lester young

The Sunday Poem: “Lady Day and Prez” by Henry Wolstat

At the bar of the
Towne Tavern, once
Toronto’s finest jazz club,
stage facing me,
sipping my one beer,
knowing even then
in my twenty-third year
I was witness to
a never forgotten gig.

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April 13th, 2024

“Solace” – a poem by Terrance Underwood

. . Lester Young,  1946 . . Solace I relish the cultivation of my Lester afternoons an endeavor still absorbing at my age captive in that garden of ambient sound …………………that Young tenor breath ………………………….a zephyr expulsion stirring atmosphere rare these days for this climate caressing time & movement with a tone to stream still … Continue reading ““Solace” – a poem by Terrance Underwood”

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July 18th, 2023

Jazz History Quiz #114

While legendary as a saxophonist, his first instrument was a violin and his second the piano — which he played well enough to work as an accompanist to silent movies.  Ultimately it was Lester Young’s father who taught him the saxophone well enough that he switched instruments for good.  (It was during this time that he also saved Lester from drowning in a river).  Who is he?

 

Ben Webster

Chu Berry

Gene Ammons

Budd Johnson

Coleman Hawkins

Johnny Hodges

Don Byas

Herschel Evans

Go to the next page for the answer!

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June 13th, 2018

Monday Jazz Quiz #24: Lester Young was the “Pres.” Who became known as the “Vice Pres?”

Lester Young was the “Pres.” Who became known as the “Vice Pres?”

Paul Quinichette

Dexter Gordon

Hank Crawford

Paul Gonsalves

Don Byas

Johnny Griffin

Arnett Cobb

Lou Donaldson

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February 3rd, 2014

Kansas City Jazz: A Pictorial Tour

In cooperation with Frank Driggs and Chuck Haddix, authors of Kansas City Jazz: From Ragtime to Bebop — a look at the fascinating historyof Kansas City’s golden age through book excerpts, photos and music

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April 15th, 2013

Great Encounters #3: The Lester Young and Coleman Hawkins Kansas City battle

Excerpted from Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young, by Douglas Henry Daniels

(Lester) Young earned recognition for being not only a stylist but a saxophone “freak” – not a pejorative term at all but rather a comment on his unparalleled virtuosity. He “could make a note anywhere” on his instrument. Certain notes were usually produced by depressing specific keys or combinations of keys on the saxophone (or valves on the trumpet and cornet), but “freaks” found ways to defy convention and orthodoxy by means of “false fingerings” and adjustments of the mouth and lips, or embouchure. The trombonist-guitarist Eddie Durham explained that “Coleman Hawkins and Chu Berry and those guys, they fingered it correctly with what they were doing.

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March 29th, 2004

Farah Griffin, author of In Search of Billie Holiday: If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery

More than four decades after her death, Billie Holiday remains one of the most gifted artists of our time, and also one of the most elusive. Because of who she was and how she chose to live her life, Holiday has been the subject of both intense adoration and wildly distorted legends.

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June 24th, 2002

Interview with Douglas Henry Daniels, author of Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester “Pres” Young

ester Young was jazz music’s first hipster. He performed onstage in sunglasses and coined and popularized the enigmatic slang “that’s cool” and “you dig?” He was a snazzy dresser who always wore a suit and his trademark porkpie hat. He influenced everyone from B. B. King to Stan Getz to Allen Ginsberg. When he died, he was the subject of musical tributes by Charles Mingus (“Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”) and Wayne Shorter (“Lester Left Town”), and incidents from his life were featured in the movie ‘Round Midnight.

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February 14th, 2002

Site Archive

Your Support is Appreciated

Jerry Jazz Musician has been commercial-free since its inception in 1999. Your generous donation helps it remain that way. Thanks very much for your kind consideration.

Publisher’s Notes

Creatives – “This is our time!“…A Letter from the Publisher...A call to action to take on political turmoil through the use of our creativity as a way to help our fellow citizens “pierce the mundane to find the marvelous.”

In This Issue

Announcing the book publication of Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry...The first Jerry Jazz Musician poetry anthology published in book form includes 90 poems by 47 poets from all over the world, and features the brilliant artwork of Marsha Hammel and a foreword by Jack Kerouac’s musical collaborator David Amram. The collection is “interactive” (and quite unique) because it invites readers – through the use of QR codes printed on many of the book’s pages – to link to selected readings by the poets themselves, as well as to historic audio and video recordings (via YouTube) relevant to many of the poems, offering a holistic experience with the culture of jazz.

Interview

photo Louis Armstrong House Museum
Interview with Ricky Riccardi, author of Stomp Off, Let’s Go: The Early Years of Louis Armstrong...The author discusses the third volume of his trilogy, which includes the formation of the Armstrong-led ensembles known as the Hot Five and Hot Seven that modernized music, the way artists play it, and how audiences interact with it and respond to it.

