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Tenor saxophonists Lester Young was the key element in
William "Count" Basie's orchestra, to which
Young contributed Taxi War Dance (march 1939),
Lester Leaps In (september 1939), reminiscent of George Gershwin's I Got Rhythm,
and Tickle Toe (march 1940).
Lester Young's intimate, slow, lighter, laconic style (that was more about
emotion than about vanity, more about melody than about innovation, and probably more inspired by the blues singers than by jazz trumpeters) made Armstrong' syncopated generation sound outdated.
In 1934 Young had briefly replaced Coleman Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson's orchestra, but it was only
in the Jones-Smith Incorporated, a quintet with Count Basie, Walter Page, Jo Jones and a trumpeter, that Young's style became a sensation. His first solos in George Gershwin's Lady Be Good (october 1936) and Saul Chaplin's Shoe Shine Boy (november 1936) introduced Young's tenor saxophone as almost the exact opposite of Coleman Hawkins' saxophone: light, breezy, vibrato-free,
more similar to an alto than to Hawkins' tenor,
and improvising on the melody rather than on the chords.
His artistic peak was perhaps achieved in another small setting, the Kansas City Six (1938) with guitarist Eddie Durham.
Young did not seem to belong to the swing age at all: his role was essentially
His career was later devastated by the war, drugs, alcohol and mental problems.
He died in 1959.
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