorded his last faces later a little more than one year, in March 1959 with Paris, during a European round which had to be shortened because he did not eat almost any more and drank with length of day. He died in the morning of March 15th 1959, a few hours only after his return to New York. He was only 49 years old. The critic of jazz Leonard Feather told later that, going to the burial of Young with Billie Holiday, he intended it to murmur “I will be the following one”. Billie followed its close friend in the tomb later a few weeks, at the 44 years age.

Anecdotes

It would have given up the battery by realizing that after the concerts it spent more time to pack its instrument than the other musicians. Blow, the girls left with the other musicians, leaving it unmarried for the remainder of the evening.
Lester was very superstitious. One day that it was to record in studio with the orchestra of Basie everyone waited it. The owner then calls it with his hotel: " What do you make? Everyone you attend". To ballast known as then: " One is Friday the 13th. I cannot leave, it will arrive to me something ". " It is done, answers him Basie, you are transfered! "

Quotation

I remember To ballast Young with the Club Saint-Germain ; he carried complete of blue silk with a red silk lining . Georges Perec, I remember, 4.

Others

The last days To ballast Young strongly inspired those of Flagstone Turner, the main character of Around midnight, the film of Bertrand Tavernier.

Selective discography

1937 - 1939: The Supplements Decca Recordings - Count Basie, GRP
1937 - 1946: Billie Holiday /Lester Young, Fremeaux
1938 supplements: The Kansas City Sessions, Liveliness
1943 - 1944: The Supplements To ballast Young one Keynote, Verve
1945 - 1948: The Supplements Aladdin Recordings, Blue Note
1952: With the Oscar Peterson Trio, Liveliness
1956: The Giants Jazz, Liveliness
1956: Close and Teddy, Liveliness
1956: To ballast Young in Washington, D.C., vol. 1-4, Pablo
1957: Count Basie At Newport, Liveliness
1958: Laughin' to Keep from Cryin', Liveliness
1959: Jazz in Paris: The Last Message To ballast Young, Universal
1946 - 1959: The Supplements To ballast Young Studio Sessions one Liveliness, Verve

Selected pieces

Shoe Shine Servant boy , 1936 with Jones-Smith Incorporated
Lady Be Good , 1936 with Jones-Smith Incorporated
Roseland Shuffle , 1937 with the Count Basie Orchestrated
One O' Clock Jump , 1937 with the Count Basie Orchestra
This Year' S Kisses , 1937 with Billie Holiday
Foolin' Myself , 1937 with Billie Holiday
Me, Myself And I , 1937 with Billie Holiday
Every Tub , 1938 with the Count Basie Orchestra
Swinguin' The Blues , 1938 with the Count Basie Orchestrated
Way Down Younder In New Orleans , 1938 with Kansas City Seven
All Of Me , 1941 with Billie Holiday
Sometimes I' m Happy , 1943 with Slam Stewart, low Guitare and Big Sid Catlett, battery
Lester Leaps Again , 1944 with Kansas City Seven
Blue Lester , 1944
Ghost off has Chance , 1944
D.B Blues , 1945
These Foolish Things , 1945
The Man I Coils , 1946 with Nat King Cole, Piano
I Want To Be Happy , 1946 with Nat King Cole, Piano
Slow Motion Blues , 1951 with John Lewis, Piano
One The Sunny Side off The Street , 1952 with Oscar Peterson, Piano
Close Returns , 1956 with Teddy Wilson, Piano
They Can' T Take That Away From Me , 1958
I Can' T Get Started , 1959

Videotex

Jammin' the Blues , short film of Gjon Mili of a great artistic quality with Harry Edison and Illinois Jacquet, 1944
The Sound off Jazz , exceptional television program of CBS where took part in particular Henry " Red" Allen, Count Basie, Thelonious Monk and Jimmy Giuffre.

In this last film, Lester Young takes part in an upsetting version of Fine And Mellow with Billie Holiday, Roy Eldridge, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan and Coleman Hawkins.

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