Young, Lester 1909–1959

Lester Young 1909–1959

Jazz musician

Stern Lessons Engendered Young’s Spontaneity

Spent Peak Performance Years With Basie

Long, Stow Decline Towards Death

Selected discography

Sources

Lester Young, nicknamed “Pres” by legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday was, in his time, the undisputed president of the tenor saxophone. Saxophone became a prominent jazz instrument during the swing era, and Young developed a light and airy sound that was in direct contrast to what his peers—namely Cole-man Hawkins—were playing around him. He played with some of the greats of the swing era, most notably Count Basie, with whom he shared some of his peak years as a performer. Though he came up in mainstream swing orchestras, Young was a pioneer as former swing band members splintered off to explore jazz as a more “self conscious” and cutting-edge art form, according to David Perry in Jazz Greats. Young was the first to adopt jazz as a manifestation of “an underground Bohemianism which would always be in conflict with the status quo,” he wrote.

Lester Willis Young was the first of three children of Willis Handy Young, a bandleader, and Lizetta Young. He was born August 27, 1909, in Woodville, Mississippi, but moved with his family to Algiers, Louisiana, near New Orleans, when he was an infant. Willis Young, known as Billy, who had studied at the Tuske-gee Institute, led the Billy Young Orchestra and played many instruments but focused on the trumpet. Lizetta Young played the piano. Willis Young passed his musical talents down to his children. He was a stern music teacher to Lester, Lester’s brother Lee, and sister Irma, and quickly disciplined the children with his leather strap when his musical standards were not met. This strict musical education is thought to have inspired rebellion and a desire for spontaneity in Lester Young. The Young children were taught to sing as soon as they could speak, and were started on their first instruments at age five. Lester was taught to play trumpet, alto saxophone, violin, and drums. Lee Young later became a professional drummer.

Stern Lessons Engendered Young’s Spontaneity

Following his parents divorce in 1919, Young moved with his father and siblings to Minneapolis, where his father remarried a woman saxophone player. The new family formed a traveling band in which Young first played drums, but he switched to alto saxophone—a much less cumbersome instrument to carry around—at age 13. “Quit them because I got tired of packing

At a Glance…

Born on August 27, 1909, in Woodville, MS; died on March 15, 1959 in New York, NY; son of Willis Handy (a bandleader) and Lizetta; married first wife, Beatrice (marriage ended); lived with common law spouse, Mary, 1937-46; married second wife, also named Mary, 1948; children: Lester, Jr., Yvette Military Service; U.S. Army, 1944-45.

Career: Jazz saxophonist Played with family band, 1919-27; toured with Art Bronson’s Bostonians and other bands, 1928-34; joined Count Basie Orchestra, and then played with groups led by Fletcher Henderson and Andy Kirk; tenor saxophonist for Count Basie, 1936-40; played with brother Lee in Los Angeles, 1941; guest soloist for bands in New York City, 1941-44; recorded Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid, 1947; performed at Charlie Parker’s Birdland club, 1949 and 1951-54; toured United States and Europe 1952-57.

Awards: Named greatest tenor saxophonist ever, Leonard Feather poll, 1956; elected posthumously to Down Beat Hall of Fame, 1959.

them up,” Young said in an interview reprinted in Down Beat. “I’d take a look at the girls after the show, and before I’d get the drums packed, they’d all be gone.” Lee, Willis Young’s favored and dutiful son, replaced him on drums. After touring throughout the Midwest with his family, Young—who refused to tour in the South because of racism there—quit the band in 1927. He did not play in the South until he toured there with Count Basie some years later, but “it was different then,” he is quoted as saying in Down Beat. Though Lester’s musical career eclipsed that of his brother, Lee, Willis Young forever saw Lee as the success in the family and Lester as “merely mercurial, a troubling and puzzling nomad,” according to David Perry in Jazz Greats. Young would suffer from his father’s rejection until his death. Young has cited saxophonists Frankie Trumbauer and Jimmy Dorsey as influences.

