Lester Young was the first jazz musician photographer Herb Snitzer captured with his camera. In fact, the image you see here of Young outside the Five Spot in New York is the first jazz photograph ...

A.B. SPELLMAN, National Endowment for the Arts: Murray, the Idiot's 30-second History of Jazz would have women singing the blues, trumpet players playing like women singing the blues, Louis Armstrong ...

Though Lester Young was revered in his time as an artist of the highest rank, the 100th anniversary of his birth has not sparked much in the way of commemoration. No postage stamp; no parade in ...

Lester Young was born on August 27, 1909 and died March 15, 1959. Known as Prez or Pres (short for President, a nickname Billie Holiday gave him), the tenor saxophonist was famous for his cool and ...

Along with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, the legendary tenor saxophonist Lester Young is considered one of the seminal figures in the history of jazz. From his first recorded ...

Presidents’ Day is on Feb. 15 this year, and if you’re feeling a little burnt out on politics, I have the perfect solution. Instead of talking about Washington or Lincoln, let’s talk about tenor ...

He's an incredibly disciplined person that kind of wants to sound like he has no discipline at all, like he's just walking in the park. Don Byron on Lester Young Clarinetist Don Byron is known for his ...

Tenor saxophone great Lester Young, who shared star billing with Billie Holiday in the Count Basie band of the 1930s, was among the most elusive figures in a culture of nomads. By nature a loner, ...

He looked different, he played different, he was different. Lester Young stood out: green eyes, reddish hair that earned him the boyhood nickname “Red,” a porkpie hat, an ankle-length black coat, his ...

W.C. Fields famously described Charlie Chaplin as “the best ballet dancer that ever lived.” Chaplin’s lightness on his toes—his agility darting in and out between pursuers and adversaries, his narrow ...