{"id":1447,"date":"2008-09-08T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-08T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=1447"},"modified":"2008-09-08T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-08T08:05:00","slug":"lester_young_compatible_quotes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2008\/09\/lester_young_compatible_quotes\/","title":{"rendered":"Lester Young: Compatible Quotes And A Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rifftides<\/em> postings have been seldom lately because I’m working on a magazine piece about the resuscitation of Lester Young’s tenor saxophone and the consequent revival of a band devoted to his music. More about that later. In the meantime, here’s a set of thoughts from and about Prez. <\/p>\n

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Well, the way I play, I try not to be a ‘repeater pencil’, ya dig? Originality’s the thing.   You can have tone and technique and a lot of other things but without originality you ain’t really nowhere. Gotta be original.–<\/em>Lester Young<\/strong> <\/p>\n

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The trouble with most musicians today is that they are copycats. Of course you have to start out playing like someone else. You have a model, or a teacher, and you learn all that he can show you. But then you start playing for yourself. Show them that you’re an individual. And I can count those who are doing that today on the fingers of one hand.–<\/em>Lester Young<\/strong> <\/p>\n

When Lester plays, he almost seems to be singing; one can almost hear the words.–<\/em>Billie Holiday<\/strong> <\/p>\n

In some ways Lester Young is the most complex rhythmically of any musician. He does some things which are just phenomenal.–<\/em>Lee Konitz<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Anyone who doesn’t play like Lester Young is wrong.–<\/em>Brew Moore<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And, in case you haven’t seen it in a while, here are Prez and a few of his friends in Gjon Mili’s classic 1944 short film Jammin’ The Blues<\/em>. The cast credits run at the top. Do yourself a favor and watch it full screen.<\/p>\n

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Rifftides postings have been seldom lately because I’m working on a magazine piece about the resuscitation of Lester Young’s tenor saxophone and the consequent revival of a band devoted to his music. More about that later. In the meantime, here’s a set of thoughts from and about Prez. Well, the way I play, I try not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}