Young, Lester (Willis)

Young, Lester (Willis), (“Pres” or “Prez”; in early years “Red,” or as Jo Jones said, “Mississippi Red”), highly influential and important jazz tenor saxophonist; brother of Lee Young; b. Woodville, M.S., Aug. 27,1909; d. N.Y., March 15, 1959. Only four years younger than Coleman Hawkins, with whom he is often contrasted, Young first recorded 15 years after Hawkins’s debut and was perceived as the leading tenor stylist of the next generation. A prime influence on bebop players, his style later served as the basis for cool jazz as well. Thus he is one of the key figures in the history of jazz.

He was born among his mother’s family in Woodville, on the La. border, but his immediate family was based in nearby Algiers and New Orleans, and this had a tremendous musical impact on him. He studied violin, trumpet, and drums with his father, and then alto saxophone. He performed in the touring family band, with residencies in Memphis (1919, upon his parents’ separation), and Minneapolis (by 1920). He credited the influences of Frankie Trumbauer and, to a lesser extent, Jimmy Dorsey, and was probably influenced by Louis Armstrong, thus escaping the Hawkins hegemony. He began to specialize on the tenor sax and toured with other bands, beginning with Art Bronson (for the entire year 1928) and including Walter Page’s Blue Devils (1930), Bronson again (second half of 1930), and various groups in Minneapolis (1931). There he fathered a daughter, Beverly, with a white woman named Bess Cooper who died shortly after; Young then wed a woman named Beatrice. He joined the Blue Devils, a descendant of Page’s band (1932-May 1933), then King Oliver (c. May-November 1933), and subsequently played with various bands around Kansas City. He first worked with Count Basie in early 1934, transferred to Fletcher Henderson in late March, but left in July after band members criticized his style. For the next year and a half he again shuttled between Kansas City and Minneapolis; in 1936 he returned to Basie in Kansas City, making his first recordings on Nov. 9 and remaining in the band until December 1940. During this period Young created a sensation among such musicians as Charlie Parker and Dexter Gordon for his light, beautiful tone, his perfect phrasing, and his seemingly endless flow of melodic invention. He also guested on a now-celebrated series of recordings with Billie Holiday, who dubbed him the “Près” (“President”) of the saxophone. Their relationship was platonic; however, as Young had been involved with a white woman named Mary since coming to N.Y. with Basie in December 1936 (Beatrice stayed behind), and their relationship later became a common-law marriage.

Young left Basie to become a leader, but had little success. In early 1941 he freelanced around N.Y., leading his own band at Kelly’s Stables (February 27-March 17), then joined his brother, drummer Lee Young, in L.A. (through the summer of 1942). They appeared at Cafe Society Downtown in N.Y. from Sept. 1 until the death of their father on Feb. 6,1943, when Lee returned to L.A. He appeared with the Al Sears band (March to late September 1943), mostly on a U.S.O. tour to military bases across the states. He filled in for a week with Basie at N.Y.’s Apollo Theater in October and then rejoined Basie full-time around Dec. 1. He became famous, and won first place in a Down Beat poll at the end of 1944, but by this time he was in the army, having been inducted on Sept. 30. His Army file indicates that he had a criminal record, but research by Evan Spring shows that Young had never faced a judge in Manhattan anytime between 1937 and 1944; his record must have been from another location. His tour of duty was a disaster. He was made an ordinary soldier with little opportunity to make music, and on Feb. 16, 1945, was court-martialed for possession of marijuana and barbiturates and sent to detention barracks. Shortly after his dishonorable discharge on Dec. 1, he memorialized his experience in “D. B. Blues,” one of the first blues pieces with an eight-bar bridge. Contrary to popular opinion, Young was anything but broken by his experience, at least not musically. This is evidenced by his post-war recordings, which are exuberant, extroverted, honking affairs. His style had been changing gradually: by late 1943 there was a definite thickening of tone and a more overtly bluesy, wailing approach, which led to a new set of followers, including the young Sonny Rollins. Meanwhile, many young players went back to Young’s 1930s work for inspiration in what became known as cool jazz.

