Lester Young

Saxophone superman Lester Young didn't get the nickname Prez due to an overwhelming passion for F.D.R. — it was his statesmanlike status as a jazz innovator that earned him the moniker. Young began making a big noise with the Count Basie Band in the mid-'30s, and "Lester Leaps In" lives up to its name, as Young turns up the heat on Basie's bluesy, hard-riffing Kansas City sound. Prez kept that K.C. flame burning bright with his Kansas City Six, even when he took the tempo down a notch and switched axes for some sensuous clarinet work on the 1938 cut "I Want a Little Girl." But he knew how to share the spotlight with singers, too, cutting some legendary collaborations with Billie Holiday — despite her reputation for tear-stained torch songs, together Lady Day and Prez pump plenty of swingin' sunshine into "When You're Smiling."

Prez plays the field, form big-band blasts to three-man throw-downs, in Next Steps.

Part of Prez's genius was his ability to strut his sophisticated-but-swinging stuff in any number of formats. He grabbed hold of the groove in blues-baked big-band numbers like Basie's "Every Tub" just as easily as his sax singed the socks off the other five fire-starters in his Kansas City Six on their take-no-prisoners track "Three Little Words." Of course, Young could tear it up in a trio setting, too — with his supergroup of Buddy Rich and Nat "King" Cole, he made it plain that he planted the seeds for the bebop revolution that was in full flower by the time his dream-team threesome cut "I've Found a New Baby" in 1946.

Prez plunges into piano paradise in Deep Cuts.

Whether it was on account of his highly developed harmonic hipness, or simply his penchant for slipping riffs in between the cracks of the ivories, Lester Young always had a special rapport with piano players. Swapping licks with Oscar Peterson, Prez wrings every ounce of sadness from the sorrowful standard "It's the Talk of the Town." With Teddy Wilson working some uptown magic alongside his own steady-swingin' Midwestern moan, Young blew new life into the Broadway-born '20s tune "Love Me or Leave Me." And his frequent piano-tickling partner Nat "King" Cole prods Prez to squeeze out some of the sweetest, most melodious tones ever to emerge from a saxophone when the two pals tackle the old pop tune "Peg O' My Heart."

Name a major development in jazz in the first half of the 20th century — odds are Lester Young was in on the ground floor. Even as a young man in the '30s, playing with Count Basie, he was at the heart of big-band swing and the Kansas City scene, but the sophisticated sounds he laid down when he stepped out front were a key influence on both bebop and cool jazz. Fact is, the unassailably hip saxman has even been credited with popularizing the term cool itself! Whether he was burning down the house with a hard-charging blues or pulling bittersweet sobs from his saxophone on a melancholy ballad, swapping solos with Oscar Peterson or slipping into a soul-searching mood behind Billie Holiday, Prez was always the epitome of cool. As proof, we'd like to enter into evidence 75 slabs of swing-soaked sax sorcery by this unparalleled jazz giant.