Happy 100th, Prez!

No, we won't be a dolt, and leave you hanging, sitting there, reading this, thinking "Okay, what President would have been 100-years-old today?"

This guy was never elected.

Check that.

He was, perhaps, unanimously acclaimed as the coolest cat on the planet.

The original hipster.

The Prez we speak of, and herald today, is Jazz giant Lester Young.



Many of my friends know, one of my biggest laments in life is that I don’t wake up in the morning with the ability to play the tenor saxophone like Lester Young (if I could play it at all, that is).

Man, Prez just beat it to death ... A monster player, paid his dues in the Basie Band, and swung with the best of them.

From All About Jazz;

Lester “Prez” Young was one of the giants of the tenor saxophone. He was the greatest improviser between Coleman Hawkins and Louis Armstrong of the 1920s and Charlie Parker in the 1940s. From the beginning, he set out to be different: He had his own lingo; In the Forties, he grew his hair out. The other tenor players held their saxophones upright in front of them, so Young held his out to the side, kind of like a flute (see picture above). Then, there was the way he played: Hawkins played around harmonic runs. He played flurries of notes and had a HUGE tone that the other tenor players of the day emulated. Young used a softer tone that resulted In a soft, light sound (if you didn't know better, you would think the two were playing different instruments). Young used less notes and slurred notes together, creating more melodic solos. He played the ordinary in an extraordinary way, using a lot of subtleties to produce music that Billie Holiday said flips you out of your seat with surprise.

And, lest you think that it is only our opinion about Lester Young being the "coolest cat on the planet";

From Jamie Katz, in 'Smithsonian Magazine';

Like many of Young’s phrases—musical and verbal—the comment was both deft and shrouded. He was known for speaking a private language, some of which has entered the American lexicon. The expression “that’s cool” was probably coined by him, as were “bread” (for money), “You dig?” and such colorful sayings as “I feel a draft”—code for prejudice and hostility in the air. He also wore sunglasses in nightclubs, sported a crushed black porkpie hat and tilted his saxophone at a high angle “like a canoeist about to plunge his paddle into the water,” as the New Yorker’s Whitney Balliett put it. Rolling Stone later pronounced Prez “quite likely the hippest dude that ever lived.”

And, Wikipedia;

Young was viewed as an eccentric by those he chose to exclude from his circle (those he did not trust). He did so by creating his own language that his friends could understand, that might baffle outsiders. Those on the outside viewed it as a rococo and often inscrutable personal slang, famously referring to a narcotics detective or policeman as a "Bob Crosby" (referring to Bob and Bing Crosby if multiple police officers were present), a rehearsal as a "molly trolley", and an instrumentalist's keys or fingers as his "people". He dressed distinctively, especially in his trademark pork pie hat. When he played saxophone, particularly in his younger days, he would sometimes hold the horn off to the right side at a near-horizontal angle, like a flute. Joop Visser believes that it was Lester's residence in the stuffy Reno Club with the Count Basie Band that caused this idiosyncrasy, as by holding it that way it was the only way Lester could keep his tenor sax from knocking into someone else's instrument. He is considered by many to be an early hipster, predating Slim Gaillard and Dizzy Gillespie.

This here isn't the rendition we were looking for, but it is one of our favorites.

Billie Holiday / Lester Young - This Year's Kisses



It was Billie Holliday who dubbed Lester Young "Prez";

Since the days of Joe "King" Oliver, jazz has bestowed lofty titles upon its ace practitioners. Bessie Smith graduated from "Queen of the Blues" to "Empress of the Blues," Benny Goodman was proclaimed "King of Swing", there was a "Duke" Ellington, a "Count" Basie, and Lester Young was dubbed Prez (short for president, a title given to him by Billie Holiday). "We called my mother 'the Duchess,'" Holiday said in a 1959 interview, "so he [Lester Young] named me 'Lady Day' and I called him 'Prez'--we were the royal family."[3] It has been suggested that Young was called "Prez" long before meeting her, but there is no evidence of that.

If I had a time machine, probably, the first place I would go back to, is the era of Lester Young.

What a gas it would have been to be around him.

Go now, and dig his music.

Happy B'Day Prez!