In the late 1940s, Young was a celebrity and at his peak financially. Producer Norman Granz booked him regularly for JATP tours and recordings (from 1946) and also recorded him as a leader (from 1949). He toured widely with his own quartet or quintet, and from 1956 often traveled as a single, guesting with local rhythm sections. He married a final time, wedding a black woman, also named Mary, with whom he had two children: Yvette (1947) and Lester Jr. (1948). Young’s health gradually deteriorated, primarily due to his alcoholism; he died just hours after returning from a foreshortened Paris engagement and projected European tour.

There has been some speculation that Young died from advanced stages of syphilis. The initial suspicion came from this author’s noting that his army file indicated he was “syphilitic at present” and Young’s own report that he had had to take a spinal tap. A spinal was only given if one had a positive blood test for syphilis. The test would be positive even for latent syphilis, which is not serious. The spinal would determine the stage of the disease. If it was serious, one would not be drafted, so Young must have had latent syphilis when he entered the army. However, syphilis could only have killed him had he lived considerably longer. And had it been advanced enough to kill him he would have been too paralyzed to play, but even on his last recordings just two weeks before his death his playing is solid. He could have had encephalitis, as has also been claimed, but this a direct result of syphilis and would not be what killed him. Likely, he died from cirrhosis, which is more deadly than syphilis. There is general agreement that he had cirrhosis by the time he was hospitalized in 1955; and on his last night he was spitting up blood, which is a dangerous sign of liver failure.

Young’s influential and witty slang is preserved on two audio interviews, one of about 10 minutes with Chris Albertson (1958) and one running about 45 minutes with François Postif (Paris, Feb. 6, 1959). He also appears in silent footage from 1938, in a 1944 Academy Award-winning short, Jammin’ the Blues (sound dubbed), a 1950 JATP film (sound dubbed), and briefly as a soloist in “The Sound of Jazz” (TV broadcast, 1957). He played clarinet in a lovely, wistful style on recordings in 1938, and also, though he was out of practice, in 1958.

Discography

78 S : Jones-Smith Inc.: (Oh) Lady Be Good and Shoe Shine Boy (2 takes; 1936). Basie: Honeysuckle Rose and One O’Clock Jump (both 1937); Jumpin’ at the Woodside (1938); Jive at Five, Clap Hands Here Comes Charlie, and Lester Leaps In (2 takes; all 1939); Tickle Toe (1940). Holiday: Back in Your Own Backyard and / Cant Get Started (2 takes each; 1938). Kansas City Seven: After Theatre Jump (2 takes; 1944); L.Y.: D. B. Blues and These Foolish Things (1945); Lester Young-Buddy Rich Trio (with Nat Cole, piano; 1946). JATP: Embraceable You (1949); Complete Lester Young on Keynote (1943); Près: The Complete Savoy Recordings (1944); Aladdin Sessions (1945); Prez Conferences 1946-1958 (1946); Live at the Royal Roost 1948 (1948); Jammin’ with Lester(1950); Près Is Blue (1950); With the Oscar Peterson Trio (1952); In Washington B.C. 1956, Vols. 1-4 (1956); Jazz Giants ’56 (1956); Prez in Europe (1956); Près and Teddy (Wilson; 1956); Laughin to Keep from Cryin’ (1958). LP: Historical Prez (live; 1940-44).

Bibliography

D. Gelly, L.Y..(Tunbridge Wells, England, and N.Y., 1984); L. Porter, L.Y..(Boston, 1985); E Büchmann-M Her, You Just Fight for Your Life: The Story of L.Y.(biography) and You Got to Be Original, Man!: The Music of L.Y.(annotated discography with transcriptions; both Westport, Conn., 1990); L. Porter, A L.Y. Reader (Washington, D.C., 1991; includes all Young interviews previously published or newly transcribed from tape); Luc Delannoy, Près: The Story of L.Y.(in French 1987; Eng. tr., Fayetteville, Ark., 1993); Bernard Cash, An Analysis of the Improvisation Technique of Lester Willis Young, 1936-1942 (thesis, Univ. of Hull, 1982); Luc Delannoy, Lester Young, Profession: Président (Paris, 1987); Robert August Luckey, A Study of Lester Young and His Influence upon His Contemporaries (diss., U. of Pittsburgh, 1981).

—Lewis Porter