The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (62 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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and "Some Sweet Day," on which his solo elicits a shout of joy from the leader. Not many saxophonists thought in such songlike, coherent melodic phrases in 1933; it would be 1936 before Lester Young would cut his first records and delineate an entire conception of soloing based on the same approach, although refined to an even higher and more stylized degree and stripped of the heavy, Hawkins-like tone.
Piano Man: Earl Hines, His Piano and Orchestra
(RCA/Bluebird 6750-2-RB), a collection of tracks by the pianist's big bands of 1939-1942, contains a number of classic arrangements by Johnson, including the exciting and ingenious "Grand Terrace Shuffle," and some good, if short, solo spots for his tenor and alto. His full chorus on "Call Me Happy" is a gem, and his clarinet playing over the ensemble after Billy Eckstine's vocal on "Jelly, Jelly" is extremely hip.
Lionel Hampton, Volume 2: The Jumpin' Jive
(RCA/Bluebird 2433-2-RB) contains a 1938 track, "Rock Hill Special," on which several members of Hines's band join Hampton in the studio; Johnson takes two good choruses on this medium-tempo blues.
On Dizzy Gillespie's exciting 1951 version of "The Champ," included on
Dizzy Gillespie: Dee Gee Days
(Savoy ZDS 4426), Johnson bats cleanup (after vibist Milt Jackson, Gillespie, and trombonist J. J. Johnson), with seven wild choruses that get progressively louder and higher pitched, kicked along by Gillespie's background riffs. Johnson was also a favorite section man and featured soloist of arranger Gil Evans. On the 1959 Evans album
Great Jazz Standards
(Pacific Jazz CDP 7 46856 2), Johnson plays some beautiful clarinet on a reorchestrated version of Don Redman's "Chant of the Weed" and takes an extended tenor outing on the modal "La Nevada" that is the solo highlight of the entire album. When Evans recorded the tune again in 1961 for his album
Out of the Cool
(MCA/Impulse MCAD-5653), Johnson again took the tenor solo.
Two later sets featuring Johnson as a sideman are the 1964 Earl Hines small-band session
Up to Date
(RCA/Bluebird 6462-2-RB), on which Johnson is featured on tenor, soprano, and baritone saxophones, and an outstanding 1971 album by singer Jimmy Rushing,
The You and Me That Used to Be
(RCA/Bluebird 6460-2-RB), on which Johnson plays soprano exclusively. The Rushing album is one of the nicest things you could possibly do with twelve dollars or whatever you have to pay; he is accompanied by two bands - one with tenorist Al Cohn and Johnson, the other with trumpeter-violinist Ray Nance and tenor man Zoot Sims - in a program of little-done standards like "Home," "Thanks a Million," and "Linger Awhile." Johnson takes fine solos on the title track and on "All God's Children Got Rhythm," but everybody sounds great on this one.
 
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Lester Young
From his first recordings in 1936, Lester Young, known as "Pres" (a nickname given to him by Billie Holiday, short for "the President"), brought a new way of swinging to jazz, a gliding, dancing, melodically inventive style that had a new relation to the passage of time within the bar line. He brought what saxophonist Dexter Gordon called a new "philosophy" to playing, and it changed the way many people sounded, not the least of whom was a young Charlie Parker, who spent one summer learning all of Young's recorded solos. He also sired an entire school of tenor players that included Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Brew Moore, Paul Quinichette, and quite a few others.
Listening to Pres is one of the best experiences jazz has to offer. On early recordings with Count Basie and as a guest star on many of Billie Holiday's greatest records, Young's solos stand out like gems, each shaped differently, each a coherent, complete poem in sound. He invented entirely new melodies as he played, which still surprise with their unexpected logic and lyricism. Phrases from his solos found their way into almost every young musician's melodic vocabulary; it is next to impossible to listen to a record of Dexter Gordon's, or Sonny Stitt's, or Illinois Jacquet's, without hearing quotes from Lester Young.
His sound, too, was different and wholly appropriate to his melodic and rhythmic innovations. The opposite of Hawkins's heavy, broad sound, Pres's was cooler, lighter, with almost no vibrato. Whereas Hawkins's lines, and those of his followers, tended to accentuate a heavy four-four beat, Young's called for a lighter four-four, over which he could dance and construct melodies that started and stopped in surprising places. Pres got the lighter, more implicit four-four he needed from the matchless rhythm section of the Count Basie orchestra with which he came to New York: Basie on piano, Walter Page on bass, Jo Jones on drums, and, slightly later, Freddie Green on rhythm guitar. For a discussion of their work and the Kansas City rhythmic feeling, see the Ensembles section.
Lester Leaps In
Most of Pres's greatest recordings were made in the late 1930s during the time he was with Count Basie's orchestra. He recorded classic after classic with Basie, as well as with Billie Holiday and various small groups. He made plenty of great recordings in the 1940s and 1950s, but his style shifted just a bit. In some people's opinion he was just as good, or better, later. It may be enough to say that his style was different, with different (yet some of the same) virtues.
 
