Lester Young: Polkadots and Moonbeams

It's a quiet, gray, rainy morning here in Maine. The kind of early fall morning that makes me long for a blanket, a cup of hot tea, and the smooth tone of Lester Young's saxophone.

Here's Lester Young ("Prez") playing on some kind of American Idol-style show where viewers could call in to vote for the best jazz solo of the evening. Now that's my kind of reality TV!

The song he's playing, "Polkadots and Moonbeams," was one of my grandparents' favorite songs. Papa used to call Nana his "pug-nosed dream" based on the schmoopy/sweet lyrics, and Prez makes it sound even sweeter on his sax. To tell the truth (and these may be fighting words in some locales), I do believe Lester Young is my favorite saxophone player of all time.

[Side note: In the comments of this video, viewers note that this was recorded in '57 or '58. Lester Young died of liver disease in '59 and he suffered very badly from the disease for the last two years of his life. It's amazing to me that he was likely very ill when this was taped, and while his notes are sometimes tired, the soul and feeling is still 100% there.]

Lester Young: Polkadots and Moonbeams

Lester Young: Live at Birdland

Around the same time that the Billie Holiday Rare Live Recordings set came out, ESP also released Lester Young Live at Birdland, rare live 1950s radio performances broadcast from the legendary New York jazz club, Birdland.

Lester Young classics like Lester Leaps In and Three Little Words are mixed with great renditions of popular standards like These Foolish Things and my grandparents' favorite, Polkadots and Moonbeams (apparently, my grandmother was quite the "pug-nosed dream" back in the day!)

Billie Holiday often said that she tried to sing like Lester Young's horn. In an article called Lester Young: Master of Jive, Douglas Henry Daniels quotes Holiday saying:

I always try to sing like a horn--a trumpet or tenor sax, and I think Lester is just the opposite. He likes to play like a voice...Lester sings with his horn. You listen to him and you can almost hear the words.

That's definitely apparent on these live recordings. Young's smooth, sweet, lyrical sound is unmistakable. The disc is peppered with announcements encouraging listeners to invest in U.S. Savings Bonds (the radio series was sponsored by the U.S. Treasury, of all things), and the gooney announcer cuts in with his own 1950's flourishes like "Ca-rraaaa-zy!" which give the recordings a nice blast-from-the-past feel. I like imagining what it would have been like tuning in each week to Birdland on the radio. I suppose years from now people will say the same about old American Idol (or hopefully even Austin City Limits) episodes.

Here's another little taste of Lester Young. He's missing his porkpie hat in this one, but you can't miss the charming, cockeyed way he holds his sax:

Billie Holiday, Lester Young: Fine and Mellow (1957)

My favorite jazz duo of all time has to be Billie Holiday and Lester Young. I swear there was something magical in the way the mellow tone of his saxophone mixed with the melancholy in her voice. In the next couple weeks, in honor of Black History Month, I'll write a bit about some new Lester Young and Billie Holiday live and rare recordings that were released last month.

But to start things off, here's a great video of Billie Holiday singing "Fine and Mellow" in 1957. Lester Young is the second sax solo (though he's missing his signature pork pie hat). The rest of the amazing line-up of musicians includes: Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Gerry Mulligan, Roy Eldridge, Doc Cheatham, Vic Dickenson, Danny Barker, Milt Hinton, and Mal Waldron. It doesn't really get much better than that...