The Complete Aladdin Sessions
| The Complete Aladdin Sessions of Lester Young | |
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| Studio album by Lester Young | |
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Blue Note Records / Definitive Records |
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Format (s) |
LP, CD |
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running time |
124: 55 (CD) |
| occupation |
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Studio (s) |
Los Angeles , Chicago , WOR Studios New York City |
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The Complete Aladdin Sessions or in the CD edition The Complete Aladdin Recordings of Lester Young is a jazz album by Lester Young . The double album, released on Blue Note Records in 1975, contains all the tracks that the tenor saxophonist recorded under his own name between December 1945 and December 1947 for the record company Aladdin Records . The CD edition published in 1994 was supplemented by a session in July 1942 with Nat King Cole and recordings with Helen Humes in December 1945.
The Aladdin Sessions 1945–1947
After his discharge from the army, Lester Young left New York and moved to Southern California, where he signed a recording contract with the small record label "Philo", later known as "Aladdin Records". During the time of his contract with Aladdin, Lester Young also worked with Norman Granz ' Jazz at the Philharmonic and played with his own band in nightclubs. Shortly after the recordings for "Aladdin", Lester Young went downhill in free fall, according to jazz critic Günther Huesmann in his review of the recordings in the series "Recordings of the Century of Jazz". "But here we experience the master of cool once again at the height of his compassionate art".
The titles were initially recorded for single releases, later also summarized on EPs . The selection of pieces was usually made at the last minute, the repertoire consisted of standards and variations of established chord progressions. So as the "DB Blues" one based on "I Got Rhythm" Blues , "Lester Blows Again" takes the harmonic structure of " Honeysuckle Rose ". "A relaxed jam session - atmosphere apparently, but not without risk," wrote Günther Huesmann. Critic Leonard Feather (who produced one of the New York sessions) stated, “I remember the session as a strange and far from comfortable afternoon. Especially because Pres didn't care to discuss what pieces should be played, how or when they should start or end. Fortunately, the sidemen had sensitive antennas. "
The first session, shortly after his arrival in Los Angeles , united him with former Basie colleagues; the trombonist Vic Dickenson had played with him in 1940 in the Basie Band. There was also the young pianist Dodo Marmarosa , who had just left Artie Shaw's band ; At the age of 19 he was already considered one of the most important bebop pianists. Bassist Red Callender had been a member of Lester Young's band as early as 1942 when he was working with Nat King Cole .
The second session in June 1946, in which four tracks were recorded, took place with a frontline with four wind instruments; Besides Prez, trumpeter Howard McGhee played , again Vic Dickenson and alto saxophonist Willie Smith . They gave the tenor saxophonist the background for his improvisations on titles like " It's Only a Paper Moon " and "Lover Come Back to Me". The later rhythm and blues musician Johnny Otis played in the rhythm section .
After Feather, the third session in August 1946 is probably one of the most memorable, especially because of the recorded song material, but also because of the accompanying musicians. Joe Albany was considered one of the few white bebop pianists; Guitarist Irving Ashby was working as a freelance musician in Los Angeles at the time. Bass player was Red Callender again; on the drums sat Chico Hamilton , who had played with Prez in 1941 and had just been discharged from the army.
"New Lester Leaps In" is a remake of the track Prez recorded on Count Basies Kansas City Seven in 1939; “You Driving Me Crazy” also has basie undertones; the chords of this piece originally formed the basis for "Moten Swing". " She's Funny That Way " is another example of Prez's ballad play; "Lester's Be-Bop-Boogie" shows the influence of Lionel Hamptons "Hamp's Boogie Woogie," which was a huge hit in the United States in the mid-1940s.
