Louis Armstrong on "Basin Street Blues" + Lester Young on "All of Me"
Per the requirements of the Master of Music program in jazz performance at The New England Conservatory, I'm required to take three "Jazz Studies" courses to graduate. This semester, I've elected to take 66% of them: a course on "Jazz Styles" (note the problematic nature of each word, as well as when taken together) and a course on Bird and Bud. For the aforementioned J—— S—— course, a weekly component of the class consists of transcribing and playing along with transcriptions, which I'm happy to do, as you might have guessed. The first solo I transcribed was Louis Armstrong's majestic pass through "Basin Street Blues," recorded in 1928 as part of the Hot Fives series of recordings. The next solo was a late Lester Young solo from Pres and Teddy (1956): "All of Me." Having transcribed more early Lester than late Lester, I thought I'd check out the other end of his career, which is often characterized as being less valuab