The Dozens - Lester Young at 100

by Michael J. West
(artwork by Merryl Jaye)
It’s hard to imagine what it was like. Today, New York City is so entrenched as the jazz scene of record that the very notion of another scene rising up to challenge its primacy seems laughable. And it’s even harder in this eclectic, ever-expansive musical climate to conceive of a world in which one man could dictate the sound and feel that his instrument should have.

Yet in the late 1930s, New York had a formidable rival in the Depression-era boomtown of Kansas City, Missouri. And out of that city’s blues- and rhythm-drenched aesthetic came the melodic, airborne sound of Lester Young’s tenor saxophone, which also introduced new ideas about harmony and rhythm and overnight became the gold standard of how the sax was supposed to be played.
Born 100 years ago this week, Lester Willis Young displays his impact everywhere. For every obvious disciple (Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Paul Desmond) there’s a musician who at first sounds nothing like the man Billie Holiday nicknamed The President or “Prez,” but upon closer inspection is heavily indebted (Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Marion Brown). Not to mention his curious lingo, his fashion sense, and his distinct cockeyed playing stance, all of which were widely copied too: one writer places Young on a “Mount Rushmore of hipness.”

Yet there’s something else unique about Lester Young. Most of jazz’s greatest players did groundbreaking work as leaders in their own right. But as revolutionary as Young was, the saxophonist produced nearly all of his major work as a sideman. He made his reputation as the featured soloist in the Count Basie Orchestra, graduated to legend as an accompanist for Billie Holiday, and even in his small-group sessions hid behind leaderless monikers like “Kansas City Six.” Young’s music under his own name was still brilliant—sometimes among his very best—but never as earth-shattering as the records he made with the Count or Lady Day. Still, there’s no question that Young was a leader in his jazz universe, not a follower; like many geniuses, he needed partners, other great talents to challenge and complement him. (That even held true in his early solo performances, where Prez encountered an eager and accomplished young pianist by the name of Nat Cole.)
As a sideman or leader, every phase of Young’s career had merit, if not superb music. Below are a dozen of the most important or representative works from each era from his first recording session in 1936 to shortly before his alcoholism-related death in 1959. Happy birthday, Mr. President.
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