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But during his Basie period he seemed to generate fresh melodies endlessly. A good place to start is with
The Essential Count Basie, Volume 1
(Columbia CK 40608). It includes one of the best, if not the best, single records Young ever made, his first one, the 1936 "Oh, Lady Be Good," with a small Basie-led band. For two choruses at a swinging, medium-bounce tempo, Young weaves pure magic, a whole new song on the harmonies of the old. Another song recorded at the same session is "Shoe Shine Swing," available on
The 1930s: Small Combos
(Columbia CK 40833). At a way-up-tempo, Young sails through two electrifying choruses, utterly relaxed and creating a momentum of swing that few others had ever achieved. The Basie set includes three rare tracks by another small group, from 1939, in which Pres plays wonderfully on both tenor and clarinet, an instrument at which he was a master, along with a number of full-band tracks from the same year, on which Pres takes classic solos on tunes like "Taxi War Dance" (on which he begins his famous solo with a quote from "Old Man River"), ''Twelfth Street Rag," "Miss Thing," and the blues "Pound Cake." All of these solos (especially "Pound Cake") contained phrases that young musicians memorized for years afterward.
The same could be said for many of his solos on the three-CD set
Count Basie: The Complete Decca Recordings
(Decca/GRP GRD-3-611). On tracks like "One O'Clock Jump," "Time Out," "Jumpin' at the Woodside," "Jive at Five," "Shorty George," "You Can Depend on Me," "Doggin' Around," "Texas Shuffle" (on which he plays clarinet), and, especially, "Roseland Shuffle," on which Young's tenor and Basie's piano engage in a dialogue of doctoral-level swing and melodic invention, Young made his place in musical history.
The Essential Count Basie, Volume 2
(Columbia CK 40835) contains further adventures of Pres with Basie, from 1939 and 1940, including the small-group classics "Lester Leaps In" and "Dickie's Dream" (named for trombonist Dicky Wells), Pres's original composition "Tickle Toe" for the full band, and other good Young solos on "I Never Knew," "Louisiana," and "Blow Top."
Volume 3
(Columbia CK 44150) has some more good Young, but half this volume is devoted to the band after Young's departure late in 1940.
The musical affinity between Young and Billie Holiday made for one of the great pairings in the music's history. Their first recording session together, under the leadership of pianist Teddy Wilson (who assembled bands made up of the best musicians of the time for many of Holiday's 1930s recording dates), was held in January 1937, just after the Basie band landed in New York City; it was love at first sight. The four tunes recorded that day - "He Ain't Got Rhythm," "This Year's Kisses," "Why Was I Born?," and "I Must Have That Man" - are available on
The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Volume 3
(Columbia CK 44048). Listen especially to Pres's melody statement on "This Year's Kisses"
 
