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Lester Young. Lester Young Trio

These are the sessions with Lester Young with Nat Cole on piano, and Buddy Rich on drums, produced by Norman Granz. (This was mentioned by John of Utopian Turtletop fame in a comment to an earlier post.) Tracks include Back to the Land, I Cover the Waterfront, Somebody Loves Me, The Man I Love, Peg O' My Heart. I really dig Cole's playing here, and Rich remains in the background in a supportive role.

I honestly don't prefer this to the Oscar Peterson or Teddy Wilson recordings with Lester, even though I like Cole as a pianist more than Peterson and about at the same level as Wilson. I just don't think Lester is quite as strong. But this is still essential postwar Pres.

There are some extra tracks on this C.D. with a young Dexter Gordon doing his best Lester Young impersonation.