Prez...

[Soul Stream]

Everytime I hear Prez, it sounds so fresh.

[jazzbo]

I agree. I keep cdrs of live Pres here in my office and spin them frequently. He's just so MOVING. He gets under your skin and under your feet and into your heart.

It's fitting that his last song recorded was apparently "There Will Never Be Another You."

[sal]

OK, I suppose this is a good place to ask this question.....

Pretty much all of my jazz collection is either from the bop or avant garde camps. I have had very little exposure to swing or trad, and the little bit I've heard hasn't done much for me, with the exception of the Hot Five's & Hot Sevens. I have the Basie Decca recordings, and I do enjoy them, but not nearly as much as my Miles, Trane, Mingus, etc....

So my question is...if you could recommend one non-Basie Lester Young CD to someone with a listening background like mine, which one would it be?

[jazzbo]

Man, that's really hard. . . .

Here's my carefully considered pick:

It's live. It ROCKS.

Edited September 16, 2005 by jazzbo

[Soul Stream]

OK, I suppose this is a good place to ask this question.....

Pretty much all of my jazz collection is either from the bop or avant garde camps.  I have had very little exposure to swing or trad, and the little bit I've heard hasn't done much for me, with the exception of the Hot Five's & Hot Sevens.  I have the Basie Decca recordings, and I do enjoy them, but not nearly as much as my Miles, Trane, Mingus, etc....

So my question is...if you could recommend one non-Basie Lester Young CD to someone with a listening background like mine, which one would it be?

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I think Lester Young meets the Oscar Peterson Trio is a great place to begin if you are a hard bopper. The sound is great and the playing is tremendous. I always come back to this one.

Edited September 16, 2005 by Soul Stream

[JSngry]

.....

Pretty much all of my jazz collection is either from the bop or avant garde camps...So my question is...if you could recommend one non-Basie Lester Young CD to someone with a listening background like mine, which one would it be?

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This, too, is avant-garde.

[jazzbo]

[jazzbo]

[Jazz Kat]

There's lots like him. There's not many who equal him though. Without him there would be no Stan Getz.

[Free For All]

There's lots like him.

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Many have been influenced by and emulate him, but there is no one like him IMHO.

[Jazz Kat]

I guess its all how you put it.

[Stereojack]

I gotta vote for "The Aladdin Sessions" as a nice introduction for the modern jazz fan, but sooner or later you're gonna love it all like I do!

[paul secor]

I'll throw in a mention of The Jazz Giants '56 on Verve - "I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plan" is classic late Pres, plus you get Teddy, Roy, Vic Dickenson, Freddie Greene, Gene Ramey, and Jo Jones. Can't ask for much more than that.

[Kalo]

I gotta vote for "The Aladdin Sessions" as a nice introduction for the modern jazz fan, but sooner or later you're gonna love it all like I do! 

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I'd agree that this is not a bad place at all to start. I'd also put in a recommendation for the Keynote quartet session, with Sid Catlett on drums.

[Spontooneous]

There still ain't ANYBODY who can make barlines disappear like the Pres.

[Nate Dorward]

There still ain't ANYBODY who can make barlines disappear like the Pres.

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Except for Steve Lacy.

[Kalo]

There still ain't ANYBODY who can make barlines disappear like the Pres.

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Except for Steve Lacy.

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As much as I love Lacy and agree with Nate's statement above, Lacy sure doesn't swing like Prez.

Apples and oranges.

[jazzbo]

It's way too bad the Keynote sessions cd is out of print, I would have recommended that. The Aladdin is great two, but I didn't want to recommend two discs.

The Jazz Immortal really has a drive to it that would appeal to a hard bop fan and shows off all of Pres' attributes well.

I hope you do find Pres intriguing; he's addes so much to my listening life!

[Kalo]

If anyone is looking for the Keynote CD, send me a PM, I have seen several

used copies in the stores here.

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I see this one fairly frequently as well. Shouldn't be too hard to find.

[jazzbo]

Things are so different in different parts of the country because you NEVER see that around here.

It's to the point I won't recommend something out of print to anyone in this town (and hesitate to anywhere) because very little shows up in this area.

[CJ Shearn]

I found Stanley Turrentine's "More than a Mood" at Coconuts used in my area, but other than that I haven't found much exciting OOP stuff.

[Clunky]

.....

Pretty much all of my jazz collection is either from the bop or avant garde camps...So my question is...if you could recommend one non-Basie Lester Young CD to someone with a listening background like mine, which one would it be?

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This, too, is avant-garde.

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Is it just me, I love Lester but this session is really poor. Much like th eworst of Bud on verve it should have stayed in the vaults IMO

[brownie]

A favorite Lester Young session from the Verve days is the 'Pres and Teddy' album with Teddy Wilson. Pres at his most inventive and swinging!

[JSngry]

.....

Pretty much all of my jazz collection is either from the bop or avant garde camps...So my question is...if you could recommend one non-Basie Lester Young CD to someone with a listening background like mine, which one would it be?

←

This, too, is avant-garde.

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Is it just me, I love Lester but this session is really poor. Much like th eworst of Bud on verve it should have stayed in the vaults IMO

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Well, this is one of those session that people either love or hate, and it's hard to argue it one way or the other, simply because the criteria for one reaction have very little, if anything, to do with the other one. I love it, and the recommendation is sincere and ongoing. On a session like this, it's as if Prez, not having the physical resources at hand to deal with the instrument in a "traditional" (even for him) way, found a way to get his story out anyway. A triumph of mood over matter, if you will. Granted, that story is sad, at times even disturbing (deeply so, in fact), but it is his story for that time and for that place, and like the "worst" of Bud Powell, I think it's a mistake, at a level beyond "musicality", to equate unpleasantness with unworthiness, much less with "unrealness" of some sort. The story was what it was. What it was not was false in any way.

I listen to this session for a sign, any sign, that what came out of Prez' horns that day was unintentional, and I don't hear any. Even the clarinet work, which finds him struggling with an instrument which he was ill-prepared at the time to return to, comes out as a statement, a message that took instrumental shortcomings & physical perils into consideration before being delivered. I don't hear a man "trying" to do something and falling short, I hear a man who knew in advance what he had to work with, physically, instrumetally, spiritually, and then proceeding accordingly from there. The results are such that one can either embrace them or be repelled by them, but it's hard to imagine anybody being indifferent to them. That's how strongly the message came across.

Yes, it's painful to listen to, no disputing that whatsoever, and those who wish to argue that such blatant pain and dissipation has no place being put on public display will get little if any argument from me. But it was, so how do we deal with it? For me, it's a matter of love. I love Lester Young (to the degree that I "know" him through his music), and to a depth that I love very few artists. Because of that, I'm as willing to hear the "bad" with as much empathy as I am the "good". My love is unconditional, and that means sharing the deepest pain as well as the highest euphoria, no questions asked, no "judgements" made. Very, VERY few artists reach me like that, but Prez is definitely one of them. Can't say that I've ever heard a note from him where I didn't feel it, good bad, or indifferent (and there are plenty of each). When somebody reaches you like that, even the "bad" has meaning, and sometimes that meaning cuts closer to the quick than the "good", or than is comfortable. But so be it.

Love's a bitch sometimes.

[Kalo]

Things are so different in different parts of the country because you NEVER see that around here.

It's to the point I won't recommend something out of print to anyone in this town (and hesitate to anywhere) because very little shows up in this area.

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And I thought Austin was supposed to be THE music town in TX.

There's always the internet.

A favorite Lester Young session from the Verve days is the 'Pres and Teddy' album with Teddy Wilson. Pres at his most inventive and swinging!

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Yes!