Lester Young - Lester Leaps In




Lester Young - Jitterbug Jam




Lester Young & Teddy Wilson - All of Me




Almost Like Being In Love - Lester Young With the Oscar Peterson Trio




Bonus Bonus

The Pork Pie Hat.

Charles Mingus (speaking of Jazz giants), wrote this tune for Lester Young.

Goodbye Pork Pie Hat-Charles Mingus



(And, Joni Mitchell - Yes, that Joni Mitchell - wrote lyrics for it, that you can check out HERE)

Mirror Mirror

While there is light at the end of the tunnel (and not a freight train, but rather, some good meds), we stayed on the DL again today, and dreading the snow/sleet/ice/rain storm barreling this way tomorrow.

So, we look to be back on track very soon.

For this evening, we have a little treat to share with you.

One song, two versions.

First, we start off with the classic, 'Corner Pocket, a warhorse of a tune from William "Count" Basie, and his monster orchestra.

Then, fast forward a few decades, to the Manhattan Transfer, and their "Until I Met You", which is none other than a vocal rendition of "Corner Pocket"

Enjoy!

The Count Basie Orchestra - Corner Pocket




Manhattan Transfer - Until I Met You ( Corner Pocket )

Sad News ... Legendary Composer, Arranger Neal Hefti Passes Away

Shortly before last evening's debate, I descried various news articles and posts that gave me a heavy heart.

No, not that I would have to endure, yet, another debate (and, the angry Stumblin' Bumblin' John McKKKain), but that one of my Jazz heroes died.

Neal Hefti, long associated with the Count Basie Band, Woody Herman's Thundering Herd, and a bevy of other greats.

From the NYT Obit;

Over the years, Hefti, first known as a jazz trumpeter in the 1940s and 1950s, was much admired and much in demand as an arranger, conductor and occasional record producer; he worked with Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Mel Tormé and Tony Bennett, among others. He also led his own bands, and he was active as a player until 1960.

But his greatest sphere of influence was as an arranger and composer for other jazz artists. His early travels with jazz bands took him to New York, where he was mesmerized by the bebop playing of Dizzy Gillespie, and joined the Herman band — known as First Herd — in 1944. He was influential in moving that band from its swing roots in the direction of bebop.

"If it wasn't for Neal Hefti, the Basie band wouldn't sound as good as it does," Miles Davis said in 1955. "But Neal's band can't play those same arrangements nearly as well."

From The Times On-Line UK;

Away from the world of Hollywood Hefti will be remembered as the man who shaped the sound of the postwar Count Basie Orchestra, and who also produced dozens of skilful, well-crafted arrangements for Woody Herman and Harry James.

When Basie eventually re-formed his full orchestra, Hefti became one of his principal writers. The album The Atomic Basie remains the best work that the group did in the 1950s, playing entirely Hefti’s arrangements.

He had started writing for Harry James in the late 1940s, but in the 1950s Hefti furnished James with numerous compositions, designed to feature the leader’s trumpet and the band’s star drummer Buddy Rich.

Nevertheless, Hefti was by this time writing in a similar style to that which he used for Basie, giving rise to the apocryphal story that when the two bands met on a television show, Basie drily asked James: “Are you going to play our arrangements first, or are we?”

From The Independent (UK);

It is grotesque that Neal Hefti, one of jazz's greatest orchestrators, should be best remembered for a 12"x12" picture of an atomic bomb exploding. The album The Atomic Mr Basie (1957), for which Hefti wrote all the music, was an embarrassment for him and Count Basie, both in its title and the cover picture, but it made a fortune for them and for the record company and remains one of the most memorable big band albums of all time. Hefti's beautiful ballad "Li'l Darlin' " from that set stuck in the public's memory and the Basie band played it regularly in concert ever after.

It's also sad that too many newspapers and websites will present this news, highlighting that Hefti wrote the theme songs for televisions' "Batman" and "The Odd Couple", then presenting his illustrious Jazz career as a side note.

NPR: Neal Hefti, Big Band Trumpeter, TV Theme Composer, Dies

Washington Post: Composer Neal Hefti; Jazz Master Penned Theme for 'Batman'

Los Angeles Times: Neal Hefti dies at 85; former big band trumpeter, arranger and composer

Neal Hefti on Wikipedia

Since it is mentioned above, and also, one of my all-time favorites ...

Lil' Darling - Count Basie