Lester Young was unique, just as original and fascinating a musician as he was a human being. He introduced a new way of playing which led to the modern jazz. He was the inspiration for Charlie Parker and countless musicians on all instruments who grew up becoming jazz musicians during the forties and fifties. The cool jazz of the 1950’s was directly based on Young’s light and relaxed style.

Lester Willis Young (1909 – 1959), nicknamed “Pres” (short for the “President of the tenor saxophone”), was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinettist. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie’s orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called “a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike”. Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music. Lester Young was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on August 27, 1909.  He grew up in a musical family; his father was a teacher and band leader. While growing up in the Algiers neighbourhood of New Orleans, he worked from the age of five to make money for the family. He sold newspapers and shined shoes. By the time he was ten, he had learned the basics of the trumpet, violin, and drums, and joined the Young Family Band, touring with carnivals and playing in regional cities in the Southwest. Young’s early musical influences included Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, and Frankie Trumbauer. In his teens, he and his father clashed, and he often left home for long periods. His family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1919, and Young stayed there for much of the 1920s, first picking up the tenor saxophone while living there. Young left the family band in 1927, at the age of 18, because he refused to tour in the Southern United States, where Jim Crow laws were in effect and racial segregation was required in public facilities. He became a member of the Bostonians, led by Art Bronson, and chose the tenor saxophone over the alto as his primary instrument. He made a habit of leaving, working, then going home. He left home permanently in 1932 when he became a member of the Blue Devils led by Walter Page.

In 1933, Young settled in Kansas City, where after playing briefly in several bands, he rose to prominence with Count Basie. His playing in the Basie band was characterized by a relaxed style which contrasted sharply with the more forceful approach of his bandmate Hershel Evans, an alumnus of Coleman Hawkins, the dominant tenor sax player of the day. One of Young’s key influences was Frankie Trumbauer, who came to prominence in the 1920s with Paul Whiteman and played the C melody saxophone (between the alto and tenor in pitch). Young left the Basie band to replace Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra, but he soon left to play in the Andy Kirk band for six months before returning to Basie. In 1936, Young recorded his first sides with Basie, though in a quintet rather than with his orchestra. While with Basie, Young made also small-group classic recordings with Billie Holiday, under Teddy Wilson’s conductorship, and for Milt Gabler’s Commodore Records. In these sessions Young also played clarinet in a “liquid, nervous style.” His clarinet work from 1938 to 1939 is documented on recordings with the Basie orchestra and small groups and Billie Holiday. Billie and Lester met at a Harlem jam session in the early 1930s and worked together in the Count Basie band and in nightclubs on New York’s 52nd Street. She gave Lester the nickname “Pres”. She believed that Lester was the “greatest” tenor saxophonist and felt that his title should reflect that status. Playing on her name, he would call her “Lady Day”. Young left the Basie band in late 1940. His studio recordings are relatively sparse during the 1942 to 1943 period, largely due to the recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. Small record labels not bound by union contracts continued to record, and Young recorded some sessions for Harry Lim’s Keynote label in 1943. In December 1943, Young returned to the Basie fold for a 10-month stint, cut short by his being drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. Lester was assigned to the regular army where he was not allowed to play his saxophone. Whilst in the services, Lester was found with marijuana and alcohol among his possessions. He was court-martialled and was convicted, serving one traumatic year in a detention barracks. Young’s career after WW II was far more prolific and lucrative than in the pre-war years in terms of recordings made, live performances, and annual income. Young joined Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe in 1946, touring regularly with JATP over the next 12 years. He made many studio recordings under Granz’s supervision as well, including more trio recordings with Nat King Cole.

Now, more than 60 years after his death, Young is still an inspiration for many – as the so called mainstream jazz, which never seems to go out of fashion, basically comes from his influence on musicians like Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Miles Davis and others of that generation.