Lester Young - Lester Leaps In (Remastered) (2018) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

The conventional wisdom has it that Lester Young’s playing after his desperately unhappy year in the Army (1944/5) was never again to reach the high creative level it achieved over the first decade of his professional life.

Critics will no doubt debate the issue for many years to come, but the evidence from the 12 tracks on this album, recorded between 1951 and 1956, is that Pres remained an outstandingly gifted, original and swinging soloist right up to the end of his career (his last engagement, incidentally, was at the Blue Note in Paris in January 1959).

The material here consists of air shots from club dates in New York and Washington. On all but three of the tracks, front-line duties are shared with a trumpet player – either Idrees Sulieman, a vigorous bebop exponent who has worked with Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, the Clarke-Boland Band and Dexter Gordon, or Jesse Drakes, a fiery, staccato player from New York who played regularly with Lester between 1949 and 1955. It is highly appropriate that the opening track is Lester Leaps In, Young’s celebrated theme on the chords of I Got Rhythm which he first recorded with Count Basie’s Kansas City Seven in 1939. The middle eight of the opening chorus is delivered in typically rousing style by Sulieman, but after this it is Lester all the way. He plays the customary stop-time chorus after the theme and builds a solo full of characteristic Pres elements – lazy, laconic lines, reiterated notes and a lovely, loose swing.

Tracklist:
1. Lester Leaps In (f) 3:12
2. These Foolish Things (f) 3:33
3. Three Little Words (f) 4:30
4. Pennies from Heaven (d) 2:57
5. Polka Dots and Moonbeams (d) 3:33
6. Indiana (e) 3:57
7. Jumpin’ With Symphony Sid © 3:20
8. D.B. Blues (a) 3:00
9. A Ghost of a Chance (a) 3:42
10. Up and Atom (b) 4:20
11. Blues in G (b) 5:39
12. Tea for Two (b) 1:32

Personnel:
(a) Jesse Drake (tp); Lester Young (ts); John Lewis (p); Gene Ramey (b);
Jo Jones (dm). Recorded at Birdland, New York City, May 19th, 1951.
(b) Jesse Drake (tp); Lester Young (ts); Horace Silver (p); Aaron Bell or
Franklin Skeets (b); Lee Abram or Connie Kay (dm). Opinions differ
regarding the bass player and the drummer, so we decided to give both
names. Recorded at Birdland, New York City, January 15th 1953.
© Lester Young (ts); Bill Potts (p); Norman Williams (b); Jim Lucht (dr).
Recorded at Olivia’s Patio Lounge, Washington, December 8th, 1956.
(d) Same as ©. Recorded at Café Bohemia, New York City,
December 22nd, 1956.
(e) Same as (d) but add Idrees Sulieman (tp).
(f) Same as (e). Recorded at Café Bohemia, New York City, probably
December 29th 1956.