Lester Young interview, 02/06/1959
Conducted by François Postif
A condensed version of this first appeared in Jazz Hot Magazine, April 1959
The longest surviving interview with Young was conducted under very informal circumstances, in his hotel room in Paris with other people coming in and out. François Postif, a much published writer on jazz in France, was at that time a young man with a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. He brought with him an accomplished photographer, Jean-Pierre Leloir. The tape of Young’s freewheeling and uninhibited discourse runs about forty-five minutes.
Perhaps “freewheeling” is putting it lightly. Young was clearly drunk at the time, and early on – when he begins to tell the story of how he started on tenor saxophone with Basie because he hated Basie’s current tenor player – he asks Postif if it’s all right for him to talk “nasty.” “Can you cut the nasty talk out?” he asks. Obviously any nasty talk was cut out of earlier interviews by Harris, Feather, and Hentoff, although Young may have been on better behavior in those more formal settings. The Postif interview was printed in a heavily edited form in the important French magazine Jazz Hot, then in English in Jazz Review, and this was reprinted in Kultur. Parts of the interview, unexpurgated, appeared in the liner notes to the Lester Young Story, a series of five albums on Columbia Records. Most of the interview appeared uncensored in Jazz Hot 362 (June 1979): 18- 22, and 363 (Summer 1979): 34-37, in English and French, and later in Wire (England), April 1986, but there were numerous small errors and omissions in those. In my previous book (Lester Young [Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985]), I used large portions of the interview, corrected and unedited, but this is the first American publication of the entire interview.
The date of the interview has been a mystery for a long time. One version placed it in March 1959, two weeks before Young died, another said only a few days before; one claimed it took place late at night, another said late afternoon. Phil Schaap pointed out to me that there is a clue in the interview. Toward the end Young asks Kansas Fields, his drummer friend who was present, when the Basie band was to be in Paris. Fields says the twenty-eighth, and Young says angrily that he thought they’d be there in ten days. Since the Basie band played in Paris on February 28, 1959, the interview could not have taken place in March, and I asked Postif to check his notes to see what the date might have been. He found that he had not recorded the exact date, but his photographer, Jean-Pierre Leloir, had – it was Friday, February 6, 1959, at six in the afternoon, in Young’s room at the Hôtel d’Angleterre. So Young’s response to Fields meant, “I thought they’d be here in only ten days, but it will be more than ten days.” That’s why he was disappointed.
Postif wrote me in May 1986 to say that Leloir did not take any photos “because Lester was lying quite nude on his bed, unshaved and ill-looking. He was drinking port wine, and I think he was not quite in his normal attitude. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so free and ‘nasty’ – and the interview would have been more conventional.” He added in October 1989 that “Lester used to mix port wine and gin, mezzo-mezzo, and called the mixture ‘up and down.’ Leloir thinks that Lester was ‘high’ when I began my interview.”
Part of the reason the interview is so difficult to transcribe is that Postif used what he describes as “a very heavy English tape recorder, which had a noisy motor.” Postif sent me his draft transcription of the interview, and I made numerous corrections and returned it to him. Early in 1989 Postif published that transcription in French in a volume of his collected interviews (Paris: Editions de l’Instant). By his kind permission I am including my own transcription here, which incorporates still more corrections from jazz writer Peter Pullman. Postif reviewed it and added some commentary, which I have incorporated into my notes.
NOTE: Blank parentheses — ( ) — indicate words not audible on the tape or partially cut off. If barely audible the words appear inside parentheses. In a few places I have added information to clarify the conversation. These notes are enclosed in square brackets. —Ed.
—
FRANÇOIS POSTIF: OK. Oh, Lester, some people say you’re born in New Orleans. You’re not born in New Orleans?
LESTER YOUNG: Uh, uh.
POSTIF: Where were you born?
YOUNG: Should I really tell you?
POSTIF: Why? (Come,) tell me.
YOUNG: [Laughs.] I could tell you a lie. Is this pickin’ up now? [Indicating the recorder.]
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: It is?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: OK – I was born in Woodville, Mississippi.
POSTIF: Oh, it’s very close to New Orleans.
YOUNG: I was born there, then they take me to New Orleans. That’s where I was raised.
POSTIF: But you were very young —
YOUNG: In Algiers. [There is an Algiers section of New Orleans, across the river from the main part of the city. —Ed.]
POSTIF: Uh-how many years?
YOUNG: New Orleans?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: I stayed there ten years.
POSTIF: At ten years old, you’ve gone back to New Orleans. But you’ve been—
YOUNG: No, I was born in Woodville, Mississippi.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: And my mother was scared, you know. [Whispering] “Baby” —that type. So she wanted to go back home to the family in case something happened, that type. So, after I was straight, and she made it, and everything was cool, then she take me to New Orleans, and we lived in Algiers, which is a river across from New Orleans.
