Pres and Teddy
| Pres and Teddy | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by The Lester Young and Teddy Wilson Quartet | |||||
| Released | Early April 1959 | ||||
| Recorded | January 13, 1956 New York City |
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| Genre | Jazz | ||||
| Length | 42:57 | ||||
| Label |
Verve MGV-8205 |
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| Producer | Norman Granz | ||||
| Lester Young chronology | |||||
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| Teddy Wilson chronology | |||||
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |  |
Pres and Teddy is a 1959 jazz album by The Lester Young and Teddy Wilson Quartet. Originally released by Verve, it has subsequently been reissued on CD by Verve, Universal Japan and Lonehill Jazz.
Recording a January 1956 reunion session between Young and Wilson, the album includes six standard swing jazz songs with one original composition, "Pres Returns." In spite of Young's failing health, the album is critically acclaimed as among the best of his later works as well as being among the best albums produced by Verve Record's founder Norman Granz.
Pres and Teddy is one of several late 1950s reunions between Lester Young, a tenor saxophonist characterized by jazz commentator Scott Yanow as "one of the giants of Jazz history", and Teddy Wilson, "the definitive swing pianist". Recorded on January 13, 1956, the quartet also featured Jo Jones, an innovative and influential jazz drummer, and bassist Gene Ramey. The group had also played together the previous day along with Roy Eldridge, Vic Dickenson and Freddie Green, recording the similarly acclaimed The Jazz Giants '56.
Wilson was in 1956 steadily producing both solo and group albums, having only recently stopped teaching music at Juilliard. Young, although also working steadily, was suffering a rapid deterioration of his health. Though Young had established a strong early presence in jazz prior to being drafted into World War II in 1945, his experiences during the war left him an alcoholic so unapproachable that he invented his own language to better control who would be permitted to communicate with him. But while Young's playing throughout the 50s was often hampered by his excessive drinking, on this occasion, according to Yanow, he returned to "classic form". After these sessions, Young continued to decline, drinking himself to death three years later, at the age of 49.
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