Lester Young: Just You, Just Me

         Lester Young
     Photo by Herb Snitzer

This track includes Slam Stewart's usual shticksinging wordlessly in unison an octave above his bowed bass solowhich has the cartoonish appeal of Popeye serenading Olive Oyl during Symphony in Spinach (1948) by literally sawing on a bass fiddle. Everyone must hear Stewart's shtick at most once. The main attraction here, however, is Lester Young playing the tenor sax with his customary sublime nonchalance. On the cusp of 1944, Guarnieri's Teddy Wilson-style piano sounds dated, especially when he resorts to steady left-hand comping. And Catlett's drumming is likewise mired in the Swing Era. But Pres, angelically unconcerned, glides above it all.