POSTIF: Uh-huh. Algiers.
YOUNG: Uh-huh.
POSTIF: Do you remember something about your youth in New Orleans?
YOUNG: In New Orleans? Yes.
POSTIF: When did you leave New Orleans?
YOUNG: When I was ten.
POSTIF: Ten. You remember going to some places and hearing some-you’re born in nineteen—
YOUNG: O-nine. [Postif joins in on “nine.”]
POSTIF: Nineteen-nine.
YOUNG: Yeah, I used to go around and —I loved this music so well—
POSTIF: Even when you were ( )?
YOUNG: ( ) meet my father until ten years old. I didn’t know I had one.
POSTIF: Oh.
YOUNG: Just me and my mother, my sister, and my brother, that’s all. That type of stuff, but the music got me. See, like in New Orleans they had them trucks that go round and advertise for a dance this night, you giving a dance, and there were all these trucks and things, and this excited me, you know? So I’d be the handbill boy; they give me some handbills, I’ll be running around and giving (motherfuckers) handbills—[laughs] you know, like that—and I just loved that music. I’d be just running till my tongue was hanging out like this. Still I didn’t know my father was the musician, you dig?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: This was in me, I reckon. So every time they’d start to play, anything I was doing, they start playing some music—Boom! I’d run there, you know, until it’s like this. [Probably hangs his tongue out. Laughs.] And I knew the stops, you know, they made like certain stops on corners, and things like that, to let the people know they advertising a dance that night you giving, that type of thing. So, that’s about it. Then my father came, and he takin’ us away from the family, and all …
POSTIF: He was a musician?
YOUNG: He played all instruments.
POSTIF: He was a drummer, and he got a band.
YOUNG: Uh, uh.
POSTIF: No?
YOUNG: Trumpet.
POSTIF: Trumpet, yeah.
YoUNG: That’s what he liked best.
POSTIF: Um hm. And he was a bandleader.
[Drummer Kansas Fields knocks at the door.]
YOUNG: That’s Kansas.
KANSAS FIELDS: Hey.
YOUNG: I should knock you down!
FIELDS: Phew—you feeling (gay that night).
YOUNG: Well, fuck it, I’m ( ) myself, I’m forty— [Tape recorder is shut
off. ]
POSTIF: So you moved to New York after—
YOUNG: No.
POSTIF: From New Orleans?
YOUNG: From New Orleans, I went to Memphis.
POSTIF: Memphis, Tennessee.
YOUNG: There you are—right. Then from Memphis to Minneapolis, Minnesota. So I was raised mostly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, than I was in all those places.
POSTIF: And after that, you go to New York—-after Minneapolis?
YOUNG: No, I came back to Kansas City.
POSTIF: Aha.
YOUNG: That’s when I got with Count [Basie] and them.
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. (You mean—)
YOUNG: He used to have a tenor player, and I hear him playing every night in Minneapolis, you know, and I said—I don’t know, I talk nasty, you know? Can you cut the nasty talk out?
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. [Laughs. ]
YOUNG: You’ll cut that? So I went to Minneapolis, right, trying to go to school and all that bullshit—I wasn’t interested. So, Count Basie had a tenor player that played, and every night I’d get off, you know—like the time was different like in Minneapolis, maybe it’s 1:00 o’clock, maybe it’s 1:30 in Kansas, that type of shit. So, I sent him [Basie] a telegram saying: “Man, I can’t stand to hear this motherfucker blowing that shit. Do you accept me for a job?” During that time Earl Hines had eyes for me, and everybody was hitting on me, but I just hear this motherfucker, turn my radio, and (hear this) thing: [he sings] “Hmmm.” So they sent me a ticket, and I left my madam, you know, there, then I went on that way. And things like that.
POSTIF: But you were first playing drums, before going to—
YOUNG: Right.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: Why did you choice drums the first?
YOUNG: Because, like I was telling you about them trucks that was playing when I sent out the handbills—he was the onliest person I liked up there was the drums, you dig? [Laughs.] So I’d be running …
POSTIF: Do you enjoy playing drums, still now? You —
YOUNG: Uh, uh. No eyes! [Disgusted] Ooohh! I don’t want to see those motherfuckers!