The following three sessions, which took place in Los Angeles between October 1946 and April 1947, resulted in a total of 14 tracks that Prez recorded with his working band . It consisted of the pianist Argonne Thornton , later known as Sadik Hakim , the guitarist Fred Lacey , the bassist Rodney Richardson and the drummer Lyndell Marshall , in the session in February 1947 he was replaced by the young drummer Roy Haynes , who then in the following was to play with Lester Young for two years. In the wind section, Prez was supplemented by trumpeter Maurice "Shorty" McConnell . With the addition of a guitarist Prez wanted to tie in with the role of Freddie Green in the Basie band. The best-known title of the first of these sessions was the title "Jumpin 'with Symphony Sid", which refers to the then famous New York disc jockey "Symphony Sid" Torin ; the title, based on a simple blues character, became a well-known jazz standard , the signature tune Symphony Sids; he brought Lester Young a certain popularity as a band leader. According to Feathers, however, musically more interesting was the track "No Eye Blues", a blues in slow tempo and a similarly relaxed interpretation of Jimmy McHugh's standard " On the Sunny Side of the Street ".
At the February session with Roy Haynes, Prez played in his typical up tempo manner “Movin 'with Lester”, a number in 32 bars and the tracks “ Jumpin' at the Woodside ” and “ One O'Clock Jump ”, the reminiscences his time with Count Basie. During the last session of his working band , guitarist Nasir Barakat joined the band for Lacey; Bassist was again Richardson, drummer Lyndell Marshall. The band played "Just Coolin '", the moderato blues "Lester Smooths Out" and the song "I'm Confessin'", which dates from 1929 and has already been interpreted by Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong .
Due to a second record strike in the second half of 1947, no further recordings could be made; After the strike was lifted on December 15, 1947, Ed Mesner, head of Aladdin Records , asked Leonard Feather in New York whether he would produce a session for Aladdin with Lester Young there. Feather agreed, but did not want to record Prez with his previous working band , but instead surrounded him for the session on December 29, 1947 with young musicians from New York's bebop scene. Pianist Gene DiNovi and guitarist Chuck Wayne were playing at the Three Deuces jazz club on 52nd Street; Curley Russell worked with the most important musicians on the scene such as Charlie Parker , Miles Davis , Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz .
Edition history
Parts of the compilation had different names on the market, also for labels like Crown , Sunset or Imperial . Aladdin finally summarized the recordings on two LPs, which appeared on two independently released albums under the title Lester Young and His Tenor Saxophone. In 1975 they were summarized by Blue Note as The Complete Aladdin Sessions (BN-LA 456-H2). According to Scott Yanow , the later Spanish CD edition for Definitive Records contains several errors in the discographic information.
Rating of the album
- Contemporary reviews
The reviewer of Down Beat said of the second session in December 1945, " Few of [Young's] adherents, some as fanatical as Gillespie's , will be disappointed ", but the more neutral listener should "miss the appeal and brilliance of the session". Nevertheless, the author finds Lester Young's “ideas still creative, dfferentiated, fresh” only to criticize: “None of them sound particularly inspired.” The discussion in the Metronome was similarly mixed:
- "All four sides are typical Lester but sound as though rhes were made in a hurry ... with ragged ends and no coordination."
The metronome gave the recording of the third session in January 1946, in which It's Only a Paper Moon, Lover, Come Back to Me , Jammin 'with Lester and After You've Gone , the rating C + ; the author criticized the superficial recording methods; “ After you've gone ends as if half the band was actually expecting another chorus to then go out first” and Jammin 'with Lester gave the impression that the sound engineer had lost interest in recording. Regarding You Driving Me Crazy and Lester Leaps In from the fourth session, the Metronome author commented on the first track that Young “sounds so lethargic during his solos that one doubts whether the turntable is running properly.” Lester Leaps In, on the other hand, was against “ Important event ”, highlighting the achievements of pianist Joe Albany and guitarist Irving Ashby .