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and his solo on "I Must Have That Man," certainly one of the greatest jazz solos of all time for balance and melodic grace (and everything else).
That magic was to last for nearly two years, with the results audible in
Volume 4
(Columbia CK 44252),
Volume 5
(Columbia CK 44423), and
Volume 6
(Columbia CK 45449). If you are trying to decide which to buy first, I would recommend
Volume 4
, which contains the ballads "Easy Living" (a reasonable nomination for Holiday's greatest single recording), "Foolin' Myself," and "I'll Never Be the Same,'' as well as "Me, Myself and I," which has Pres accompanying Holiday's second vocal chorus in ecstatic counterpoint.
Volume 5
contains fantastic Young on "Trav'lin' All Alone," "Back in Your Own Backyard," and, especially, "When You're Smiling," to name just three.
Volume 6
is a bit less heavy on the classics but still worthwhile.
Countless Blues Revisited
Young was present at Benny Goodman's famous 1938 Carnegie Hall concert along with Basie colleagues Buck Clayton, Walter Page, Freddie Green, and the Count himself. They joined with Ellington saxophonists Johnny Hodges and Harry Carney for a jam session on Fats Waller's "Honeysuckle Rose" (available on
Benny Goodman Live at Carnegie Hall
[Columbia G2K 40244]). Pres takes the leadoff solo on the fourteen-minute jam, and it is a perfect illustration of a major aspect of his musical technique. Young's timing often worked the way a boxer's or a juggler's does; by repeating certain musical phrases, or rhythmic patterns, he leads the listener into expecting a pattern. When he then breaks the pattern with a variation, the effect is one of surprise and satisfaction. He makes exhilarating use of this technique in his two choruses here.
Another of Pres's very best sessions was a 1938 date with fellow Basie-ites Buck Clayton, Freddie Green, Walter Page, Jo Jones, and trombonist Eddie Durham playing electric guitar in place of Basie's piano. The Kansas City Six, as this group was called, recorded five masterpieces which are included on
Lester "Prez" Young and Friends: Giants of the Tenor Sax
(Commodore CCD 7002). Pres plays clarinet as well as tenor here and takes exquisite solos on both instruments; he was really on his mettle for this particular date. The atmosphere is mellow but spirited, conversational, and buoyant. There's nothing loud here, but the swing this small group generated, not to mention the melodic inventiveness, is awesome. With the delicate ensemble interplay on "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans," the propulsive riffs of "Countless Blues," the thick mood of "Pagin' the Devil," the lyricism of "I Want a Little Girl," and Pres's uncanny solos on "Them There Eyes" (which was recorded at the same date as the others, despite what the notes say), this date ranks with
 
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the best in jazz history. It was, by the way, the first recording of a jazz electric guitar. The set also includes some very good 1944 sides, on which Young leads a sextet including trombonist Dicky Wells, trumpeter Bill Coleman, and drummer Jo Jones.
Several sets document the early-1940s period of Young's musical life. The best of these, by far, is
The Complete Lester Young
(Mercury 830 920-2), which contains the results of two important sessions for the small Keynote label, from 1943 and 1944. The first is a quartet date with Johnny Guarnieri on piano, Slam Stewart on bass, and Big Sid Catlett on drums, which produced two takes apiece of the standards "Just You, Just Me," "I Never Knew," and the ultra-relaxed ''Sometimes I'm Happy," along with an up-tempo original called "Afternoon of a Basie-ite." This session is a favorite with all fans of Pres because everyone seems so at ease on it, and Young's phrasing is a marvel of grace throughout. His melody statements alone are worth the price of admission.
The other session, recorded three months later with members of the Basie band (including the Count himself), which Young had briefly rejoined, is excellent, too. Trumpeter Buck Clayton provided the sketches for a band including himself, Young, trombonist Dicky Wells, and the Basie rhythm section, with Rodney Richardson on bass in place of the temporarily absent Walter Page. Pres is in high spirits, and the eight tracks from this session have a happy feel about them.
Lester Young - Master Takes/Savoy Recordings
(Savoy ZDS 4419) has some nice moments on it, but as a set it falls well below the Keynote material. Three titles from Young's brief 1944 return to the Basie band are unremarkable; another session (from the same day) with Johnny Guarnieri, trumpeter Billy Butterfield, and clarinetist Hank D'Amico has some nice Pres, as does a session from the next month with the Basie rhythm section. Four titles from 1949, featuring Young in the company of some younger musicians, including drummer Roy Haynes, have some very good moments, too. But all in all, this is second-string Pres. All these tracks are available, with numerous alternate takes, on a two-LP set,
Lester Young, Pres/The Complete Savoy Recordings
(Savoy 2202).
Coleman Hawkins/Lester Young - Classic Tenors
(Signature/CBS AK 38446) has four great December 1943 tracks by a small group with a front line of Young, Dicky Wells, and trumpeter Bill Coleman, with Pres in top form on the bouncy "Hello Babe" and "Linger Awhile," a ferocious "I Got Rhythm," and the blues "I'm Fer It, Too." The swing Pres musters on "Linger Awhile" is truly something to hear. This set, with its classic Hawkins tracks, is an excellent introduction to the contrasting styles of these two giants.
Young's work from the 1950s is very spottily available, and in some cases

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