You Got to Be Original, Man!: The Music of Lester Young

(Hardback)

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Description

Lester Young, the legendary tenor sax player known as "Pres", created music for nearly 25 years. This companion volume to "You Just Fight for Your Life", the biography of Young's life details 251 recording sessions. Listed chronologically, each session has its own introduction that contains title, personnel, date and place of recording, record label, discographical information with matrix numbers, the number of the newest or most complete release of the actual session and, where applicable, whether recording is from concert, radio or TV. The solography lists every solo played by Young, published or unpublished, and contains some newly discovered items including critical assessments of the solos, in many cases illustrated by the author's own transcriptions of the improvizations. Each solo analysis contains song title, form and the number of takes followed by a listing of the personnel and individual soloists. Included here are notations for over 80 Young solos and excerpts for many more written for a B flat instrument so that musicians can play along with their Lester Young recordings. Access to musicians and song titles is facilitated by a song index and a name index that keys items to the numbered sessions, and an index of the transcribed solos refer to the pages where the solos are to be found.

Reviews

"You Got to be Original, Man! is dubbed a solography, ' that is, a guide to all of Young's recorded solos. Every known date that Young recorded, both commercial and private, is listed. Included for each session is the name of the group, the personnel, place and date of recording, titles with matrix numbers and record label, and number of the latest or most complete edition' of the listed tracks. This is followed by commentary on the session and descriptions of each recording. More than 80 solos are transcribed completely. The descriptions are accurate and sometimes insightful. The transcriptions, too, are generally accurate, granting that it is impossible to faithfully represent all nuances of jazz solos on paper....[A] valuable addition to the available information about one of jazz's major figures."-Choice
You Got to be Original, Man! is dubbed a solography, ' that is, a guide to all of Young's recorded solos. Every known date that Young recorded, both commercial and private, is listed. Included for each session is the name of the group, the personnel, place and date of recording, titles with matrix numbers and record label, and number of the latest or most complete edition' of the listed tracks. This is followed by commentary on the session and descriptions of each recording. More than 80 solos are transcribed completely. The descriptions are accurate and sometimes insightful. The transcriptions, too, are generally accurate, granting that it is impossible to faithfully represent all nuances of jazz solos on paper....[A] valuable addition to the available information about one of jazz's major figures.-Choice

Author Bio

FRANK BUCHMANN- MOLLER, who is a Librarian at the Odense University Library in Denmark, has played jazz since the age of 15. A saxophonist, he appears regularly with a quartet and other groups at jazz clubs and in concert. An album of his compositions and arrangements was issued in 1975.