Back in 2009, Mosaic Records issued Classic Columbia, Okeh and Vocalion Lester Young With Count Basie (1936-1940), a 4-CD boxed set covering the four years of Young and Basie's collaboration. When the limited number of boxes pressed sold out, the Young cupboard at Mosaic was bare. Time passed, and now Mosaic has issued a much deeper and more satisfying set of Lester Young's emergence and rapid rise: Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie and Lester Young Studio Sessions, an 8-CD box covering nine years. [Photo of Lester Young above by William P. Gottlieb, Library of Congress]
Mosaic decided to release the new box thanks to an arrangement with Sony Music, which since 2009 has accumulated more classic jazz labels, enabling Mosaic to extend Young's 1940s trajectory. To understand the new box's scope, think of the Young studio catalog during this period as two large blocks—the Basie years and the period featuring Young as a small-group leader.
In the first block, Basie and Young are together on 95 master sides and alternate takes. The balance are 78 sides that showcase Young as an artful and romantic soloist. [Photo above, Lester Young and Count Basie]
In short, this means we now have a Young box with all of the Count Basie Decca sessions (regardless of a solo by Lester), including Young's first recordings, with Jones-Smith Incorporated; a Sammy Price session for Decca that includes Young; the Keynote label (the Lester Young Quartet and Kansas City Seven sessions); Commodore (the Kansas City Six sessions); Mercury (the 1946 Young-Cole-Rich session), and all the dates led by Young on Aladdin and Philo.
Of course, this box is by no means a complete studio discography of Young during the period outlined. Absent are sessions with Teddy Wilson for Brunswick (1937-38), sessions with Billie Holiday for Columbia (1937-41), sessions with Benny Goodman for RCA (1938-40), a session with Glenn Hardman for Columbia (1939) and the Savoy studio dates starting in 1944. Nevertheless, the new box tracks Young's ascent on the Basie rocket and his orbit as a dominant and influential leader.
The question I'm being asked now by JazzWax readers is this: "Is the new box worth it if I already own the first one?" Here's my answer: It depends on how much Young you already own during this period and the jazz adventure you're seeking, since both boxes feature very different scenic views. The earlier box featured only Young's solos with Basie, which was efficient. If your mission was to hear the rise of Young in four compact years during the crest of the Swing Era, the earlier box did the job, though the period covered was brief.
The new box is a longer and different experience. Here, you have all the recordings by Young with Basie (including vocal dates) between 1936 and 1939, which in some ways merely serves as an appetizer for the more pronounced recordings to follow between '39 and '47. During this latter period, Young was featured in tight groups where the sound of his horn and his radical new approach on the instrument were more evident and free of interruption.
Swing as orchestral dance music began in the early 1930s with African-American bands led by Jimmie Lunceford (above), Fletcher Henderson, Chick Webb and others. The music crossed over to the mainstream mid-decade thanks to the rise of national network radio, exceptional white dance bands that appealed to young white audiences, and African-American arrangers in those bands. Starting in '36, Count Basie was the most significant exponent of the Kansas City swing school, relying heavily on the blues and riffing sections of the orchestra, with songs often building to a raucous, explosive finale.
Basie's band featured many instrumental stars, but Young was perhaps the most unique and distinct. To fully appreciate how radical Young's more relaxed and nimble attack was, you'd have to listen to other saxophonists of the era, who tended to have a more gruff and growly attack. Instead of using the tenor saxophone as a shovel, Young preferred a more horizontal approach when improvising, coasting along with dexterity and a more laid-back, airy and lyrical approach. In this regard, he mirrored the breathy, pained sound of the female blues balladeer, particularly Billie Holiday.
So what we hear in the early part of Mosaic's new box is Young's emergence as a highly articulate soloist and blues storyteller as well as Basie's evolution as a competitive national dance band. In the second part of the box, we hear Young's breakout and development as an eloquent superstar. [Photo above of the Count Basie Orchestra in the late 1930s, with Lester Young on the far right of the saxophone section]
While listening to the new box, I most enjoyed starting with the later period and then backing into the Basie material. So I started with the 1942 trio session with Nat King Cole on piano and Red Callender on bass. Among the fascinating sides recorded that day was Body and Soul, which lets you compare Young's approach with the 1939 hit by Coleman Hawkins, the other major force on the saxophone during this period.
Once I hit the end of Young's small group sides—the quartet session of Dec. 19, 1947, just before the start of the second musician's union recording ban of 1948, I then moved to the earlier Basie material, which charts Young's rise. It's more fun this way, since your ear will have a finer understanding of what Young brought to the Basie band in the form of seasoning.
The careful listener of this new Mosaic box not only is treated to the rise of a new influential saxophone force but also the unintended feminization of jazz. Up until Young, soloists played hot and pushy. That was their appeal. By contrast, Young advanced a take-your-time tenderness and sensitivity largely unheard of up until that point. Instead of an up-and-down vertical attack on the instrument with distinct punctuation, Young polished the music, coasting along with long, airy strokes. Young was streamlining jazz, providing aerodynamic curves that hadn't yet existed. It's quite something.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Mosaic's Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie and Lester Young Studio Sessions here, available now for pre-order for arrival at the end of September. Superb and insightful liner notes by Loren Schoenberg.
JazzWax clips: Here's Lester Young's Body and Soul from the new box...
By comparison, here's Coleman Hawkins's Body and Soul from 1939...
