Being Prez: The Life and Music of Lester Young

Being Prez: The Life and Music of Lester Young by Gelly, Dave. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780195334777.

In Being Prez, renowned British critic Dave Gelly follows Lester Young through his life in a rapidly changing world, showing how the music of this exceptionally sensitive man was shaped by his experiences. The reader meets a complicated, vulnerable, gentle individual who was brought up in his fathers traveling carnival band. Gelly, himself a jazz saxophonist, examines many of Lesters classic recordings in illuminating detail. He reveals how as a saxophonist--and as major contributor to the Count Basie band--Young created a strong personal voice, a cool modernism, and a new rhythmic flexibility in the freely dancing rhythms of 4-beat swing.