Over the next five years, Young played with numerous bands and began playing first baritone sax, then tenor. Frank Hines, Eugene Schuck, Eddie Barefield, and Boyd Atkins are among the many groups he played with during this time. He was playing with Art Bronson and the Bostonians when he made the switch to tenor. “I was playing the baritone and it was weighing me down,” he said in Down Beat. “I’m real lazy, you know. So when the tenor man left, I took over his instrument.” He also played with the Original Blue Devils—the most innovative band in the area at the time—which was led by Count Basie and included such up-and-comers as Walter Page, Eddie Durham, and Jimmy Rushing. He moved to Kansas City after the Blue Devils went broke in 1933, and played there with Clarence Love and King Oliver. In the midst of the Depression, Kansas City suffered less than most areas, and offered a haven for jazz musicians. Young took his wife Beatrice with him, but the marriage was mysteriously short-lived.

He had a short stint in Fletcher Henderson’s band to replace legendary saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, but was bumped because Henderson did not like Young’s cool, light tone. “By this time,” wrote Perry, “he had found a voice on the tenor saxophone which was highly individual, contrasting strongly with the macho roar of Coleman Hawkins. His relaxed, spacious style could be considered as the first manifestation of a ’cool’ approach to a music which until then had been fast and furious.” He played with Andy Kirk for six months before joining Count Basie’s band, and played a residency with him at Kansas City’s Reno Club in the summer of 1936. He then went to Chicago with Jones Smith Incorporated, a quintet of Basie musicians, to make his first-ever recordings on tenor saxophone.

Spent Peak Performance Years With Basie

The definitive Count Basie Big Band came together in 1936, with Young on saxophone. Back with Basie in New York City, Young began to really make a name for himself; his light phrasing was unique among tenor saxophonists. He married Mary, his second wife, during this time. Basie made “the most of Lester’s unusual personality and musical style,” Perry wrote in Jazz Greats. He left Basie’s band at the end of 1940—for reasons unknown—but appeared on several of the bandleader’s recordings during his tenure. He also recorded with Billie Holiday, among others. Young and Holiday shared a deep yet platonic friendship that sustained the two in difficult times and lasted until Young’s death. He nicknamed her “Lady Day” and she dubbed him “Pres,” as in president of the tenor saxophone, which he undeniably was during this time in his career.

Young stepped out on his own in 1941, playing with his own group at the club Kelly’s Stable in New York. He then co-led a band in California and New York with his brother Lee, but was unsatisfied. Lester Young did not have a leader’s disposition. On a 1942 recording that featured Nat King Cole on piano, Lester Young produced a “much heavier tone,” according to Perry, “full of vibrato and much more conventional. In short, he sounded less his own man.”

Young rejoined Basie in 1944 and began to rebound. He was featured in an art film called Jammin’ the Blues, which portrays him as a bohemian of the jazz age. He is credited for coining a slew of hip slang and street phrases of the era, including the word “bread” for money, and saying he was “bruised” when his feelings were hurt. “Ivey Divey” was what he said in the face of an unfortunate situation. He addressed everyone, male and female, as “lady,” much to the chagrin of the men. While playing with drummer Jo Jones in a California club, Young and Jones were approached by a man interested in talking about jazz who bought the two a drink. He turned out to be an FBI agent who served them papers instructing them to report for the military draft. Young adapted horribly to rigid military life—which could be compared to his childhood—and spent a traumatic 15 months in the U.S. Army. While in the service, Young drank heavily and constantly found himself in trouble. He landed in the military hospital with a dislocated shoulder and was discovered carrying hashish. He spent a year confined at Fort Leavenworth, Texas, where the only relief he had came from Gil Evans, who later joined Miles Davis, who was stationed at Fort Leavenworth and did what he could to help him. It is widely believed that Young’s army experience had a devastating effect on his life and work.

