Lester Young's Influence On Jazz

Lester Young: The President of Jazz

Jazz is a form of art music developed by Black Americans in the early twentieth century and was emerged from many cultures that branched out into many different styles. The development of jazz was influenced by some great musicians. One of the prominent one was Lester Young, an American jazz tenor-saxophonist and occasional clarinetist. His style has influenced many other well known musicians in the jazz history, leading him to play a significant role in the development of jazz. He undoubtedly was a masterful innovator from the mid 1930’s to the mid 1940s, not only because he changed the way saxophone was played, but also because he changed the art of jazz itself.

Willis Lester Young was born in Woodville,

Mississippi in 1909. Born to a musically talented family, he began playing the saxophone, violin, trumpet, and drums with his family band ever since early age. He spent his childhood with his mother, sister, and brother in Algiers, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, where he was introduced to jazz. At the age of 10, Young and his family travelled across the south with a carnival minstrel band. He started off as a performer by playing drums in the family band, known as the Young Family Band which was led by his father, Willis Young. Prior to choosing the tenor, he began to play C-melody and alto saxophone. At the age of 18, Young got tired of facing racial discrimination in the South and decided to run away from his touring life in carnival circuits and left his family band. Around 1927, Young stopped playing the drums to focus on the alto saxophone. Later in 1932, Young joined an Oklahoma City based band, the original Blue Devils. He also played with King Oliver and Count Basie before gaining national attention as Coleman Hawkins' replacement with Fletcher Henderson in 1934. Young’s first composition recorded by The Basie Band was, “Lester Leaps In” in 1939 and “Tickle Toe” in 1940. The serpentine melodic sensibility achieved by Young through the recordings, was unique for the Swing Era, giving younger players the opportunity to divert from the cliches of playing in big bands. His well known recordings during this time include "Oh Lady Be Good", "Jive at Five", "Lester Leaps In", and "Shoe Shine Boy". Moreover, he also recorded a number of sessions with small groups under the leadership of Teddy Wilson and Billie Holiday, who nicknamed him “Pres” or “Prez”.
Young’s smooth tone and relaxed lyrical style made him earn a lot of attention in Basie’s band in the early 1930s. In 1934, when Hawkins left Henderson’s group to tour Europe, Young shortly replaced him. However, he was highly pressured due to the audience’s high expectation of him playing similar to Hawkins. His technique in the Basie band was characterized by a relaxed style, which highly contrasted Hawkins’ more dynamic approach. Young mostly plays without a pronounced rich boisterous and hoarse sound, profound overtones, unlike most soloist during the time, being hugely influenced by the star soloist of Fletcher Henderson’s Big Band, saxophonist Coleman Hawkins. This resulted in a “hollowed out”, light in tone, and very un-saxophone-like saxophone sound (Radlauer). In his book Living with Jazz, Dan Morgenstern wrote that Young had a “marvelous sensitivity and taste” and that he had “never played a tasteless note in his life” (Morgenstern). His ability to combine rhythm and melody was regarded by large to exhibit Young’s style that is unique and original.
Young made one of his greatest impacts on jazz and swing when he became an essential segment in the Count Basie Orchestra between 1936 and 1941. The smooth, modern rhythm of the Basie band pointed the way for Swing music and introduced a radical 4-beats to the bar rhythm. This resulted in a looser sound and greater freedom for soloing. The freely dancing rhythms of the 4-beat swing allowed Young to combine his strong voice to the cool, modern, and flexible jazz. Free-floating style and funky riffs were used to pleased dancers and listeners (Radlauer).
Furthermore, he invented cool jazz, a style in modern jazz music that consists of a more relaxed tempo and a lighter tone compared to the bebop style.

Cool jazz utilizes orderly arrangements and integrates with elements of classical music. Back in Young’s days, the term “crossover” was non-existent until he established the concept of crossover. He invented a relaxed phrasing, melodic gift and lucent tone style and envisioned a creative way that could be easily absorbed by other music genres and musical background to a TV commercial or the first dance at the wedding reception (Gioia). Lester Young had a distinctly fresh and unique voice. he evidently widen the language of music and left a trademark in jazz. Despite the fact that he rightfully deserved much more credit, his music transformed the way saxophone is played in a symphony orchestra. Ted Gioia, a music critic, mentioned in his article "How Lester Young Invented Cool,"

Here you need to look outside the jazz world to gauge Young’s importance. I almost never hear young jazz saxophonists drawing on his cool jazz style. But when I encounter a saxophone in almost any other setting, I can hear Young’s influence. I hear echoes of his smooth, beguiling sound on movie soundtracks, on pop recordings behind the singer’s vocal, on bossa nova albums, even in elevator music

(Gioia).
Compared to other famous jazz musicians, Lester Young exerted the most influence on the broader culture despite being less known to the general public. Gunther Schuller, the author of The Swing Era, states, “The essence of his heritage is that he proposed a totally new alternative to the language, grammar, and vocabulary of jazz” (Schuller 547). For instance, he weakened the manly culture of jazz by referring to his male friends and casual acquaintances as “lady”. He also played an influential role in the English language by inventing several new terms, such as ‘bread’ to refer to money or ‘crib’ as a way of representing someone’s home, which are still used until today. He was the first person to use the word “dig” to describe a deeper degree of perception. The word “cool” was somehow changed from being a negative term, conveying detachment and emotional deadness to a term used to describe something stylish (Gioia).
Although Young might not be the most influential musician in the history of jazz, he had the greatest influence outside the world of jazz. As stated in Schuller's book “… it is an incontrovertible fact that Lester was the most influential artist after Armstrong and before Chalie Parker” (Schuller 547). His original style and fresh conception of melody improvisation made him one of the most influential jazz musician. Instead of focusing on the jazz orthodoxy, he focused his energy on the melody line. He was not afraid to go against the ‘traditional jazz’ and the audience's’ expectations even if it means that he could never be famous or rich. Young’s phrasing is smooth, singing and very economical: using a minimum of notes and is constantly surprising. The notes that he chooses not to play are as important as the notes he does play. Not only did he influence a lot of musicians, he ended up influenced the American society too. Saxophonist Dexter Gordon and Warne Marsh, were strongly influenced by Young. Young once said. “You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things, but without originality you ain't really nowhere. Gotta be original” (Mueler).