The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1
    joelf Guest
    We must. He's too important not to.

    Sure turned me around...

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2
    joelf Guest
    An amazing clip from '38. Basie band at Randall's Island:


  4. #3

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    My number one. So lyrical. When he steps up to solo, the entire piece changes mood. And he influenced our Charlie. What's not to like?

  5. #4

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    PS That video is wonderful, by the way

  6. #5
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    My number one. So lyrical. When he steps up to solo, the entire piece changes mood. And he influenced our Charlie. What's not to like?
    He was a game changer. Not many of those. Also had a style of dress and especially verbal expression totally unique to him, yet widely copied. I've heard people started using 'cool' after he did...

  7. #6

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    Would bebop have been born without him (yeah, I know, but he was an influence beyond just the music...), would the Beatnik subculture (and consequently ALL youth subcultures that followed) have been born without Pres? Think. about. it....

    When they say the history of Jazz is summed up by Satch, Duke, Bird, Miles and Trane, crucially they emit Pres.


  8. #7
    joelf Guest
    Some wags said he wasn't as good after '41.

    Really? Here's a masterpiece from '44:


  9. #8
    joelf Guest
    Others dismiss his '50s work---'washed up'. The hard living and hypersensitivity changed his playing, but to me the honesty and poetry never died .

    Art Ford's Jazz Party, PBS, from '58 (Lester Young died at 48 in 1959):


  10. #9

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    May be the pinnacle of North American culture. The clothes. The moves. The music. The movies. The cars. The architecture. The painting. Total unification. (i know...the politics sucked...but I'm an artist, not a politician) And the crowd!

    I like the old clips where everybody on the floor stops dancing... and listens cause the playing is so damn fine!

  11. #10

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    I remember a Sonny Rollins interview where he said all original early bebop sax players could be broken down into the Lester Young school or the Coleman Hawkins school. If your are not hip to them, you've got a hole in your jazz education. This was the important step in the continuum from big band to small jazz groups.


  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by princeplanet
    Would bebop have been born without him (yeah, I know, but he was an influence beyond just the music...), would the Beatnik subculture (and consequently ALL youth subcultures that followed) have been born without Pres? Think. about. it....

    When they say the history of Jazz is summed up by Satch, Duke, Bird, Miles and Trane, crucially they emit Pres.

    Fund raiser for the film to be made based on this..lots of good stuff already in the can judging from the extracts from the interviews already posted, I've been stuck in a youtube loop for the last hour, doesn't seem to say what the target amount needed is or how much is already raised ?

    President of Beauty: The Life and Times of Lester Young | Documentary film about Lester Young

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by joelf
    He was a game changer. Not many of those. Also had a style of dress and especially verbal expression totally unique to him, yet widely copied. I've heard people started using 'cool' after he did...
    Lester certainly had a way with words. A group of people noticed him alone in a club one night without his horn, just checking out the band. Pres overheard them discussing whether the great saxophonist might join the others onstage. He turned towards their table and whispered, "I don't dig being dug while I'm diggin'".

  14. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by cosmic gumbo
    I remember a Sonny Rollins interview where he said all original early bebop sax players could be broken down into the Lester Young school or the Coleman Hawkins school. If your are not hip to them, you've got a hole in your jazz education. This was the important step in the continuum from big band to small jazz groups.

    He was a giant for sure. He died too young--likely of alcoholism. He was also treated for syphilis--probably one of the 4 sax players in the Basie band treated in 1937.

    Re' Rollins, I sort of get where Sonny is coming from, but where does Sonny fit in? He seems pretty lyrical like Young to me.

  15. #14

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    brew moore was a serious prez disciple..his line was- "Anyone who doesn't play like Lester Young is wrong, "

    he even set up & held his horn like him!!




    ^ a great recording btw

    cheers
    Last edited by neatomic; 02-24-2020 at 12:31 AM.

  16. #15

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    To me Sonny Rollins always seemed influenced more by Coleman Hawkins than by Pres, with that big, gruff tone and muscular style.

  17. #16

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    There was a guy called Paul Quinichette who copied Pres so much that he was known as the ‘Vice-Pres’!


  18. #17

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    classic lester... in jazz short film... -jammin the blues- he even gets top billing...

    opens with a close up of his classic pork pie!

    some cool young barney kessel as well..great little film



    cheers

  19. #18

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    very solid lester sessions with oscar peterson trio (+1)...barney kessel on this too...there were a few sessions and 10" releases in early 50's...now all available on one verve release

    lester young with the oscar peterson trio

    ad lib blues





    cheers

  20. #19

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    The ‘Vice-President’ even managed to make a record with Coltrane:


  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by joelf
    Some wags said he wasn't as good after '41.

    Really? Here's a masterpiece from '44:

    That tone! Smoke and silk. Seemingly effortless lyricism - no mechanical, algorithmic variations, but a living stream of melody that entrances the listener. Masterful!

  22. #21
    joelf Guest
    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    There was a guy called Paul Quinichette who copied Pres so much that he was known as the ‘Vice-Pres’!

    I heard the Vice Pres live when I was a sprout around '74, at the long-defunct Jazz Museum (somewhere around W. 55th and 6th, IIRC). Not bad at all, and it was free.

    (Now there's the Jazz Museum in Harlem----the baby of Loren Schoenberg, who I've know since the West End days, ca '82. He really did a great job getting it together, getting funding. There are concerts, talks, and soon jam sessions)...

  23. #22

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    paul quinichette was solid tenor player..cut interesting tenor duo lps with coltrane...and monks future tenorman charlie rouse



    rouse takes first 16 (on left channel)..then quinichette steps in (right channel) and the tradin begins...quinichette has an almost getz type sound...perhaps bringing together lesters influence on getz!

    cheers

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    My number one. So lyrical. When he steps up to solo, the entire piece changes mood. And he influenced our Charlie. What's not to like?
    Agreed. He was also Barney Kessel's favorite horn player.

  25. #24
    joelf Guest
    I think Pres's most advanced disciple was Warne Marsh. Getz got the technique, melodicism and sound. He was a master. But Warne got to the spirit of Pres to me: the airiness, the asymmetry. And he built complex edifices on those roots. And, like Pres, he was a real from-the-ground-up improviser, not at all lick-dependent.

    All those white tenor players like Allen Eager, Brew Moore---cool for sure. Guys like Dexter got a lot, for sure. Hank Mobley, too. Anyone lyrical had to stop by Pres. But Warne took it somewhere truly original---even as it was faithful...

    Last edited by joelf; 02-23-2020 at 10:46 PM.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
    Agreed. He was also Barney Kessel's favorite horn player.
    Not to mention Lady Day's.