POSTIF: Some people told me that you changed, you switched to alto, you know, because the drums was too loud to, you know, to carry and to —
YOUNG: Every time I’d be in a nice little place and meet me a nice little bitch, dig, her mother say(s) [mimicking]: “Hurry up, Mary, come on, let’s go.” Goddamn, I’m trying to pack these motherfuckers fast, and shit like this, ’cause I want this little bitch, you dig? And all this jumped off. So, well, she call her once, and twice, and I’m trying to get this shit straight. So I just said, fuck it! I’m through with drums, motherfuck some drums. All the other boys got little clarinet cases, trombone cases, trumpet cases, and here I am wiggling around with all this shit! (So have to hire another move … ) Fuck these motherfuckers! And I really played them, Lady Kansas!
FIELDS: Yes.
YOUNG: I could play my ass off—I’m playing for a year.
FIELDS: Um hm.
YOUNG: You know, with that strap around you up there. Shit [mimics drum sounds]— “ivey, divey, oobie, doobie” [gets excited] “ivey, shitty, rootie, pootie!”
FIELDS: Like military drums.
YOUNG: No. Everything but that.
POSTIF: And you switched to alto after that. When did you switch to alto?
YOUNG: Oh, I switched to tenor. I was playing the alto, and they had a old evil ass motherfucker [in the Bronson band]. He had a nice beautiful background—you know, mother and father with whole lot of bread, and
all that shit like that. So every time we’d get a job—this was in Salina, Kansas, [to Fields] you must know something about that city—so, every time we’d go to see this motherfucker, we’d all be ready, we’re waiting for ninety years to get us a gig, you know, and he’d go [mimicking]: “Oh, wait for me while I put my shirt on and get my tie on.” [Makes high sound of frustration.] Oh, yeah, everybody was waiting, disgusted. So I told the boss man—his name was Art Bronson—I said, “Listen, let’s don’t go through this shit.” I said, “You buy me a tenor saxophone, and I’ll play this motherfucker, and we’ll be straight then.”
And he worked at a music store, so all he had to do was go and get me a tenor saxophone, and we split—fuck that motherfucker! So, that’s how I started playing it. Soon as I heard this bitch, I knew it was for me. That alto was a little too high for me, you know.
POSTIF: But you—some people tell that, when playing tenor, you know, you just blow with the high notes of the tenor, like an alto.
YOUNG: Uh-huh.
POSTIF: You think so?
YOUNG: I know so. I want it to be like that [referring to his tone—Ed.]. If you want it to be like a tenor, I can play it like that, too.
POSTIF: But—you play on the high notes of the tenor, you know, just—[Young is apparently shaking his head in disagreement.] You don’t think so?
YOUNg [realizing that Postif thinks his tone is achieved by avoiding low notes]: Uh, uh. Not that much.
POSTIF: (No.) Can you tell me the personnel of the King Oliver band when you were playing there?
YOUNG: Shit, that’s too long ago.
POSTIF: It was in 1930, or something like that.
YOUNG: You see, that’s where the people get fucked at, you dig? They want me to come up—I get all kind of insults about, “You don’t play like you played when you were with Count Basie.” Here’s a man getting older and things, and he’s got to look for young things (and shit, the) young boys fucking with him, shit like that. I say, “No, I don’t remember no shit with Count Basie,” you know, unless I have eyes—right? So I’ve developed my saxophone to play it, make it sound just like a alto, make it sound like a tenor, make it sound like a bass, and everything, and I’m not through working on it yet. That’s why they get all trapped up, they go, “Goddamn, I never heard him play like this!” That’s the way I want (things), that’s modern, dig? Fuck what you played back in forty-nine, what the fuck you gonna play today, you dig? So a lot of them get lost, a lot of them walk out, you know. They say, “Shit, he ain’t playing like he used to play.” Well, what the fuck—do you play the same thing every day?
POSTIF: No, it’s impossible.
YOUNG: [Laughs.] Unless you want to be, you know, on a henpecked tip.
POSTIF: But you think you are playing quite modern “saxotenor” right now?
YOUNG: Yeah.
POSTIF: Modern, yeah?
YOUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: Definitely?
YOUNG: In my heart, I’m sure of it.
POSTIF: Uh-huh. And, uh, what about Herschel Evans?
YOUNG: About him?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: We were nice friends and things, but I mean there wasn’t no bullshit or nothing. When we got up on the bandstand to play, like a duel [laughs]—you know? And then other nights we’d get along nice. You know what I mean. But I mean it’s coming through these instruments, you dig? He was a nice person. I was the last one to see him die—in fact, I paid the doctor for his bill and everything. [Pause.] So, it was just like that. I don’t blame him—he loved his instrument, and I loved mine, too, so, fuck you, fuck me, boom! That’s all I did.
POSTIF: But you—were you considered like the star of the band when you were in the Count Basie band?
YOUNG: What was that?
POSTIF: The star of the band—when you were in the Count Basie band, in 1939 or something like that.
YOUNG: Oh, after I came down to Kansas City?
