Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 – March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez" (short for the "President of the tenor saxophone"), was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.
Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called "a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike".
Known for his hip, introverted style, he invented or popularized much of the hipster jargon which came to be associated with the music.
Lester Young was born in Woodville, Mississippi, on August 27, 1909, to Lizetta Young (née Johnson), and Willis Handy Young, originally from Louisiana. Lester had two siblings – a brother, Leonidas Raymond, known as Lee Young, who became a drummer, and a sister, Irma Cornelia. He grew up in a musical family; his father was a teacher and band leader. While growing up in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, he worked from the age of five to make money for the family. He sold newspapers and shined shoes. By the time he was ten, he had learned the basics of the trumpet, violin, and drums, and joined the Young Family Band, touring with carnivals and playing in regional cities in the Southwest. Young's early musical influences included Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Jimmy Dorsey, and Frankie Trumbauer.
In his teens, he and his father clashed, and he often left home for long periods. His family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1919, and Young stayed there for much of the 1920s, first picking up the tenor saxophone while living there. Young left the family band in 1927, at the age of 18, because he refused to tour in the Southern United States, where Jim Crow laws were in effect and racial segregation was required in public facilities. He became a member of the Bostonians, led by Art Bronson, and chose the tenor saxophone over the alto as his primary instrument. He made a habit of leaving, working, then going home. He left home permanently in 1932 when he became a member of the Blue Devils led by Walter Page.
With the Count Basie Orchestra
In 1933, Young settled in Kansas City, where after playing briefly in several bands, he rose to prominence with Count Basie. His playing in the Basie band was characterized by a relaxed style which contrasted sharply with the more forceful approach of his bandmate Hershel Evans, an alumnus of Coleman Hawkins, the dominant tenor sax player of the day. One of Young's key influences was Frankie Trumbauer, who came to prominence in the 1920s with Paul Whiteman and played the C melody saxophone (between the alto and tenor in pitch). Young left the Basie band to replace Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, but he soon left to play in the Andy Kirk band for six months before returning to Basie.
In 1936, Young recorded his first sides with Basie, though in a quintet rather than with his orchestra; among the four sides of Lester masterpieces was his improvisation on the chords of George Gershwin's "Lady Be Good". In the next four years with the Basie band, and in different small formations, other gems were recorded: "Every Tub", "Texas Shuffle", "Jumpin' at the Woodside", "Clap Hands! Here Comes Charley!", and "You Can Depend on Me" with a septet. While with Basie, Young made also small-group classic recordings with Billie Holiday, under Teddy Wilson's conductorship, and for Milt Gabler's Commodore Records. Although recorded in New York, they are named after the Kansas City Seven of Buck Clayton, Dicky Wells, Basie, Young, Freddie Green, Rodney Richardson, and Jo Jones. In these sessions Young also played clarinet in a "liquid, nervous style". His clarinet work from 1938 to 1939 is documented on recordings with the Basie orchestra and small groups and Billie Holiday.
Billie and Lester met at a Harlem jam session in the early 1930s and worked together in the Count Basie band and in nightclubs on New York's 52nd Street. At one point, Lester moved into the apartment Billie shared with her mother, Sadie Fagan. Holiday always insisted their relationship was strictly platonic. She gave Lester the nickname "Pres" (sometimes spelled "Prez") because she admired President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom she regarded as the "greatest man around" at the time. She believed that Lester was the "greatest" tenor saxophonist and felt that his title should reflect that status. Playing on her name, he would call her "Lady Day".
Young's clarinet was stolen in 1939, so he abandoned the instrument until about 1957 when Norman Granz gave him one and urged him to play it (with rather different results at that stage in Young's life).
Leaving and returning to Basie
Young left the Basie band in late 1940; he is rumored to have refused to play with the band on Friday, December 13 of that year for superstitious reasons, spurring his dismissal, although Young and drummer Jo Jones would later state that his departure had been in the works for months.
Subsequently, Young led a number of small groups that, for the next couple of years, often included his brother, drummer Lee Young; live and broadcast recordings from this period exist. Young accompanied the singer Billie Holiday in a couple of studio sessions (1937–1941) and also made a small set of recordings with Nat King Cole (their first of several collaborations) in June 1942. His studio recordings are relatively sparse during the 1942 to 1943 period, largely due to the recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. Small record labels not bound by union contracts continued to record, and Young recorded some sessions for Harry Lim's Keynote label in 1943.
In December 1943, Young returned to the Basie fold for a 10-month stint, cut short by his being drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. Recordings made during this and subsequent periods suggest Young was beginning to make much greater use of a plastic reed, which tended to give his playing a somewhat heavier, breathier tone (although still quite smooth compared to that of many other players). While he never abandoned the cane reed, he used the plastic reed a significant share of the time from 1943 until the end of his life. Another cause for the thickening of his tone around this time was a change in saxophone mouthpiece from a metal Otto Link to an ebonite Brilhart. In August 1944, Young appeared alongside Jo Jones, trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, and fellow tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet in Gjon Mili's short film Jammin' the Blues.
In September 1944, Young and Jo Jones were in Los Angeles with the Basie band when they were inducted into the U.S. Army. Unlike many white musicians, who were placed in band outfits, such as the ones led by Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw, Young was assigned to the regular army where he was not allowed to play his saxophone. Based in Fort McClellan, Alabama, Young was found with marijuana and alcohol; he was soon court-martialed. Young did not fight the charges and was convicted. He served one traumatic year in a detention barracks and was dishonorably discharged in late 1945. His experience inspired his composition "D.B. Blues" (D.B. standing for Detention Barracks).
Young's career after World War II was far more prolific and lucrative than in the pre-war years in terms of recordings made, live performances, and annual income. Young joined Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe in 1946, touring regularly with JATP over the next 12 years. He made many studio recordings under Granz's supervision as well, including more trio recordings with Nat King Cole. Young also recorded extensively in the late 1940s for Aladdin Records (1945–1947, where he had made the Cole recordings in 1942) and for Savoy (1944, 1949, and 1950), some sessions of which included Basie on piano.
From around 1951, Young's level of playing declined more precipitously as his drinking increased. His playing showed reliance on a small number of clichéd phrases and reduced creativity and originality, despite his claims that he did not want to be a "repeater pencil" (Young coined this phrase to describe the act of repeating one's own past ideas). Young's playing and health went into a crisis, culminating in a November 1955 hospital admission following a nervous breakdown.