Customer Reviews

The Best of Lester Young

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
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Unlike most of the Lester Young live recordings of this era, the sound quality is quite good.Everyone does a fine job with the tunes which were all standards in Lester Young's repertoire.I recommend this for all Lester Young fans and all jazz fans alike. Enjoy.

Lester Young inspired Boppers like Charlie Parker by providing the bridge between the more traditional-sounding titans like Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins and the more modern and cooler sounds of Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and John Coltrane. This CD features "Prez" with Bill Potts group (presumably circa 1957 in Washington D.C.) in front of a small, polite audience. It is well recorded and has a clean, modern sound for a recording made more than fifty years ago. It is a good introduction for a young saxophinist to Lester Young's playing, and lacks the fat, reedy sound of many of his contemporaries that so often sound dated now.

This is another recording I learned about via the Ken Burns' "Jazz" DVD series. I took it out from my library and played it for many days. It was enjoyable and I really can't criticize it. The numbers that are old standards are lovely and Young certainly was a superb player. However, I have several Coleman Hawkins' recordings already. He also plays the tenor saxophone, also plays many old standards and I simply like his playing better. For me, it is even more emotional and heartfelt than Young's. I didn't just "have to have" this album like I did the 2 Miles Davis albums that the "Jazz" series led me to try either. I took those out from the library too and then immediately bought them after I returned them to the library. There are many albums I like but I don't feel compelled to buy them. I feel I can only give them 5 stars when I run out and buy them after listening to them!