POSTIF: Yeah… no, not the first time you went with Count Basie, in 1933, but in 1939 or something like that, you know? You were the star of the band?
YoUNG: Yes. Oh, I see what you’re saying.
POSTIF: Yeah. You were starring every night, you know, people go for you and the Count Basie band, or—Did you get a big name over in the States in 1939?
YOUNG: Well, I’ll tell you about that. Like all the little shit out west round Kansas City and all that shit like that, you know, I made that for myself.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: You know?
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. And, some people say you are very independent.
YOUNG: Who?
POSTIF: Independent. Some people, you know.
YOUNG: Independent? Very much so.
POSTIF: Very much, yeah.
YOUNG: Yeah.
POSTIF: Yeah. You’re doing every—Can you tell some anecdotes, you know, about your independent mind?
YoUNG: That’s true. I’d have left here the other night if I had five hundred dollars.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: Um hm. I just can’t take that bullshit, you dig, it’s all bullshit. And they want everybody who is a Negro to be a Uncle Tom or Uncle Remus or Uncle Sam, and I can’t make it.
POSTIF: Not here, you know, not in France.
YOUNG: Shi-i-it! [This repeats due to an awkward splice in the tape.—Ed.] Are you kidding? I’ve been here two weeks, I’ve been pickin’ up on that!
POSTIF: [Pause.] (I) don’t think so.
YOUNG: No? Well, I won’t tell you what I know what jumped off.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: Right here. Seeing is believing, and hearin’ is a bitch—that’s a sound. Right here in Gay Paree. Maybe it wouldn’t happen to you, you dig—you’re not a colored person like I am, you dig? They’ll take advantage of me. But all I can do is tell you what happened. And I’m not gonna tell you that part of it—but it did happen. By somebody you wouldn’t believe, too—great person. But it’s the same way all over, you dig? It’s fight for your life, that’s all. Until death do we part, you got it made. But it’s the same way…
POSTIF: Who was the tenor player who made an influence on you?
YOUNG: Oh … hmm … he died. Frankie Trumbauer. I had to make a decision between Frankie Trumbauer and—what’s the name—Tommy, Jimmy, Jimmy Dorsey?
POSTIF: Jimmy Dorsey.
YOUNG: You dig? I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go, you dig? And I had these motherfucking records, and I’d play one of Jimmy’s, I’d play one of Trumbauer’s, and all that shit. I don’t know nothin’ about Hawk then, you dig? But I can see the only people that was telling stories that I liked to hear were them. So I’d play one of his, one of them, you dig? So I had both of ’em made, you dig?
POSTIF: But do you think your sound is close to the Trumbauer sound?
YOUNG: Yes.
POSTIF: ( ).
YOUNG: That’s right.
POSTIF: Some people told me about Bud Freeman doing an influence on you.
YOUNG [incredulous]: Bud Freeman?
POSTIF: No, you don’t think so. [Chuckles.]
YOUNG: Oh, we’re nice friends, I saw him in the union the other day, but ivey-divey, influence on me!
POSTIF: No.
YOUNG: Ooh, [sounds like “mishoo, peshwah” —maybe Monsieur, François? Franchement? or just a sound—Ed.]. Shit!
POSTIF: No.
YOUNG: Uh, uh!
POSTIF: So, it’s Trumbauer?
YoUNG: That was my man. I had to pick from two, right?
POSTIF: Did you listen to him on, you know, direct? [He means in person.—Ed.]
YOUNG: Yes. Did you ever hear him play Singin’ the Blues [a recording of 1927—Ed.]?
POSTIF: Yeah, nice record.
YOUNG: That tricked me right there, that’s where I went.
POSTIF: Oh, by the way, what is your—what is your opinion about the blues?
YoUNG: Blues? Great big eyes. Because if you play with a new band like I have, you know, working around, if they don’t know no blues, they can’t play shit. (Why,) everybody plays the blues, and have ’em too!
POSTIF: You play wonderful blues anyway. [All laugh. ]
YOUNG: (Yeah.)
POSTIF: What was the idea about the Lester Leaps In?
YOUNG: The idea?
POSTIF: Yeah, you know, when composing it. When did you compose this tune?
YOUNG [flippantly]: Nine years ago.
POSTIF: Nine years ago?
YOUNG: [Laughs.] I really don’t know. Long time. Uh-huh.
POSTIF: Are you a very easy composer? For example, the ideas, you know, go right down through the sheet of paper?
