He was jazz's first hipster. He performed in sunglasses and coined and popularised phrases like "that's cool" and "you dig?" He always wore a suit and his trademark porkpie hat. He influenced everyone from B.B. King and Stan Getz to Allen Ginsberg, creating a lyrical style of playing that forever changed the sound of the tenor saxophone.

In this groundbreaking biography of Lester Young (1909-1959), historian Douglas Daniels brings to life the man and his world, and corrects a number of misconceptions. Even though others have identified Young as a Kansas City musician, Daniels traces his roots to the blues of Louisiana and his early years travelling with his father's band and the legendary Oklahoma City Blue Devils. Later we see the jazz culture of New York in the early 1940s, when Young was launched to national and international fame with the Count Basie Orchestra and began to accompany his close friend Billie Holiday. After a year spent in an Army prison on a conviction for marijuana use, Young made changes in his music but never lost his sensitivity or soul.

The first ever to gain access to Young's family and many musicians who performed with him, Daniels reconstructs the world in which Young lived and played: the racism that he and other black musicians faced, the feeling of home and family that they created together on the road, and what his music meant to black audiences. Young emerges as a kind friend, a loving parent, and a gentle and sensitive man who had, in the words of Reginald Scott, "the saddest eyes I ever saw."

CONTENTS:
PART 1 - Many Moons Ago
- The President of the Tenor Saxophone
- Shoeshine Boy: Way down Yonder; 1909-1919
- The Professor: the Louisiana Heritage
- Big Top Blues: On the Road, 1919-1926
-Jump Lester Jump: Winter Homes, 1919-1929
PART 2 - The Spark in My Heart
- Red Boy Blues: The Territorial Years, 1929-1932
- Blue Devil Blues: 1932-1933
- Big Eyes Blues: In the Court of the King, 1933
- No Eyes Blues: More Than Just Music 1934-1936
- Poundcake: The Holy Main, 1936-1940
- Watts Eyes: Paying Dues, 1941-1943
- D.B.Blues: Tribulation and Trial, 1943-1945
PART 3 - Up here by Myself
- Sax-o-Be-Bop: Life at the top
- Lester Blows Again: Critics and Sidemen's Views
- Movin' with Lester: "Always Reaching…"
- Up 'n' Adam: The Culy of the Cool
PART 4 - The Legacy
- Good-bye Pork Pie Hat
Personal Interviews
Notes
Selected Discography
Acknowledgments
Index

DOUGLAS HENRY DANIELS is professor of history and black studies in the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Pioneer Urbanites: A Social and Cultural History of Black San Francisco.

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