It's not the notes for me as much as it is the irrevocable gravity, literally, of the tone & the shape of the lines. The tone, you can just hear the upper overtones being pulled back down into the tone, just as you can hear the line, how every time it starts to go up, it only goes so far before it inexorably begins to come back down again. Hell, for that matter, there's gravity to his time as well. In his early days, he played over the time (I would say on top of it, but that's a phrase that usually implies rushing of some sort, and that is definitely not a Prez-ian quality), but at htis point, he's playing underneath the time, like it's a river and he's part of the river that's flowing right on top of the river bed, moving, yes, but at a speed that is as slower than the top water as it is nevertheless synchronous with it.
Lester Young was a serious man.
Well said.