The Sunday Poem

photo of Billy Wilder via Wikimedia Commons


“You Know by the Laughter,” by Joan E. Bauer


The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work....

Joan E. Bauer reads her poem at its conclusion


Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem

Feature

“What one song best represents your expectations for 2025?” Readers respond...When asked to name the song that best represents their expectations for 2025, respondents often cited songs of protest and of the civil rights era, but so were songs of optimism and appreciation, including Bob Thiele and George David Weiss’ composition “What a Wonderful World,” made famous by Louis Armstrong, who first performed it live in 1959. The result is a fascinating and extensive outlook on the upcoming year.

Poetry

Sax in a Blue Suit by Samuel Dixon
21 jazz poems on the 21st of March, 2025...An ongoing series designed to share the quality of jazz poetry continuously submitted to Jerry Jazz Musician by poets sharing their relationship to the music, and with the musicians who perform it.

Interview

photo by Brian McMillen
Interview with Phillip Freeman, author of In the Brewing Luminous: The Life and Music of Cecil Taylor...The author discusses Cecil Taylor – the most eminent free jazz musician of his era, whose music marked the farthest boundary of avant-garde jazz.

Feature

photo of Rudy Van Gelder via Blue Note Records
“Rudy Van Gelder: Jazz Music’s Recording Angel” – by Joel Lewis...For over 60 years, the legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder devoted himself to the language of sound. And although he recorded everything from glee clubs to classical music, he was best known for recording jazz – specifically the musicians associated with Blue Note and Prestige records. Joel Lewis writes about his impact on the sound of jazz, and what has become of his Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey studio.

Poetry

photo of Charlie Parker by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress; Design by Rhonda R. Dorsett
Jerrice J. Baptiste’s 2025 Jazz Poetry Calendar...Jerrice J. Baptiste’s 12-month 2025 calendar of jazz poetry winds through the upcoming year with her poetic grace while inviting us to wander through music by the likes of Hoagy Carmichael, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sarah Vaughan, Melody Gardot and Charlie Parker.

Playlist

“Sextets: The Joy of Six” – a playlist by Bob Hecht...The cover of the 1960 debut album by the Jazztet, co-founded by the trumpeter Art Farmer and the tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, and which always featured a trombonist and a piano-bass-drums rhythm section. Golson wrote much of the music, but “Hi-Fly” – a tune featured on Bob Hecht’s two-hour playlist devoted to sextets – was written by pianist Randy Weston, and appears on the 1960 album Big City Sounds.

Interview

Interview with Jonathon Grasse: author of Jazz Revolutionary: The Life and Music of Eric Dolphy....The multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy was a pioneer of avant-garde technique. His life cut short in 1964 at the age of 36, his brilliant career touched fellow musical artists, critics, and fans through his innovative work as a composer, sideman and bandleader. Jonathon Grasse’s Jazz Revolutionary is a significant exploration of Dolphy’s historic recorded works, and reminds readers of the complexity of his biography along the way. Grasse discusses his book in a December, 2024 interview.

Feature

Dmitry Rozhkov, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Thoughts on Matthew Shipp’s Improvisational Style” – an essay by Jim Feast..Short of all the musicians being mind readers, what accounts for free jazz musicians’ – in this instance those playing with the pianist Matthew Shipp – incredible ability for mutual attunement as they play?

Art

Photo of Joe Lovano by Giovanni Piesco
The Photographs of Giovanni Piesco: Joe Lovano...Beginning in 1990, the noted photographer Giovanni Piesco began taking backstage photographs of many of the great musicians who played in Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, that city’s main jazz venue which is considered one of the finest in the world. Jerry Jazz Musician will occasionally publish portraits of jazz musicians that Giovanni has taken over the years. This edition features 1999 photographs of the saxophonist Joe Lovano.

Feature

Excerpts from David Rife’s Jazz Fiction: Take Two – Vol. 11: “Chick” and “Hen” Lit...A substantial number of novels and stories with jazz music as a component of the story have been published over the years, and the scholar David J. Rife has written short essay/reviews of them. In this 11th edition, Rife writes about the “chicks” (energetic women, attractive, and open to experience) and “hens” (older women who have either buried or lost a loved one, and who seem content with their lives) who are at the center of stories with jazz within its theme.

Interview

photo by Carl Van Vechten, Library of Congress
A Black History Month Profile: The legendary author Richard Wright...In a 2002 Jerry Jazz Musician interview, Richard Wright biographer Hazel Rowley discusses the life and times of legendary author Richard Wright, whose work included the novels Native Son andBlack Boy

Feature

On the Turntable — The “Best Of the ‘Best Of’” in 2024 jazz recordings...Our annual year-end compilation of jazz albums oft mentioned by a wide range of critics as being the best of 2024

In Memoriam

photo via Pexels.com
“Departures to the Final Arms Hotel in 2024” – poetic tributes, by Terrance Underwood...2024 produced its share of losses of legendary jazz musicians. Terrance Underwood pays poetic homage to a handful who have touched his life, imagining their admittance to the Final Arms Hotel, a destination he introduces in his prelude.

