Kevin Sun

Yesterday was the 109th anniversary of Lester Young's birth in Woodville, Mississippi. I had meant to publish some thoughts on Young as I did last year around this time , but, alas, I'm a day late. I'd spent a large portion of 2017 learning Pres solos from '36 through '41, focusing primarily on his solos with Count Basie, but most of the solos I picked off those records I never got around to sharing. Here are some of my favorites from the first five years of his recording career, as well as some brief thoughts. Happy birthday, Pres!

The discovery of the unissued alternate take to "Honeysuckle Rose," from the Count Basie Orchestra's first recording a month after coming to New York City on January 21, 1937, was, as Loren Schoenberg describes in the liner notes to Mosaic boxed set Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie & Lester Young Studio Sessions , a miracle of sorts: As this album was well into production, a veritable miracle occurred when an alternate take of this piece was discovered sitting in a case as part of an exhibit at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.  Schoenberg posits that this is a warm-up take, which can be heard in several under-rehearsed transitional passages and backgrounds, but Lester Young's solo here is a gem. The bridge was what struck me most initially: a brilliantly syncopated sequence of alternate fingerings that's also a masterclass in getting more out of less. This particular set of false fingerings that alternates between two pitches, rather than just one, is rela...

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...

A theme of the past three weeks has been the value of concision in writing arrangements and compositions for improvisers—providing sufficient space for musicians to create something personal and unique to its moment of creation. Here's an anecdote I heard from Ab Baars, the great Dutch saxophonist, clarinetist, and shakuhachi-ist ( sic? ): A musician in Count Basie's band wanted to contribute an arrangement to the band book, so he spent a couple weeks preparing an arrangement. When he finished, he brought the score to the Count, who looked it over for a while and then tore it in half.  "It's good, but you can do better."