i agree that byas is a swinger who was advanced enough in his musical understanding to play bop, and i find that moment (let's call it late '30s to the end of the recording ban) fascinating as we hear some older musicians adjust and some incapable of adjusting (and then we get to lester young, who stayed a swing musician all his life but who was incredibly influential on the two charlies, parker and christian). i seem to recall scott devaux's "birth of bebop" exploring this, but admittedly, i read it when it was new, a quarter century ago.
please note that Lester Young altered his style after hearing the boppers, to whom he, most of all, was an inspiration (as you state; few mentioned, in their time, Byas or Hawk; they ALL loved Lester Young, and his early innovations indeed pushed the music in the direction of bebop; Charlie Parker's early solos ('40-'42) have a lot of Lester Young in them). But Prez was clearly listening and altering his playing; listen to him on the Buddy RIch/Nat Cole/Lester Young trio session from 1946).
1) this is inaccurate: "He came up in the 1930s, when tenor players were supposed to be just one part of a big band, taking the occasional, short solo without disrupting the action on the dance floor." Horn soloists, as Lester Young said frequently, were inspired by and offered their own prompts to the dancers. Lester said specifically: "The rhythm of the dancers comes back to you when you are playing."
2) Byas' tone was not like Lester Young's but related to that of Coleman Hawkins, who was his prime early influence.
Thanks for plugging Don Byas, a wonderful and singular musician. Keep in mind that for a swing-era player like Byas, openness to the technical inventions of bop was a real contribution to boundary-pushing. He was just on the earlier side of the boundary line, visible after the fact, after which came the boppers: the oldest of them, Kenny Clarke, was born in 1914 to Byas's 1912. Then Gillespie and Monk, 1917; Parker, 1920; Mingus, 1922, Powell and Roach, 1924; Ray Brown, 1926, and so on.
For most contemporary listeners who haven't yet investigated, all that pre-bop stuff sounds impossibly old-fashioned. But of course it isn't. If Wynton M said anything smart it was this: all jazz is modern.
fwiw, my byas go-to had been "complete american small group recordings" (https://www.amazon.com/Complete-American-Small-Group-Recordings/dp/B00006AG9W) and given the price of the mosaic set, it may remain as such!
i agree that byas is a swinger who was advanced enough in his musical understanding to play bop, and i find that moment (let's call it late '30s to the end of the recording ban) fascinating as we hear some older musicians adjust and some incapable of adjusting (and then we get to lester young, who stayed a swing musician all his life but who was incredibly influential on the two charlies, parker and christian). i seem to recall scott devaux's "birth of bebop" exploring this, but admittedly, i read it when it was new, a quarter century ago.
please note that Lester Young altered his style after hearing the boppers, to whom he, most of all, was an inspiration (as you state; few mentioned, in their time, Byas or Hawk; they ALL loved Lester Young, and his early innovations indeed pushed the music in the direction of bebop; Charlie Parker's early solos ('40-'42) have a lot of Lester Young in them). But Prez was clearly listening and altering his playing; listen to him on the Buddy RIch/Nat Cole/Lester Young trio session from 1946).
1) this is inaccurate: "He came up in the 1930s, when tenor players were supposed to be just one part of a big band, taking the occasional, short solo without disrupting the action on the dance floor." Horn soloists, as Lester Young said frequently, were inspired by and offered their own prompts to the dancers. Lester said specifically: "The rhythm of the dancers comes back to you when you are playing."
2) Byas' tone was not like Lester Young's but related to that of Coleman Hawkins, who was his prime early influence.
Thanks for plugging Don Byas, a wonderful and singular musician. Keep in mind that for a swing-era player like Byas, openness to the technical inventions of bop was a real contribution to boundary-pushing. He was just on the earlier side of the boundary line, visible after the fact, after which came the boppers: the oldest of them, Kenny Clarke, was born in 1914 to Byas's 1912. Then Gillespie and Monk, 1917; Parker, 1920; Mingus, 1922, Powell and Roach, 1924; Ray Brown, 1926, and so on.
For most contemporary listeners who haven't yet investigated, all that pre-bop stuff sounds impossibly old-fashioned. But of course it isn't. If Wynton M said anything smart it was this: all jazz is modern.