*****Lester Young Corner*****

[Larry Kart]

here are some seconds of lester young on film that are totaly new to me: from a j.a.t.p. concert in helsinki, february 23, 1953:

http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/?s=s&g=8&am...t=604&a=143

click on the "video" button under the picture of ella fitzgerald (it takes a few seconds or more to start)

or try this:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=YKlZ5sqL7YM

lester is at 0:50 and again at 1:25

(the soundtrack is not identical to the footage)

keep boppin´

marcel

I'm pretty sure that, despite the images, all the tenor saxophone work on the YouTube clip is by Flip Phillips (except for the brief bit of Charlie Ventura with Krupa).

[mmilovan]

The same with me, I can hear no Lester on that film clip!

And, no wonder Lester prefer J. C. Heard more than Max Roach ("No bombs please, just give me that twinky-boom behind me...")

And speaking about Lester, here is one special clip:

Bobby Scott remembers Lester Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQRKFbYBtBM

Edited June 9, 2008 by mmilovan

[medjuck]

Do you mean that that's not Prez we're hearing when we see him on screen?

[John L]

here are some seconds of lester young on film that are totaly new to me: from a j.a.t.p. concert in helsinki, february 23, 1953:

http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/?s=s&g=8&am...t=604&a=143

click on the "video" button under the picture of ella fitzgerald (it takes a few seconds or more to start)

or try this:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=YKlZ5sqL7YM

lester is at 0:50 and again at 1:25

(the soundtrack is not identical to the footage)

keep boppin´

marcel

I'm pretty sure that, despite the images, all the tenor saxophone work on the YouTube clip is by Flip Phillips (except for the brief bit of Charlie Ventura with Krupa).

The first few notes of the break when they show Lester certainly sound like him. Those are trademark notes, and the tone of the saxophone is quite different than Flip Phillips. The first part of the response line also sounds like Pres, but doesn't resolve in a way that is characteristic of him. The last part does sound like it could even be Phillips. On the other hand, it doesn't sound so unlike Lester that it couldn't be him. I am inclined to think that it is him.

Edited June 9, 2008 by John L

[mmilovan]

John, I'm afraid it is NOT Lester on 00:49. Sure the player uses the same repetitive figure so closely associated with Pres, but the way he uses it, projection, tone, and vibrato suggests no Lester here. It can be Flip, I don't see Ventura anywhere (and in addition to marcel's post, I think it is Lester in shades/darkness with Krupa, not Ventura). But I can't tell if it really was Flip or Ventura, can't make that difference.

[Big Beat Steve]

I will have to look through my 1953 jazz mags again tonight but unless I am VERY MUCH mistaken Charlie Ventura was not on that Scandinavian tour at all. Flip Phillips, Prez and Willie Smith were the reedmen.

[John L]

John, I'm afraid it is NOT Lester on 00:49. Sure the player uses the same repetitive figure so closely associated with Pres, but the way he uses it, projection, tone, and vibrato suggests no Lester here. It can be Flip, I don't see Ventura anywhere (and in addition to marcel's post, I think it is Lester in shades/darkness with Krupa, not Ventura). But I can't tell if it really was Flip or Ventura, can't make that difference.

Milan: Maybe you and Larry are right. But I personally don't hear anything in that first repetitive figure to make me doubt that it is Pres, and doesn't the tone sound very different to that of Phillips? What comes after it is a bit unusual for Pres, but a few of the figures are certainly still taken from the Pres book.

Edited June 9, 2008 by John L

[AllenLowe]

1) it's titty boom -

2) defintely NOT Prez at .50 - just not him, not his sense of time -

[Jaffa]

I am sure it's Flip Phillips: Both, in the first bit alongside Prez and Willie Smith as well as in the short segment with Krupa.

[Larry Kart]

I must be wrong about Ventura, but I thought I saw a moustache. I was going by that more than any aural evidence. Eddie Shu? As for Prez-like figures, Flip had his share, and, as Allen says, the time, the overall assertiveness, the compactness of tone, etc. say Flip to me. Clearly the relation between what we see and hear on this clip is very random.

[JSngry]

I am sure it's Flip Phillips: Both, in the first bit alongside Prez and Willie Smith as well as in the short segment with Krupa.

Same here.

[JSngry]

The first 4 bars of the alleged Pres segment sure sound like him, though. But just those 4 bars. Any chance that the solo was edited as bizarrely as the video?

[mmilovan]

Closer listening to that 1944-53 JATP set can resolve that problem: Flip used that repetetive figure we can find on 00:49, probably he borowed it from Lester.

And I'm not sure if anyone will edit solo of Flip, just to cut first few bars, and paste Lester's playing.

At least, due to such primitive editing we will clearly hear that part (from Pres to Flip), but solo "flows" here perfectly.

