Lester Young News

My boss readily admits that she doesn't know a whole lot about jazz. But she lets me write all this nonsense on the Internet, so I'm not complaining.

October 25, 2009, 7:27 AM / Jazz Ella Fitzgerald, "Twelve Nights in Hollywood" . A little bit of heaven in jazz song.

From YouTube , how a bout a little Friday jazz. Ita s been that kind of week. Life Magazine photographer Gjon Mili joined with jazz producer and Verve-label owner Norman Granz to produce the short film "Jammin ' the Blues" in 1944 with Lester Young, Red Callendar, Harry Edison, "Big" Sid Catlett, Illinois Jacquet, Barney Kessel, Jo Jones and Marie ...

I know pride precedes the fall as they say, but I can't help but be a bit smug when it comes to pointing out two of my many favorite blasts from the past.

Dee Dee Bridgewater performs at the 2009 Detroit Jazz Festival. Juilliard Jazz Ensemble Jeremy Viner, tenor Donald Vega, piano Yasushi Nakamura, bass Bryan Carter, drums Juilliard Set List "Butterfly Waltz" "I Mean You" Bennie Maupin's Dolphyana Bennie Maupin, soprano and tenor sax and bass clarinet Nestor Torres, flute Jay Hoggard, vibes and ...

The idea of the tenor battle, two saxophonists squared off in mock combat against each other, has had a long tradition in jazz, be it Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, Dexter Gordon and Wardell Grey or Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane.

The jazz palette is long and wide. Within any given performance format there exist seminal artists as different as saxophonists John Coltrane and Lester Young , trumpeters Miles Davis and Lester Bowie , and pianists Art Tatum and Gene Harris .

For some, the saxophone is the sound of jazz. The unique fusion of brass and woodwind that is the sax found an electrifying vibrato in the hands of jazzmen that truly changed the world.

Tenor Saxophonist Bill Perkins' first album as a leader was On Stage for Pacific Jazz Records.

Wish an early happy birthday to Junior Mance , who turns 81 on Saturday. The prolific jazz pianist starting playing the 88 ivories at age 5 and turned pro as a teen playing with the Gene Emmons Band.

Gary Giddins , whose Visions of Jazzwon the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1998, is perhaps best known for his longtime "Weather Bird" column for the Village Voice .

Jazz enthusiasts, history buffs and everyone in between are invited to participate in a two-fold event Oct.

"Junior Mance is something else... So complete is his psychological command over his instrument that very few of his fellows approach him in this area." --DownBeat Magazine worldpianosummit.com proudly presents Junior Mance at 81 in a rare solo concert at Boston's Church of the Covenant, [67 Newbury Street, Boston, MA 02116] on Thursday, October 8 ...

Jazz has its fair share of musical characters. It's the improvisers' stock and trade to take that personality and translate it through their chosen instrument.

Lester Young: 'The Prez' Still Rules At 100 In the winter of 1959, French photographer Francois Postif interviewed Young in his Paris hotel room less than two months before the saxophonist died.

Rather than holding his saxophone vertically, Lester Young held it high and to the right at a 45-degree angle.

On August 27, 1909, 100 years ago, Lester Young one of the true jazz giants, a tenor saxophonist, was born.

Lester Young is given not just a memorial, but extensive musicological criticism and contextual information in this ten-chapter series by jazz pianist and blogger Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus .

Irrespective of tempo, his melodic invention was always strange and haunting. On a jump number, he would impose a weird mood; a ballad was transformed into a nostalgic song, searching and mysterious.

We dig saxophone. It's the iconic jazz ax. Trumpets once reigned, a long time ago, and clarinets had their sweet little run too.