Community

Stewart Butterfield, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Community Bookshelf #4...“Community Bookshelf” is a twice-yearly space where writers who have been published on Jerry Jazz Musician can share news about their recently authored books and/or recordings. This edition includes information about books published within the last six months or so (September, 2024 – March, 2025)

Feature

Trading Fours, with Douglas Cole, No. 23: “The Wave”...In this edition of an occasional series of the writer’s poetic interpretations of jazz recordings and film, Douglas’ poem is written partly as a reference to the Antonio Carlos Jobin song “Wave,” but mostly to get in the famed Japanese artist Hokusai’s idea of the wave as being a huge, threatening thing. (The poem initially sprang from listening to Cal Tjader’s “Along Came Mary”).

Short Fiction

Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons/blur effect added
Short Fiction Contest-winning story #67 — “Bluesette,” by Salvatore Difalco...The author’s award-winning story is a semi-satirical mood piece about a heartbroken man in Europe listening to a recording by the harmonica player Toots Thielemans while under the influence of a mind-altering substance.

Interview

Interview with James Kaplan, author of 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool...The esteemed writer tells a vibrant story about the jazz world before, during, and after the 1959 recording of Kind of Blue, and how the album’s three genius musicians came together, played together, and grew together (and often apart) throughout the experience.

Feature

photo of Lester Young by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
Jazz History Quiz #179...Throughout his career, this saxophonist was known as the “Vice Prez” because he sounded so similar to “Prez,” Lester Young (pictured). Who was he?

Community

Nominations for the Pushcart Prize XLIX...Announcing the six writers nominated for the Pushcart Prize v. XLIX, whose work was published in Jerry Jazz Musician during 2024.

Publisher’s Notes

photo by Rhonda Dorsett
On turning 70, and contemplating the future of Jerry Jazz Musician...

Feature

“Are Jazz-Hop Instrumentals Jazz?” – an observation (and playlist) by Anthony David Vernon...Google “what is jazz-hop?” and the AI overview describes it is “a subgenre of hip-hop that combines jazz and hip-hop music. It developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s.” In Mr. Vernon’s observation, he makes the case that it is also a subgenre of jazz.

Community

Notes on Bob Hecht’s book, Stolen Moments: A Photographer’s Personal Journey...Some thoughts on a new book of photography by frequent Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writer Bob Hecht

Art

“The Jazz Dive” – the art of Allen Mezquida...The artist's work is inspired by the counterculture music from the 1950s and 60s, resulting in art “that resonates with both eyes and ears.” It is unique and creative and worth a look…

True Jazz Stories

Columbia Records; via Wikimedia Commons
“An Evening with Michael Bloomfield” – a true blues story by David Eugene Everard...The author recounts his experience meeting and interviewing the great blues guitarist Mike Bloomfield in 1974…

Short Fiction

photo via PxHere
“The Magic” – a story by Mark Bruce...Most bands know how to make music. They learn to play together so that it sounds good and maybe even get some gigs. Most bands know that you have your chord progressions and your 4/4 beat and your verses and bridges. Some bands even have a guy (or a woman, like Chrissy Hynde) who writes songs. So what gives some bands the leg up into the Top 40?

Contributing Writers

Click the image to view the writers, poets and artists whose work has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and find links to their work

Coming Soon

An interview with Sascha Feinstein, author of Writing Jazz: Conversations with Critics and Biographers;, Also, a new Jazz History Quiz, and lots of short fiction; poetry; photography; interviews; playlists; and much more in the works...

Interview Archive

Ella Fitzgerald/IISG, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Click to view the complete 25-year archive of Jerry Jazz Musician interviews, including those recently published with Judith Tick on Ella Fitzgerald (pictured),; Laura Flam and Emily Sieu Liebowitz on the Girl Groups of the 60's; Tad Richards on Small Group Swing; Stephanie Stein Crease on Chick Webb; Brent Hayes Edwards on Henry Threadgill; Richard Koloda on Albert Ayler; Glenn Mott on Stanley Crouch; Richard Carlin and Ken Bloom on Eubie Blake; Richard Brent Turner on jazz and Islam; Alyn Shipton on the art of jazz; Shawn Levy on the original queens of standup comedy; Travis Atria on the expatriate trumpeter Arthur Briggs; Kitt Shapiro on her life with her mother, Eartha Kitt; Will Friedwald on Nat King Cole; Wayne Enstice on the drummer Dottie Dodgion; the drummer Joe La Barbera on Bill Evans; Philip Clark on Dave Brubeck; Nicholas Buccola on James Baldwin and William F. Buckley; Ricky Riccardi on Louis Armstrong; Dan Morgenstern and Christian Sands on Erroll Garner; Maria Golia on Ornette Coleman.