Lester Leaps In
Leap Day:
Never mind women proposing to men, or that business with the gloves: here’s the great Lester Young demonstrating what can be done with ‘I Got Rhythm’:
Simon Spillett (himself a tenor saxist of note) writes:
“‘Lester Leaps In’ is Young’s self-dedication, tailored to the chords of George Gershwin’s ‘I Got Rhythm’. Lester was actually one of the first jazz improvisers to abandon Gershwin’s original written tag, thus streamlining the sequence and making it easier to play on. Highlights are those false fingered concert B flats – that ‘Dah-Ah’ sound – and his gentle flutters in the fours with Basie (on piano). This is a record…that it is impossible not to smile to, capturing all the joyful irrepresibility of the tenorist in his prime.”
Lester (“Pres”) died in 1959: at his funeral the trombonist Tyree Glenn played ’Just A-Wearing For You’ and someone commented, “Pres would have liked that…but the photographers snapping flashlight pictures while it was going on – he wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. Wasn’t no beauty in that and Pres wouldn’t have wanted anything that wasn’t pretty.”
