Billie Holiday in New York City - the 1930's
from Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It, page 310:
I was with Basie's band for a time, and Lester [Young] used to live at home with my mother and me. I named him "the President," and he named me "Lady" and my mother "Duchess." We were the Royal Family of Harlem.
Pres and Herschel Evans were forever thinking up ways of cutting the other one. You'd find them in band room hacking away at reeds, trying out all kinds of new ones, anything to get ahead of the other one. Once Herschel asked Lester, "Why don't you play alto, man? You got an alto tone." Lester tapped his head, "There's things going on up there, man," he told … more >>
Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro, Hear Me Talkin' To Ya: The Classic Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It (London, 1992), p. 310. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1435833994406 accessed: 24 November, 2024
Listeners
Listening to
hide composers| tenor saxophone music | performed by Herschel Evans, Lester Young |
Experience Information
| Date/Time | the 1930's |
| Medium | live, playback |
| Listening Environment | in the company of others, in private, indoors, in public, solitary |