Billy Lester: High Standards

This is a very difficult recording to evaluate. If Billy Lester is living in Italy, the Italians are lucky. Someone has to be beyond sophisticated to pull off what Lester has done. He has, in essence, taken the GAS (Great American Songbook) and, with perhaps one exception, has improvised to the chord changes over the tunes. Imaginatively. Very imaginatively. Unfortunately, it really takes a pretty deep knowledge of music theory to appreciate what Lester has done. But if you have ever listened to Tom Harrell do something similar over "rhythm changes," the results are remarkable. Most of the time, folks with ordinary ears could not have told you what Harrell was doing. Oh, sure, perhaps someone can listen to "Donna Lee" or "Groovin' High," and hum the tune to which they are contrafacts. Really, that is no great accomplishment. Lester and Harrell are doing something of a completely different order.

Test yourself and be honest. Play the recording randomly and then say, "What is this coming from?" Unless the listener is a musician, and a pretty good one, chances are, the result will be 0 for 8 (Or perhaps 1 for 8, because Lester does play a head for mere mortals once). But otherwise, the average jazz enthusiast—even the above-average enthusiast—is apt to be lost. Intervallic motifs, tritone substitutions—the panoply of an improvising jazz player's toolkit is what is at play here. And to understand that requires sustained, serious study. Alas, it will be beyond many listeners, but that does not mean it is not worth hearing. In fact, one suspects that an ambitious listener (or a music major!) could take much of Lester's playing as a challenge. It is not a casual pursuit, no, but jazz people have always prided themselves on their superiority to the hoi polloi. Ready to give it a go?

This recording is not for everyone. If someone is inclined to ask the achingly cliche question, "But where is the melody?" look elsewhere. But let players like Lester have the space they need and deserve, something well beyond middlebrow.