Long, Stow Decline Towards Death

Young’s second marriage failed after he was discharged, and many “regard his post-war career as a harrowing slide towards a death that was a virtual suicide,” according to David Perry in Jazz Greats. But this era was not all bad for Young. He married for a third time during this era, to another Mary, and moved to Queens, New York, where the two had a son, Lester Jr. He recorded one of his favorite pieces, DB Blues, (Detention Barracks Blues), and released Jumping with Symphony Sid. Young’s own greatness was ironically to blame for his impending downfall, however. Many of the young jazz sax innovators he had so effectively inspired began eclipsing him during this time. Players like Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, Wardell Gray, and Stan Getz were becoming greats in their own right. The jazz world began to focus on these young lions. But Young had a differing opinion. “The trouble with most musicians today is that they are copycats,” he was quoted as saying in Down Beat. As a result of the new players, Young worked less, becoming depressed, feeling obsolete, and drinking heavily. His playing suffered.

There were glimpses of the old Pres during this time, as on Pres Returns, which he recorded with Billie Holiday pianist Teddy Wilson. But this was the exception, and his performances were rare and painful to watch, so decrepit were his talents. Feeling a burden to his family, he moved into a New York City hotel room that overlooked Charlie Parker’s booming club, Birdland. Young was never any good at making career decisions that actually furthered his career; he was almost devoid of business acumen. As a result, he was not financially well off. “If I’m so great, Lady Tate,” he said to fellow saxophonist Buddy Tate, according to the New Statesman, “how come all the other tenor players, the ones who sound like me, are making all the money?” Rather than seeing Birdland as an inspiration, he saw it as a sign of his defeat. It was a cruel self-punishment that he lived in such proximity to it.

Young’s friends turned him over to the care of a physician who treated his alcoholism for a time, but Young was too far-gone. One last opportunity for Young, a one-month residency at the Paris Blue Note club, was disastrous, as he developed a taste for the toxic libation absinthe. The stint ended by mutual consent after just three weeks. Young suffered internal bleeding on the long plane flight back to the United States, and died on March 15, 1959 in his hotel room, shortly after his return to New York.

Selected discography

(With others) The Jazz Giants, Verve, 1986.

The Complete Lester Young on Keynote (recorded 1944), Mercury, 1987.

(With others) Lester Young and the Piano Giants, Verve, 1988.

Live at Birdland 1951, Bandstand, 1992.

Jazz Immortal Series (reissue), Savoy Jazz, 1993.

The Master’s Touch (reissue), Savoy Jazz, 1993.

(With others) Rarities (recorded 1941), Moon, 1993.

(With others) Lester Young in Washington, D.C.

(recorded 1956), Fantasy/OJC, 1993.

(With others) The Lester Young Trio (reissue), Verve, 1994.

The Best of Lester Young, Pablo.

The Lester Young Story (Volumes 1-5), Columbia.

Count Basie: The Complete Collection of Count Basie Orchestra on Decca, MCA.

Kansas City Six and Five: Commodore Classics in Jazz, Commodore.

Pres: and Friends, Commodore.

Saxophone Giants, RCA.

Pres: The Complete Savoy Recordings, Savoy.

Jazz at the Philharmonic: Bird and Pres the 46 Concerts, Verve.

Jazz at the Philharmonic: Lester Young Carnegie Blues, Verve.

The Sound of Jazz, Columbia.

Sources

Books

Carr, Ian, Fairweather, Digby, Priestley, Brian, Jazz: The Essential Companion, Prentice Hall Press, 1987.

Chilton, John, Who’s Who of Jazz, Da Capo, 1985.

Claghorn, Charles Eugene, Biographical Dictionary of Jazz, Prentice-Hall, 1982.

Daniels, Douglas Henry, Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young, Beacon Press, 2002.

Kernfeld, Barry, editor, New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, St. Martin’s Press, 1994.

Larkin, Colin, editor, Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Muze UK, Ltd., 1998.

Perry, David, Jazz Greats, Phaidon Press, Ltd., 1996.

Porter, Lewis, editor, A Lester Young Reader, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

Periodicals

Down Beat, February 1995, p. 38

New Statesman, November 22, 1999, p. 53.

On-line

All Music Guide Online, http://www.allmusic.com (August 20, 2002).

—Brenna Sanchez