Lester Young

  • Lester Young

Today is the 100th anniversary of Lester Young‘s birth. I’m not going to take up your time telling you who he was or why you should care—chances are you already know and already do, or else there’s no persuading you. What I am going to tell you to do is look at this exhaustive and engrossing tribute to Young by Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson. If there is even one bone in your body that loves jazz, you owe it to yourself to get through at least the first chapter, where Iverson is listening to some of Pres’s classic pre-1941 solos with Lee Konitz—the solos are transcribed too, so you can marvel at their construction even after the notes are done sashaying past.

Philip Montoro

Philip Montoro has been an editorial employee of the Reader since 1996 and its music editor since 2004. Pieces he has edited have appeared in Da Capo’s annual Best Music Writing anthologies in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2011. He shared two Lisagor Awards in 2019 for a story on gospel pioneer Lou Della Evans-Reid and another in 2021 for Leor Galil's history of Neo, and he’s also split three national awards from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia: one for multimedia in 2019 for his work on the TRiiBE collaboration the Block Beat, and two (in 2020 and 2022) for editing the music writing of Reader staffer Leor Galil. Philip has played scrap metal in Lozenge, drummed with the Disasters, the Afflictions, and Brilliant Pebbles, and sung for the White Outs. He wrote the column Beer and Metal from 2012 till 2015, and hopes to do so again one day. You can also follow him on Twitter.