Lester Young in the Army
Jazz Philadelphia publishes the calendar for Coltrane's centennial year, and its next two stops come tomorrow: a vinyl listening club at the library Coltrane used as a young man, and Kirk Whalum at the Highmark Mann Center. Today's record is "Shoe shine boy," cut in Chicago in October 1936 by the band billed Jones-Smith, Incorporated, the earliest date an American archive lists under Lester Young's name.
LioraPhiladelphia has a Coltrane calendar now, and the next stop is tomorrow night. Today's record is from the earliest date an archive lists under Lester Young. And later, an Army court-martial. It's Tuesday. Let's go.
LioraIt's Tuesday, September 29th. This is The Daily Quintet. I'm Liora. Five stories from the world of jazz, in about ten minutes. Here we go.
One. The Lead: Jazz Philadelphia's own "Coltrane 100 Philly" page carries the citywide calendar for the
LioraArs Nova Workshop spent five days on John Coltrane last week. The rest of the year now has a calendar, and Jazz Philadelphia keeps it.
Its page is headed "Coltrane 100 Philly." Coltrane, it says, came of age in Philadelphia, the city where he found his voice and launched a musical revolution that changed the world. The year runs to a November tribute to "Offering: Live at Temple University," sixty years on.
Tomorrow there are two stops.
At half past five, the Parkway Central Library on Vine Street runs a vinyl listening club, with Suzanne Cloud of the Philadelphia Jazz Legacy Project. Coltrane came into that building in the late forties and early fifties to hear Bartok and Stravinsky at its listening stations, and the library still has a Stravinsky record from that time period.
LioraThen at eight, the Highmark Mann Center. "Jazz Under The Stars: Kirk Whalum featuring Kevin Whalum and Gerald Veasley Band." Doors at seven. Whalum plays the fifteenth anniversary of his album "Romance Language," which the venue calls a re-imagining of a Coltrane record it does not name.
Two. Listen to This: "Shoe shine boy," cut in Chicago on October 9, 1936 by the band billed "Jones-Smith
LioraToday's record is from the earliest date an archive lists under tonight's man. Four sides were cut that day, and this is one of them.
"Shoe shine boy." Chicago, October 9th, 1936. The name on the disc label is "Jones-Smith, Incorporated." Carl Smith on trumpet, Lester Young on tenor, Count Basie on piano, Walter Page on bass. The archive's drummer credit does not match the man usually credited on these sides, so I leave it out.
Vocalion 3441, take one.
Here is the tip. UC Santa Barbara's own archive will play that side for you off its page. Listen, then reconsider what a tenor saxophone sounded like in 1936.
LioraThe release desk. Six days ago, on Coltrane's hundredth birthday, Nonesuch put out Jeff Parker playing "Miles' Mode." One track, seven forty nine. Parker's own words: Coltrane has been a steady muse for me ever since I started to study his music.
And Blue Note lists Joshua Redman for November 20th, "If Ever You Would Leave Us," eleven Sonny Rollins selections, started after Rollins died this spring.
Later, on The Bridge: Alabama, 1945. Lester Young, a jazz star and an Army private, goes before a court-martial, and the only witness for his defense is Lester himself. Sekou has the story.
Three. The Bridge: Alabama, 1945. Lester Young, a jazz star and an Army private
LioraOne true story from this music's history, every day. Sekou tells it, I ask the questions. Sekou, where are we?
SekouFort McClellan, Alabama. February 16th, 1945, ten minutes past eight in the morning. An Army court-martial meets. The accused is a private, thirty-five years old, a tenor saxophonist. A jazz star. Lester Young.
The charge: that on or about January 30th, he had "about one ounce of marijuana and about one ounce of barbiturates."
As NPR tells it, he expected to spend the war playing for troops, as white musicians did in the bands of Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw. Instead he was drafted into the regular Army. Inducted in California on September 30th, 1944. On December 1st the Army sent him here, to a post that got soldiers ready for combat.
LioraLester Young, training for combat. How did that go?
