Kevin Sun

Happy birthday, Lester Young! On the road back from Jersey, I happened to tune into WKCR , only to remember that Young was born on this day in 1909. Earlier this year, I'd been learning some of his solos , but I took a break over the summer to work on some Coltrane and other projects. Having taken some notes while studying up on Young, I thought it was time to finally take down some of my thoughts and observations: Brief Notes on Lester Young's 108th Birthday The first Lester Young I ever heard was Lester Young with the Oscar Peterson Trio , recorded in late 1952. It was the only Lester Young CD available at my local Barnes & Noble in New Jersey, and I picked it up because I'd read that Young was a major influence on Stan Getz. At the time, I recall listening to it repeatedly but not particularly liking Young's playing, notably the wispy, reedy tone and intractably sharp intonation on the ballads. I also couldn't hear much of the resemblance as described ...

"Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley!" is a 1925 pop song that the Basie band repurposed into a high velocity big band vehicle. The recording from August 1939 from the period after the expiration of the band's Decca contract features one of the great solo breaks: eight Eb quarter notes played in succession by Lester Young. I came upon this solo first in Lewis Porter's Lester Young , where Porter notes that the recording nears the upper bound of tempos documented throughout his career (this particular recording is around quarter equal 284). Of course, I wanted to hear Lester playing in his most up-tempo context, and this solo is iconically that, beginning with the unstoppable solo break. This cut was recorded in the middle of the Basie band's extended run at the Famous Door in New York City, from July 11 through September 3, 1939. After that, the band went to the West Coast, where they played a run from October 5 through 11 at the Paramount Ballroom in Los Angele...

"Coltrane-Coltrane," Jean-Max Albert ( Wikimedia Commons ) Lewis Porter's John Coltrane: His Life and Music  first came out in 1998, and, as far as I know, it's still the definitive, go-to critical overview of Coltrane's musical career. The research that went into this book is staggering, and the voices of Coltrane's predecessors, peers, friends, and admirers are generously heard throughout the book.  The awesome, inevitable movement of history makes itself known in the small, revealing details—for instance, that Miles Davis first heard Coltrane as early as '46, when Coltrane was still in the navy and recorded with drummer Joe Theimer, whom Theimer mentioned thusly in a letter: "This session was inspired by John Coltrane [ sic ], a Bird discipline, whom 2 weeks after this session cut out of this 'land of fools' to go home and make his way in life..." The misspelling of the Coltrane family name, a Scottish inheritance, is a motif th...