YOUNG: No, I’ll tell you about that, I see what you’re saying. You see, when I was coming up playing in the [family] band, I wasn’t reading music, I was bullshitting—but I was in the band. And my father got me an alto out of a pawn shop, and I just picked the motherfucker up and just started playing it. And that’s the way that went. So he was a musician, he played all the instruments [laughs], and all this shit! And my sister, see, she was playing, and I’d get close to her and pick up on the parts, you know? Playing marches, and all them shit like that. And finally my father said one day, he say [pointing to Kansas Fields as an example]: “Kansas, play your part.” I knew goddamn well I’d lose my ass; he knew I wasn’t reading. “Play your part, Kansas.” [Singing] “Hup, ta ta lup, da da la da la da lup, boom.” He said [to the next person], “Now play your part—go!” Say, “Now Lester, play your part.” I couldn’t read a motherfuckin’ note, not a goddamn note. He say, “Get up” —you know, he don’t curse like I do, (different)— “get up and get your fuckin’ ass and work you some scales. Get out!” Dig?
The rest of them went rehearsing. Now you know my heart was broke, you dig? I went and cried, and give up my little teardrops and shit, I said, “Well, I’ll come back and catch these motherfuckers if that’s the way they want it.” Like that, you know? So I went away and learned how to read the music, still by myself, y’ dig, and I came back in the band, played this music and shit, and all the time I was copyin’ on the records also with the music, so I could fuck these motherfuckers completely up. So I went in the band, and they threw the goddamn marches out, and I read the music and shit, and everything was great. But what was in my heart, why all the motherfuckers [who] laughed when they put me out, when I couldn’t read, (and) come up and say, “Won’t you show me how this goes? You play like that?” Yeah, sure, I’ll show you shit, you rusty motherfucker! So that’s the way that went down.
POSTIF: Um hm.
YOUNG: Now, I made that score: I don’t like to read music, I don’t like to read—
POSTIF: Just play soul?
YOUNG: There you are.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: I got a man in New York now [reportedly Gil Evans] writin’ some music for me. When I get back, I got bass violin, two cellos and a viola, and a French horn, see what I mean? And the three rhythm, you know what goes with that.
POSTIF: But you know, Pres, your compositions are very easy swing.
YOUNG: Um hm. I’m gonna take my time and gonna just try this, if it don’t come out right, fuck it! I’ll say no, you know. But this is my first time, and I always wanted to do that. Norman Granz never did let me make a record with no strings, you know. Yardbird made millions of records with strings and things.
POSTIF: And they’re fine records.
YOUNG: Um hm.
PostIF: Do you want to get a full band with strings and you playing in front (of it)?
YOUNG: Well, when I was over here before, I played with the—the first winners. I think they must have been Germans. They have a (lot) over here. Anyway, I played with the first one, and the second one. [Evidently first and second prizewinners—perhaps student orchestras. —Ed.] That’s all I can say, ’cause I don’t understand too much about it. And they treated me nice, and played nice for me, and things like that, you know. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I played with the first one, first, number one—then, I played with the second one.
PosTIF: When have you made your last recordings?
YOUNG: Oh, in—I just made some now for Norman (Granz]—
POSTIF: (Norman)
YoUNG: with my clarinet.
POSTIF: Oh!
YoUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: What was the idea of not playing clarinet for years and years, because, you know, in France—I don’t know in the States, but in France you’re known as one of the best clarinetist.
YOUNG: Well [sadly], my friend stole it. [Long pause then whispering] That’s the way it goes, I mean …
POSTIF: You made some recordings on clarinet. When did you made those one?
YoUNG: Um hm, this is fifty-nine—fifty-eight, by the first of it.
PosTIF: Uh-huh.
YoUNG: Uh-huh.
POSTIF: Just in the beginning of the year, or—
YOUNG: Somewhere in there. You know, you’ve heard about the Hollywood Bowl, and all that shit? Well, during that, that’s the time I made the record date.
POSTIF: But I mean, on a concert or—
YOUNG: No, no, in a studio.
POSTIF: Yeah, yeah. And who was playing there?
YoUNG: Oh, Oscar Peterson and his little group.
POSTIF: Herb Ellis and—
YOUNG: Um hm.
PosTIF: Um hm. Did you ever, uh, listen back to them?
YOUNG: No. We fell out—we fell out. [Young recorded on clarinet on July 31, 1957—a few weeks before a Hollywood Bowl concert, which may be the one he means—and also in February 1958, which may be what he means by “the first of” fifty-eight. These recordings were unsuccessful because Young himself was out of practice—his complaints are audible on some of the session tapes, and you may read them in appendix 1—which may be why he says “we fell out.” —Ed.]
POSTIF: Uh-huh. Do you listen a lot of your recordings? (I see)—do you listen to the records? Do you listen back to the recordings?
YOUNG: Of myself?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: Uh, uh.
POSTIF: No?
