The story behind puzzle No. 10
Count Basie's Kansas City Seven · Single · Vocalion · 1939
Count Basie's big band was a Kansas City machine, but some of its best records came from a small group pulled out of it. Lester Leaps In is a showcase for Lester Young, and it lives up to the name.
Count Basie's Kansas City Seven recorded Lester Leaps In in New York on September 5, 1939, for Vocalion. It is built on the chord changes of I Got Rhythm, a framework jazz players call rhythm changes.
The performance is a conversation between Young's tenor saxophone and Basie's piano, with solos passing back and forth.
Billie Holiday gave Lester Young his nickname, Pres, short for President of the tenor saxophone. She admired Franklin Roosevelt and thought Young deserved a title just as grand.
Young's tone was relaxed and cool, the opposite of Coleman Hawkins's more forceful approach.
Who's on it
Keep listening
Play Coleman Hawkins's Body and Soul from the same year, also a Liner Note puzzle, to hear the two great tenor styles side by side.
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