Lester Young, Teddy Wilson - Pres & Teddy

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Music reviews of Pres & Teddy

Music Review: Swingers reunited. No one should be without it!
Rating: 5 Stars

However, many say, and I say, that this mixture of Teddy and Prez was a match made in Heaven. Lots of the old Basieites evaluated Teddy and Prez along with the Jazz Giants as one of the great Lester Young Recordings of the 1950s. Myself, I would add Prez's last album with Sweets and Little Jazz where Lester with just weeks to live played Clarinet on a lot of numbers. I couldn't get that one out of the CD player for a week after I bought it.

A lot of people believe the excellence of these particular recordings come from the fact that Prez was recorded not with rhythm players who were young Beboppers like he hired for his own combos, or the great Oscar Peterson, but when he had a rhythm section and accompanist who were of the same generation of swing players as Prez.

I certainly think that is true here. Teddy Wilson's piano playing always had the an approach similar to Prez's. He played with restraint and coolness while swinging.

Many of the Basieites, who recorded with Prez, Billie, and Teddy for Columbia in the 1930s, claimed he just didn't swing and wished they could have used Basie on the sides Teddy cut with Billie and also with other Basieites and Mildred Bailey. My opinion is the level of melodic and rhythmic restraint Teddy showed then and now, left a lot of room open for the great soloists like Prez, and the great vocalists Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey (IF YOU ARE UNEDCUATED AND DO NOT KNOW OF MILDRED BAILEY SEEK HER OUT GET ALL OF HER STUFF, SHE WAS THE FIRST JAZZ BAND SINGER AND ONE OF THE GREATS AND A WHOLE LOT OF FUN TOO).

Here you find the right mixture of Prez's great improvisation, his subtle coolness, and his great swinging, carried appropriately and supportively by Teddy who swings the same way, doesn't try to out burn him or get away.

I have this on LP, Tape, and Now CD, and whatever they make next I will buy this.

How can you get along without these tracks!

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