YOUNG: Not very much.
POSTIF: No. Which is the one you prefer (of) all you’ve done?
YOUNG: No, I could never answer that. Did you ever hear Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie [Basie, 1939]?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: That’s a spark in my heart.
POSTIF: I love this one you made with King Cole, you know, Back Land Blues [i.e., “Back to the Land,” probably spring 1946, now on Verve—Ed.].
YOUNG: Many moons.
POSTIF: That’s a very fine thing.
YOUNG [changing the subject]: Well, it’s so rough out here, you know? Everybody’s so chicken shit, you know? I’m enjoying myself up here by myself, you know, to get away from all that shit and things, and I ain’t got a
quarter, you know! [Laughs.] But I don’t walk around sighing the blues and shit. ’cause my old lady will take care of me, so fuck it.
[Pause.]
POSTIF: Billie gave you the name of “Pres”?
YOUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: And you gave her the name of “Lady Day.”
YOUNG: (At) her house, see, when I first came to New York in thirty-four [with Henderson], I used to live there for a long time. She was teaching me about the city, you know, which way to go, you know, where everything is shitty. [Wistfully] Yes, she’s still my Lady Day.
POSTiF: Oh, yeah, she came here, you know, last fall.
YoUNG: Um hm. [Long pause, then begins slowly. ] What people do, man, is so obvious, you know. If you want to speak like that, what the fuck I give a fuck what you do. What he do—What he does—what nobody do—is nobody’s business!
POSTIF: No, it’s your own business.
YOUNG: So, why you gonna get into it and say: “Oh, he’s a old [mumbles].” Goddamn, I’d go crazy thinking about that shit. [Laughs, then puts on a hoarse voice.] “He’s a old junky, he’s a old funky, he’s a old fucky,” and all that shit. That’s not nice, you know? Whatever they do, let them do that, and enjoy themselves—and get your kicks yourself. Why you envy them because they enjoyin’ themselves? Fuck it, you dig? All I do is smoke some New Orleans cigarettes, that’s perfect (arms). [Shows his arms to prove there are no needle marks.] No sniff, no shit in my nose, nothing. Still, I drink, and I smoke, and that’s all that—
POSTIF: Anyway, it’s your business.
YOUNG: Um hm. But a lot of people think I’m this. [Perhaps makes a gesture of shooting heroin.] I don’t like that. I resent that like a bitch. If I ever find the motherfucker, (I) would … ivey-divey, shit, I’d go crazy! Don’t put that weight on me; I know what I do.
POSTIF: Anyway, you know, it’s your business, it’s not my business. My business is the musical thing, you know.
YOUNG: Mine is too—all the way. [Both laugh.] Real musical thing!
POSTIF: What do you think about what you are playing now?
YOUNG: Hmm?
POSTIF: What do you think about what you are playing now?
YOUNG: My music?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: Well, I’ll tell you. In my mind, the way I play, I try not to be a repeater pencil, you dig. I’m always loosening spaces, and laying out to somewhere, and something like that. Don’t think you’ll catch me like that, playing like Lester Leaps In or something like that. That’s my crib [personal vocabulary], you know—that type of shit, but I’m always reaching (like that).
POSTIF: But do you think you can create something right now, you know, a new sound or a new—or something more that you’ve done?
YOUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: You think so?
YOUNG: I can play a bass clarinet.
POSTIF: Um hm.
YOUNG: Wouldn’t that upset everything? I’d say that’d kind of upset everything, wouldn’t it?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: If I bring out a bass clarinet? Pres, I can play all those instruments.
POSTIF: Do you know some new jazzmen, like Coltrane or Sonny Rollins?
YOUNG: I know them both. Um hm.
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. And—are you quite in the new jazz field? You know, when in New York, are you interested in what the other people in the new generation is doing?
YOUNG [curtly]: Everybody knows.
POSTIF: What do you think about Coltrane? Did you heard him personally?
YOUNG: No, I haven’t heard him.
POSTIF: Do you have his records?
YOUNG: No. No, I haven’t.
POSTIF: And Rollins?
YOUNG: Rollins? Him and I played together in Detroit one night, so I’ve heard him. What’s that other one? What’s that other alto player, (Kansas)?
POSTIF: Cannonball. Cannonball Adderley.
YOUNG: Cannonball.
FIELDS: Cannonball—
POSTIF: Adderley.
YOUNG: Um hm.
POSTIF: You know, he plays like Bird.
YOUNG: I’ve heard him. He’s got a station wagon over there, taking his group around the country.
POSTIF: You made some sessions with Bird.
YOUNG: Me?
POSTIF: Yeah.
YOUNG: I don’t think so.
POSTIF: You played with him.
YOUNG: Yeah?
