Wow you can tell he's a wonderful person. Gentle. Considered, respectful, gentle way of seeing things. Respectfully disagrees with things if they don't chime right with him, but always polite. Kindly thanks the interviewer at the end. Man, what a legend, wish I could've met him.
Lester is a one in a trillion individual. He played his own way and his way of speaking is just as original. He is the hippest of the hip without even trying. He is thoughtful and insightful and he takes his time in answering questions. He won't be put in a box or be labeled by anyone. I thing Lester and Don Byas were two of the most advanced and immortal stylists of all time on tenor. Don, who had the difficult job of replacing the Basie Band's biggest star soloist, Lester Young when he was drafted in 1943. The transition was seamless as Don came up to the challenge and beyond.
The Prez! What a pleasure to listen to the legend. Thanks for posting. He had such a smooth and soulful sound that had to be a precursor to the West coast cool sound.
I love how chill these dudes are. Like no contention in their voices. I also love how so many of the questions are ones you hear now in interviews and the answers are still the same ^_^
4:17 see, Prez was up on everything. he knew that progress was good. 'i still don't buy that.' 'to each his own.' that is the sound of an enlightened individual. for future reference: enlightened individual = cool person; cool person = the best thing there is.
This interview took place less than a year before Lester’s death ( March 1959). He was perhaps jazz’ greatest poet. - That is with his horn, of course. He was eccentric, perhaps to a debilitating degree. But certainly he was among only a very few of the most profound jazz stylists to n history.
Kay Starr WOW. I REMEMBER "WHEEL OF FORTUNE" BEFORE I GOT INTO R & B AND THEN STRAIGHT AHEAD JAZZ. Then Bop & Cool, JO STAFFORD 's "You belong to me" was great. I think I'LL revisit some of those tunes. I always enjoyed Vaughn Monroe's "Ballerina" and "Old Soldiers", "Ghost Riders"etc. Pres was the man, no doubt.the foundation for The Cool School.
The interviewer doesn't actually seem interested in music. And the constant reversions to Coleman Hawkins are especially crass and grating, not to mention insulting.
In 1958, the Young-Hawkins divide in jazz was still fairly relevant (and certainly still interesting--as, indeed, it is now) and would have been on anyone's mind were he given the chance to interview either of the men, particularly Young. Also, in 1958, interviewers were still civilized and calm. This was when people spoke without exclamation points at the end of every sentence. His demeanor should not be mistaken for lack of interest in music.
@@owejay7981 Lester Young was hired by Fletcher Henderson as a replacement for Coleman Hawkins. In his brief stint with the band, he was harassed by numerous people, including Henderson's wife, in an effort to force him to imitate Hawkins' approach on the horn. He was jeered at and booed when he played simply because a coterie of "fans" wanted him to subordinate his individual approach to that of Hawkins. This was a painful experience for Young, who was a sensitive man trying to establish himself as a new voice in jazz. Everyone conversant with the music thereafter was aware of this experience, particularly since some musicians and many journalists in the field perpetuated a wholly unnecessary sense of schism and conflict over the two saxophonists' differing styles. This never really ended, and it affected Lester Young to a lesser degree throughout his life. For this interviewer to repeatedly drag the conversation back to the Coleman Hawkins situation demonstrates both a lack of appreciation for Young's feelings, which were well known on the subject, and an inability to ask reflective, stimulating questions on the topic of music itself. He had a rare chance to talk with one of the great figures in American music, and he used it to no better purpose than referring back again and again to a tired, spurious rivalry concocted by hacks and camp followers.
@@vestibulate Well, to the interviewer‘s defense, at least he did an interview with him. It‘s one of only two known audio interviews with Lester. And the interviewer himself, named Chris Albertson, did achieve some great things later on. He produced some excellent Bessie Smith, Charlie Christian and Billie Holiday reissues for Columbia Records in the 1970s, and wrote a biography on Bessie Smith, among other things. He died in 2019 at the age of 87.
