Those who have been patiently reading this thread are probably getting tired of waiting for me to get out of the swing jazz era and start exploring be-bop. The problem is that I just cannot do that yet. There are still highly important jazz figures that have to be covered because bop cannot be understood without understanding their contributions to its emergence. One of these is Lester Young.
Born August 27, 1909 in Woodville, Mississippi, Lester Willis Young came from a musical family. His brother, Lee, was a drummer. Lester’s father, Willis, was multi-talented but Lester did not know him during his early childhood. When Lester learned that his father was musician, he wanted to be one too. By the time he did meet his father, Willis taught Lester sax, trumpet, drums and violin but their relationship would be a contentious one. The Young family formed a band, the Young Family Band, which toured much of the country on the vaudeville circuit. Lester was brought in at age 10. In 1927, however, Lester left the band because they were willing to tour the Jim Crow South and play for segregated audiences which Lester refused to do.
Now 18, Lester drifted around looking for a steady gig and ended up in Kansas City by 1933 which had one of the hottest jazz scenes, if not the hottest, to be found. Lester played in a few bands such as the Bostonians (who’s leader, Art Bronson, deserves the credit for getting Lester to switch from alto to tenor sax), before joining Walter Page’s Blue Devils, a territorial band born from Bennie Moten’s orchestra. Lester left a short time later and returned to the Young Family Band in 1929 but left again in less than a year then returned to the Bostonians. Lester stayed with Bronson for a short time then returned to the Blue Devils in 1932. The Blue Devils were in their last days so Lester left and gigged with a few other bands building a reputation as an up-and-coming, solid talent.
When Fletcher Henderson’s orchestra came to town, everyone wanted to see the great Coleman Hawkins. All the KC sax players flocked to a venue called the Cherry Blossom where Henderson was booked to play. In the after-hours, a cutting contest began between Hawkins, roundly considered the greatest tenor sax man alive, and the KC tenor men including Lester, Ben Webster and Herschel Evans. Mary Lou Williams was there and recounted what happened:
“Hawkins was in his singlet taking turns with the Kaycee men. It seems he had run into something he didn’t expect. Lester’s style was light and, as I said, it took him maybe five choruses to warm up. But then he would really blow; then you couldn’t handle him on a cutting session. That was how Hawkins got hung up…Yes, Hawkins was king until he met those crazy Kansas City tenor men.”
Lester left Kansas City with the Henderson orchestra since Hawkins was leaving to tour Europe with British bandleader Jack Hylton for what was to be a few months (which turned into a few years). But Henderson’s sidemen did not like Lester’s style. They were used to the aggressive approach of Hawkins and wanted Chu Berry, the foremost Hawkins disciple, as his replacement. But Berry had hooked up with Cab Calloway and was unwilling to forsake this gig because Henderson’s orchestra often went long stretches without work and Calloway was a tireless worker who always had a paying gig lined up somewhere. So Lester became the replacement and neither the sidemen nor fans of the orchestra, used to a heavier style, cared for Lester’s playing. He left a few months later and returned to Kansas City.
Following Moten’s death, Basie was elected to take over the band. Basie, recognizing great talent, recruited Lester, who was back in KC, from Andy Kirk’s orchestra. Under Basie’s tutelage, Lester began to carve out a niche for himself and develop his own musical vocabulary. Basie added another tenor sax man, Herschel Evans, in addition to Lester and had them flank the alto sax player. No other band was doing this and it pushed new ideas out of Young and added to his already considerable arsenal.
Young’s primary influence was, of all people, a white sax player from Paul Whiteman’s band named Frankie Trumbauer (“That was my man!” Young said in an interview). In the late 20s, Trumbauer and fellow Whiteman member, Bix Beiderbecke, teamed up to record their own arrangements with Bix on cornet and Trumbauer on C-melody sax. Trumbauer or Tram, as he was known, was highly regarded by the jazz world in the late twenties and influenced more musicians than just Lester Young. But Lester was his most important disciple, by far. Tram and Bix had been together a long time, even before Whiteman when they played in Detroit for Jean Goldkette and even before that. That the two men would hit it off is ironic because they were polar opposites. Bix was engaging and outgoing while Trumbauer was taciturn and quiet. Bix had a round, cherubic smiling face of unmistakable Teutonic good looks while Trumbauer, part American Indian, had a longer, less identifiable face that tended to look melancholy. Bix loved to talk about classical music and good books while Tram kept his opinions to himself. Bix, despite his musical prowess, was unschooled in both cornet and piano and could barely read music while Tram was well-schooled and played several instruments quite well (cornet, piano, flute, bassoon, trombone, violin) with sax actually being a less serious endeavor than the others. Bix loved the life of a jazz musician while Tram could take it or leave it (and he did, in fact, eventually leave it). Bix would stay up and party all night after a show but Tram returned home as early as possible to be with his wife and child.
Paul Whiteman Orch - Sugar (Surface Noise Reduced) - YouTube
In this 1928 Paul Whiteman clip of the great Maceo Pinkard song, Bix and Tram begin soloing together from 1:06 to 1:45 and while it doesn’t do their talents justice, it does demonstrate the relationship of the two men: Bix up there soaring on bright brass wings and Tram keeping Bix anchored so he doesn’t fly off too far. In the photo, Bix is in the first row on the far left and Tram is also in the first row just to the right of Whiteman.
While both men played with a light, airy touch, Bix had a very wide vocabulary on the cornet that Tram either lacked or did not make much use of and yet this made him all the more intriguing to listen to. He eschewed the arpeggiation and harmonic stylings prevalent in his day and did away with that “verticality” in ways that required no small degree of skill—above and beyond what other jazzmen had. Imagine seeing a beautiful, complex painting and yet upon close examination, you realize the artist did it all using nothing but horizontal brush strokes—no vertical strokes, no curls, no flourishes, even circular shapes were painstakingly done with horizontal strokes—that is how Trumbauer constructed his musical lines and phrasings. He either lacked or avoided certain skills but used other skills in his repertoire to great advantage. Quite simply no one else was doing anything like it.
Tram, Eddie Lang and Bix had played together years before in St. Louis with Joe Venuti and Adrian Rollini in a band that was considered to be exceptional.
But the recordings of Bix and Tram were more than simply great musicianship, they were setting the table for jazz balladeering as well the cool jazz that was still more than two decades away.
When Lester heard Bix and Tram laying it down on these recordings, a light went on in his head. Tram had a light, airy touch that differed fundamentally from Coleman Hawkins’ more aggressive style. Hawkins would stomp all over the beats putting his mark on them but Tram taught Lester how to dance over and around the beats with a step so light as to not even touch them. Like Trumbauer, Lester always played a little behind the beat. Tram taught Lester to float. Lester learned to use the upper register of the tenor sax in order to sound more like a C-melody sax and this, in turn, influenced Charlie Parker.
Trumbology - Frankie Trumbauer & his Orchestra - YouTube
From 1927 featuring Tram on C-melody sax, Bix on cornet, Jimmy Dorsey on clarinet/alto sax, Bill Rank on trombone, Howdy Quicksell on banjo, Paul Mertz on piano and Chauncy Morehouse on drums.
Singin' the Blues. Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer 1927 - YouTube
From 1927, considered one of the finest jazz recordings ever made. Tram on C-melody sax, Bix on cornet, Eddie Lang (Salvatore Massaro) on guitar, Itzy Riskin on piano and Chauncy Morehouse on drums.