POSTIF: You played with him.
YOUNG: Oh, yeah, J.A.P.—Jazz at the Philharmonic.
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
YOUNG: That’s right.
POSTIF: Um hm.
[The sound of a glass being filled. Then, a long pause. Young seems to say, “Bonjour.”]
POSTIF: Um, Lester, why did you leave the Count Basie band?
YOUNG: That’s some deep shit you’re askin’ me now! [All laugh.]
POSTIF: Don’t answer if you don’t want to, (you know).
YOUNG: No, I won’t say that. Skip that one. But I sure could tell you why, but I think it’s a little (sporty). They’re supposed to be here shortly, aren’t they?
FIELDS: Twenty-eighth. [The Basie band played in France on February 28, 1959.-Ed.]
YOUNG: Hmm?
FIELDs: Twenty-eighth.
YoUNG: The bitch [the wife of Ben Benjamin, owner of the Blue Note Club in Paris—Ed.] told me [they] should be here in ten days.
[JEAN-PIERRE LELOIR?]: (Well, they comes first in Europe before).
FIELDS: They’re in England now.
YOUNG: Hmm?
FIELDS: They’re in England
YOUNG: Yeah?
FIELDS: Um hm.
POSTIF: Did you enjoy your last recording with the Count in, uh, Newport? You know, it’s just published—it’s just released in France today. [Pause.] You know, when you blow Lester Leaps In—you blow mad.
YOUNG: I’ve got it right here, I’ve been playing it all day. [He had been playing it on his little portable record player while waiting for Postif to arrive.—Ed.] Nice eyes. Oh, I mean I always bust my nuts when I play with them, you know.
POSTIF: Yeah, I know. You were in the twentieth birthday of music, or something like that. [The Verve recording was made at the 1957 Newport Festival celebrating Basie’s twentieth anniversary as a recording bandleader.—Ed.]
[Pause.]
YOUNG: I still have nice eyes, you know, I can’t go around thinking evil and all that shit. Everything is still cool with me, you know, ’cause I don’t bother nobody. Things like that—it comes out nice, you know. That’s why I say what you do is your business, what I do is my business. So, fuck it!
[The tape cuts off and back on.]
POSTIF: Um hm. Have you got some anecdotes to say, you know, something, um—for example, in, you know, The Jazz Makers, the book by Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro—-they said that you were supposed to play in a dance party, or something like that, far from New York, and you take your car, but you get [in] an accident, you know. And after that you take a taxi, and you spent a lot of money for just for being at the right time. [See Hentoff, “Lester Young,” above.—Ed.]
YOUNG: Yeah. I don’t have a car, so they told a lie that time.
POSTIF: [Laughs.] So it’s not true.
YOUNG: [Laughs.] So that was wrong.
POSTIF: Yeah. They’re telling a lot of things, you know, in the saga of Lester Young, and, you know, some people’s trying to say things and things and things and—
YOUNG: But you take a person like me, I stay by myself. So how the fuck do you know anything about me? Nothing. A motherfucker walked up and told me, said, “Pres, I thought you were dead,” and all that shit.[Laughs.] I’m probably more alive than he is! You dig, from that hearsay shit. Hearing aid. Don’t go like that, man. Not with me.
POSTIF: Which way would you like better to play—with a trio, with a quartet, or just with a band?
YOUNG: No. Give me my little three rhythm and me—happiness.
POSTIF: Yeah.
YoUNG: That’s four, the four Mills Brothers. [Jazz harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans told Postif that this was a favorite expression of Young when gambling with dice—a favorite pastime. If he rolled four, he’d say, “Mills Brothers!” —Ed.]
POSTIF: [Laughs.] Yeah.
YOUNG: That’s me, I can relax better, you dig? (‘Cause) I don’t like a whole lot of noise no goddamn way. Take them trumpets and trombones and all of them ( ), fuck it!
POSTIF: Just a quiet sound?
YOUNG: I’m looking for something right now—like a little puff that a lady put on her pussy when she cleans up, and shit like that—soft eyes for me. I can’t stand no loud shit. You dig? And the bitches come in a place in New York, and them trumpets be screaming and shit. The bitches put their fingers in their ears, you know? It’s got to be sweetness, man, you dig? Sweetness can be funky, filthy, or anything, but which part do you want? The funkies [funky parts] about it or the sweet? [Laughs.] Shit, what am I talking about? [Laughs throughout the next question.]
POSTIF: That’s why I’m—that’s why I’m very interested by the new clarinet record you made, just with a trio, you know?
YOUNG [stops laughing; almost to himself, disregarding Postif’s comment]: OK. Well, I can smile, once in a while.