Lester Young's December 29, 1947 recordings with Gene DiNovi , Chuck Wayne , Curley Russell and Tiny Kahn ( Tea for Two , East of the Sun ) received a favorable review on the Chicago Defender , while Down Beat called the session “something between good Swing and bad bop ", in which" the tenor got lost in a quagmire of opposing styles and ideas. "
- Recent reviews
Richard Cook and Brian Morton rated the recordings in the Penguin Guide to Jazz with the highest rating of four stars and count it among the best recordings by the saxophonist before the phase of his decay. Scott Yanow, who gave the album the highest rating of five stars on AllMusic, also came to an almost identical verdict. According to Günther Huesmann, who included the “Aladdin Recordings” in the series of jazz recordings of the century, the sessions “show the Lester Young sound in full bloom. The tenor saxophonist played his greatest solos as a sideman for other musicians. Here, however, Lester Young indicates how it could have been if the sensitive introverted Lester Young had been made for bandleading. "
The "Aladdin" recordings are, in Huesmann's opinion, "not least because of the fact that you can feel all the relief, joy and playfulness with the liberated" Pres "- as he was also called - dive into the world of improvisation. ”Huesmann sees Lester Young's rank as a ballad artist in particular; “These Foolish Things” - recorded in 1945 - is for him “one of the outstanding declarations of love in jazz. And as is so often the case with Young, the improvisation begins immediately, right at the introduction of the topic - the latter is no longer the all-determining template, but rather works the other way round: like a decorative accessory for Lester Young's improvisation. Here is someone who, despite discrimination and racial segregation, has retained a space for beauty - a "triumph of soul" over external circumstances, just three minutes and eleven seconds long. "
Huesmann also emphasizes Lester Young's role in the development of alternative fingering techniques, the so-called “ false fingering ”, with which he - similar to trumpeters with their dampers - creates “ wah-wah ” effects and thus one and the same note in a wide variety of timbres immersed.
The selected pianists such as Dodo Marmarosa (1945) and Argonne Thornton (1946) “bring the harmonic complexity and the then ultra-modern Bud Powell aesthetic into play, writes Huesmann about Prez 'approaches to modernity, Roy Haynes drums as a 24-year-old drummer partly rhythmically demanding - which gives these mostly amiable swing recordings an additional twist into the modern. And so “Movin 'with Lester” and “New Lester Leaps In” are Lester Young's approximations to the genre of bebop - a style that he should also become the patron saint of. Its soft, mild lines were bursting with a rhythmic power that made this mixture of coolness and vitality a high point in the saxophone development in jazz at that time. "
The Aladdin Sessions, Casts, and Titles
Producer: Norman Granz
Producer: Norman Granz
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Producer: Norman Granz |
literature
- Ian Carr , Digby Fairweather , Brian Priestley : Rough Guide Jazz. The ultimate guide to jazz. 1800 bands and artists from the beginning until today. 2nd, expanded and updated edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-01892-X .
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
- Leonard Feather, liner notes 1975.
Web links
- AB Spellman and Murray Horwitz in conversation about The Complete Aladdin Recordings at npr.org
- Recordings of the century of jazz , Arte
- Press reviews
Notes and individual references
- ↑ The album is also marketed under the shorter title The Complete Aladdin Records , u. a. from the Spanish label Definitive Records , which however also released an edition in 2000 under the title The Complete Aladdin Sessions . See title discography Lester Young ( Memento April 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
- ↑ cit. according to Günther Huesmann , Arte Century Recordings of Jazz ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Session Index from Blue Note Records
- ↑ See Leonard Feather, Liner Notes .
- ↑ Translated by G. Huesmann, Arte Century Recordings of Jazz ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The four tracks of the Cole session were added to the CD edition in 1995.
- ↑ Richardson had played in the Basie band from 1943 to 1946. At the session on February 18, 1947, he was replaced by Ted Biscoe. See Feather.
- ↑ Marshall had played in the Basie band in 1942/43. See Feather.
- ↑ a b meeting at AllMusic
- ↑ a b c d e Douglas Henry Daniels: Lester Leaps in: The Life and Times of Lester "Pres" Young , Boston, Beacon Press 1990, p. 270 f.
- ↑ a b c Günther Huesmann, Arte Century Recordings of Jazz ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