Also, I'm with Allen Lowe, this is not his rhythmic sense.

[Big Beat Steve]

... edited as bizarrely as the video?

Could it be that the "video" originally was a newsreel shown in Finnish cinemas? For THAT purpose this kind of editing would have made sense.

[mmilovan]

And another, most important, question: was Finnish radio with tape recorders around that hall in time mentioned in the newsreel?

Edited June 9, 2008 by mmilovan

[Big Beat Steve]

I'd bet somebody was around somewhere recording those concerts on tape. But if you ever unearth them, there would be a lot to listen to: That particular part of the 1953 JATP tour alone (late February, 1953) included some SIX concerts in Sweden, plus two in Oslo (Norway) and one each in Helsinki (Finland) and Copenhagen (Denmark)! And after that they hopped on over to the European continent, starting in Hamburg. And so on ...

[bichos]

speaking of the european j.a.t.p. tour of 1953: here is a newsreel clip from the hamburg concert february 26: unfortunately without lester young (but he was there) and the quality is very, very low: (go to 8:20)

http://www.wochenschau-archiv.de/kontrollk...nktion=play56k#

ohh, there must be more, because this time the soundtrack is in sync with the picture!

keep boppin´

marcel

[Big Beat Steve]

Ah yeah ... THAT newsreel speaker's voice is VERY well known to all Germans interested in that era ...

Too bad the resolution is so poor.

BTW, it is is interesting to see the differences in the reactions of the media to those concerts. While in cool Sweden the reviewer of Orkester Journalen stated flat out that Gene Krupa and his circus artistry left him cold (but admitted he made a hit with the kids in the audience), the JAZZ HOT review of the Parisian concert just drooled both about Gene and about his drum battles with J.C. Heard.

And all the mags complained about the unruly behavior of many youngsters in the audience (who clearly in many cases had not come for the music in the first place - signs of times to come? ). Must have been hard for introvert artists like Lester ...

Edited June 10, 2008 by Big Beat Steve

[BillF]

I am sure it's Flip Phillips: Both, in the first bit alongside Prez and Willie Smith as well as in the short segment with Krupa.

Same here.

Sounds like Flip Phillips to me!

[bichos]

look, i found more: absolute new to me:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ogRiaWXaU

polka dots and moonbeams - art ford´s jazz party, october, 02. 1958. not in the "lestorian notes" discography by koster/mobach. but looking into meeker (jazz on the screen) it must be this session:

Rex Stewart, cornet; Nick Travis, trumpet;

Wilbur De Paris, trombone; King Curtis, Lester

Young, tenor sax; Rolf Kuhn, Bob McGarry,

clarinet; Ray Bryant, piano; Harry Sheppard,

vibraphone; Vinnie Burke, acoustic double

bass; John Paretti, Barry Miles, drums; Sylvia

Sims, vocal.

and that´s live! a whole feature song for prez alone on film!!!!

keep boppin´

marcel

[medjuck]

I am sure it's Flip Phillips: Both, in the first bit alongside Prez and Willie Smith as well as in the short segment with Krupa.

Same here.

Sounds like Flip Phillips to me!

So there's no Prez on the soundtrack?

[JSngry]

look, i found more: absolute new to me:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ogRiaWXaU

polka dots and moonbeams - art ford´s jazz party, october, 02. 1958. not in the "lestorian notes" discography by koster/mobach. but looking into meeker (jazz on the screen) it must be this session:

Rex Stewart, cornet; Nick Travis, trumpet;

Wilbur De Paris, trombone; King Curtis, Lester

Young, tenor sax; Rolf Kuhn, Bob McGarry,

clarinet; Ray Bryant, piano; Harry Sheppard,

vibraphone; Vinnie Burke, acoustic double

bass; John Paretti, Barry Miles, drums; Sylvia

Sims, vocal.

and that´s live! a whole feature song for prez alone on film!!!!

keep boppin´

marcel

Whoa...

[Larry Kart]

He's close to the end, but this is precious. Such pretty notes.

Used to have a link to another tune from this show that featured Stewart, Travis, and the two clarinetists. Easily the best Travis solo I've ever heard. Sort of a cross between Dizzy and Bobby Hackett, if that can be imagined. And Rex wasn't that far behind him that night.

[paul secor]

Thanks for posting the link. Even toward the end, Pres had the feeling and the imagination.

The bit about Leonard Feather, John Hammond, Bob Sylvester, and someone whose name I didn't catch voting for the outstanding solo of the night pissed me off. Ridiculous that people might pay attention to fools. People voting on music is even more ridiculous.

Edited June 20, 2008 by paul secor

[JSngry]

He's close to the end, but this is precious. Such pretty notes.

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.

Edited June 20, 2008 by JSngry