SekouNot well. A drummer on the post, Jerry Potter, remembered it decades later. Lester would not cut his hair, sleep in the barracks, or wear Army boots. He saw no need for basic training. He never meant to fire a gun. He said he wanted to make people happy with music, not kill anyone.
In January he spent about three weeks in the post hospital. He'd hurt himself on a training course, or, by one account, had a minor operation. A doctor there put the Army's 1945 label on him: "Constitutional Psychopathic State." It named drug addiction, chronic alcoholism, and "nomadism." By one account, the same doctor advised that his "disposition should be effected through administrative channels." The obvious course, another biographer writes, was to let him out of the Army.
LioraSo how does he end up in a courtroom?
SekouBy one account, his captain thought he seemed high, and when pressed, Lester showed him some pills. In court, the only witness for the defense is Lester himself. Asked how long he's been taking narcotics, he says, "For ten years, this is my eleventh year." Asked why he started: "Well, sir, playing in the band we would play a lot of one-nighters." Guilty. The sentence: dishonorable discharge, loss of all pay, and a year at hard labor.
SekouThe Army held him in detention in Alabama and Georgia, about ten months in all. What happened to him inside is hard to know. The court-martial record says nothing about his months in Georgia, and he rarely talked about any of it. When he did, he called his Army time "A nightmare, man, one mad nightmare." Years later, two men who knew him claimed that guards beat him. Those claims reach us secondhand.
LioraDid he play at all in there?
SekouIn Georgia, yes, and regularly. By one account, a guitarist named Fred Lacey, a prisoner too, played with him in a small group, and later became Lester's regular guitarist. On Sundays, that account says, Gil Evans came over from Oliver General Hospital, about ten miles away, and sat in on piano.
He left Camp Gordon about two months before his sentence was up. One biographer gives the date, December 15th, 1945, and says they handed him back his civilian clothes. His first recording session after the Army included a tune of his own. He called it "D.B. Blues." Lewis Porter's 1985 book says D.B. stands for Disciplinary Barracks. Most sources read it as detention barracks.
LioraThe Army called it nomadism. Lester called it one-nighters.
That's The Bridge. Back to today, right after this.
Four. On the Road: Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia has the Meron
LioraTonight, coast to coast.
Tonight's ticket is in the city we opened with.
Chris' Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia bills "Meron, Menares, Macbride: Live at The Sound Room Release Show." Daniel Meron, piano. Pablo Menares, bass. Jimmy Macbride, drums. Seven thirty and nine. Twenty dollars in, and the club streams it free on its own YouTube channel.
Now the sweep.
In Chicago, the Green Mill has the Chicago Cellar Boys, eight to midnight, ten dollars.
In Baltimore, Keystone Korner runs its Bright Moments jam at seven, led by Obasi Akoto, free at the door. Two items per person, minimum.
In New York, Mezzrow has the Nat Harris Quartet at six and seven thirty, then the Falkner Evans Trio at nine and half past ten. Twenty five at the door, off the club's page code.
LioraIn Austin, the Elephant Room has the Mitch Watkins Trio at six and Colin Houlihan's Utopia Quartet at nine. The club prints no price on either show. Its house Tuesday cover is seven dollars, with none before eight, so the six o'clock set is free.
Three rooms are out. Cliff Bell's in Detroit closes Tuesdays. Dazzle in Denver and Blues Alley in Washington publish nothing we could read.
Five. One More Note: September 29, 1936: Billie Holiday cuts four sides in New York
LioraSeptember 29th, 1936. Ninety years ago today, Billie Holiday cut four sides in New York.
"A fine romance," by Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern, on Vocalion 3333.
The band: Bunny Berigan, Irving Fazola, Clyde Hart, Dick McDonough, Artie Bernstein, Cozy Cole. That roster comes off a reissue, not a company ledger.
The archive gives Holiday's birthplace as Philadelphia, which is where we started.
Outro
LioraThat's the Quintet. If today's show earned it, follow The Daily Quintet wherever you listen.
The Daily Quintet is an AI-crafted production, researched and checked by humans. Every listing you heard came from the venue or the festival's own organizer.
That's your Tuesday. I'm Liora. See you tomorrow.