POSTIF: Oh, yeah. And—in nineteen—well, when did you begin to get this sound, you know?
YOUNG [finally comes down to earth.]: Ooooh, shit!
POSTIF: And where did you begin to get this sound? It was quite new in 1935 or something like that. Everybody was playing on the tempo, you know, and you seem floating on (the) tempo.
YOUNG: (I dunno), I think it just came natural. There wasn’t no bitches around me or nothing. [Pause.] ( ) I just think—oh, yes, I dig what you mean. When I first went to New York, in thirty-four, so I got this job from Coleman Hawkins [replacing Hawkins in Henderson’s band—Ed.]. But in Kansas City [in December 1933], I ran a million miles to hear Coleman Hawkins play, and he wasn’t there. So Fletcher Henderson ran out the door, saying, “Don’t you have no tenor players here in Kansas City? Can any of you motherfuckers play?” You know, that type of shit like that. Herschel was out there, you dig, but he couldn’t . Herschel played good, but he couldn’t read. So them motherfuckers just shoved me and said, “Red” —they called me Red then [after his light complexion]— “Say, Red, go on in there, and blow this goddamn saxophone.” And I’m coming to see Coleman Hawkins, they told me how great he was, I wasn’t seein’ the fuck how great he is! You know? That type of shit.
So they shoved me on in there, and I sat up and grabbed his saxophone and played the motherfucker and read the music, and read his clarinet parts, and everything. Now I got to run back to my job, where there’s thirteen people in it. [Laughs.] Run ten blocks back to get to them. Because I want[ed] to see Coleman, you know, they was telling me how great he was, shit, I want[ed] to see a great motherfucker. So, that’s the way
that happened. So I don’t think he showed at all. And then I went to Little Rock with Count Basie, and I got this telegram, Fletcher Henderson saying [softly], “Come with me.” So I (wasn’t a stinking) motherfucker when I got the telegram, you know, I was all excited, you know, about this big time shit, and I showed him [Count] the telegram, I say, “What you think I should do, Count, about it?” (He) said, “Well, ain’t nothin’ I can do but say”—you dig?—”ivey-divey,” you dig? And I split, went to Detroit first, you know, and I lived at Fletcher Henderson’s house, you know, paying bread and things like that. [Young met the band on tour in Detroit and stayed at the Henderson’s home when they arrived in New York, perhaps paying them rent.—Ed.] But [pause] it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t happy. The motherfuckers was whispering on me everytime I played—I can’t make that! [Pause.] I won’t say nothing while you playing, nothing like that. You hear a group of motherfuckers whispering—Jesus!
So I split. So I went to Fletcher and asked him, I said, “Will you give me a nice recommendation? I’m going back to Kansas City.” This type of shit, you know? He said, “Oh, yeah, right quick!” [Laughing.] You dig? I said, “Thank you.” ( ) And I went to Andy Kirk’s band and had a nice time. Nah, I won’t have no shit, fuck it! Don’t make no sense. If it’s right… but if it’s stinking, fucking, you a stinking motherfucker trying to put some shit on some people! (No better) for your ass if you have bad luck. But I know I got a good heart, man, and I ain’t thinking about no (cunt) or nothing like that. Just trying to get me some money for my family—and it’s all clean, believe that.
And this bitch would take me down there—Fletcher Henderson’s wife—take me down in the basement and play one of them old windup (vendors) [record players] and shit, and asked me, said [mimicking], “Lester, can’t you play like this?” Coleman Hawkins playing. [Young feigns disinterest.] “Hmm—ivey divey.” [Mrs. Henderson again:] “But I mean, don’t you hear this? Can’t you get with this?” You dig? That’s when I split! Every morning that bitch would wake me up at nine o’clock to try to teach me to play like Coleman Hawkins! And she played trumpet herself—
POSTIF: She was playing—
YOUNG: circus trumpet! [Laughs.] Shit, fuck these motherfuckers, I’m gone! Now that’s real shit, that’s not no bullshit!
[The following portion is not on Porter’s tape:]
POSTIF: Do you think that your style can give birth to new talents?
YOUNG: They play their way, but sometimes I take pleasure to listen to some records where the tenor plays exactly like me.
POSTIF: And what about Coleman Hawkins?
YOUNG: Oh, I know what you mean. As far as I’m concerned, I think Coleman Hawkins was the President first, right? When I first heard him, I thought that was some great jazz I was listening to. As far as myself, I think I am the second one. No braggadocio, you know, I don’t talk like that. There’s only one way to go. If a guy plays tenor, he’s got to sound like Hawk or like Lester. If he plays alto, he’s got to be Bird or Johnny Hodges. There’s another way, the way I hear all the guys playing in New York, running all over the place.