Lester Young Trio

The fourteen tracks here all feature Nat King Cole on piano (though on tracks 1 - 10 he is under the alias Aye Guy). Lester Young features on the first 10 tracks only. These ten tracks are the unusual trio format of tenor saxophone (Young), piano (Cole) and drums: Buddy Rich. These excellent tracks date (probably) from 1946 soon after Lester Young had been demobbed from the U.S. Army.Despite his recent return to the music scene Lester plays as well as ever: serenely, laid back and thoughtfully; beautiful. Nat Cole shows what a loss he was to jazz piano when he followed his popular singing career. He is outstanding. Drummer Buddy Rich completes the trio and complements the work of Young and Cole perfectly; indeed Cole and Rich work in such unison that the absence of a bass is not noticeable.Ten wonderful tracks of relaxed, almost "after hours" jazz.Tracks 11 - 14 are "bonus tracks" which feature an early session by Dexter Gordon (tenor) probaly recorded in 1943. The rest of the group are Harry "Sweets" Edison (trumpet), Nat Cole with bass and drums. Four enjoyable tracks which represent the work of a very youthful Dexter Gordon.

Good album, interesting background, bought on the strength of a Julian Joseph recommendation in BBC Music Mag. Perhaps not what one might expect when one reads the informative sleevenotes / booklet, and recorded quality not 100% - could do with a clean-up. Nevertheless, a welcome addition to the shelves, and swift supply from USA.

I can't stop playing this CD since it arrived. Heard of them through Iggy Pop's Friday Night show on BBC6 music, and I adore their sound. Drums, piano and sax combined to create beautifully evocative and uplifting pieces.

What a lovely sound. Perhaps I would like a bit more variation in tempo but that aside this is great value

Terrific CD and top notch service/delivery as usual

It would be redundant to say how good Lester Young was and here he plays wonderfully with Nat King Cole who was such a brilliant piano player. I had heard a few of these tracks on a compilation CD and was really looking forward to hearing the whole session (or sessions). What a disappointment: first of all the CD wouldn't even play and when it did the sound was truly awful. How could Verve put out such a substandard recording - the tracks from this session I'd heard previously, on another label, sounded fine and had obviously been well cleaned up.So 5 stars for the music but none for the recording!

I agree completely with most of the other Amazon reviewers in the USA: The music Lester Young made together with the Nat King Cole Trio on 15 July 1942 is among some of his best. However, it's a great shame that Verve did such a poor job mastering the music for CD. All is not lost, however! I recently discovered that six of the songs from this CD are also available on the CD "Lester Young: Exercise in Swing" by the Italian label Giants of Jazz. The remastering excellent. To boot, the CD is available on Amazon and also on Ebay. In addition, there are also another 10 classic Lester Young songs, like "Afternoon of a Basie-ite". If you love Lester and his great music, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of this CD. You won't be disappointed.