Lester Young

Lester Young was one of the most important saxophone players in jazz. He got a fine and soft tone with his horn, and it became very famous in the late 1930s. He played in the Count Basie orchestra and recorded with Basie his first recordings in 1936. He was a close friend of singer Billie Holiday and recorded many songs with her and Teddy Wilson for Columbia Records. He quit the Basie band in 1940 and started his freelance career. In 1944 he went into the army and this point in his life was dramatic; racial problems were rife and endemic in the army at that time, and Young wound up getting arrested. After this, he started to drink and his appearances in the stand wasn't as good as the times with Basie and Holiday. Nevertheless, he made fine recordings in the late 1940s on Alladin Records--for example, the famous "D.B Blues" and "Jumpin' with Symphony Sid". He signed a contract with Verve Records in the 1950s. His last recording was on March 4, 1959, in Paris. After this trip to Paris, he arrived on March 14 in New York and died the day after, of a complication of cirrhosis.