Lester Young

The biography of Lester Young by Claude Carrière and Christian Bonnet , illustrated by Emilie Balaguer and accompanied by 2 compact discs.

Born in 1909 in Mississippi , Lester Young , a tenor saxophonist touched by grace, played a considerable part in the evolution of jazz. He surprised everyone, from 1936, through his records recorded with Count Basie 's orchestra. Its light and veiled sound, its rhythmic freedom and its melodic invention changed the destiny of thousands of young saxophonists , starting with Stan Getz . This friend of Billie Holiday , who had nicknamed him the “President” experienced a fate similar to that of “Lady Day” as he called her. Over the years, their music, inhabited by the pleasure of playing, gradually saw its sunshine fade. Lester , sick from excess, died in 1959 in his room in a shabby hotel.