Lester Young on "Honeysuckle Rose" (Alternate Take)

The discovery of the unissued alternate take to "Honeysuckle Rose," from the Count Basie Orchestra's first recording a month after coming to New York City on January 21, 1937, was, as Loren Schoenberg describes in the liner notes to Mosaic boxed set Classic 1936-1947 Count Basie & Lester Young Studio Sessions, a miracle of sorts:

As this album was well into production, a veritable miracle occurred when an alternate take of this piece was discovered sitting in a case as part of an exhibit at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. 

Schoenberg posits that this is a warm-up take, which can be heard in several under-rehearsed transitional passages and backgrounds, but Lester Young's solo here is a gem. The bridge was what struck me most initially: a brilliantly syncopated sequence of alternate fingerings that's also a masterclass in getting more out of less. This particular set of false fingerings that alternates between two pitches, rather than just one, is relatively less common in Young's discography, but it does turn up again in another unissued recording of "After You've Gone" from a late 1938 radio broadcast. For now, at least we have this discovery to savor:

For some additional context, this really is at the recorded dawn of the Count Basie Orchestra, and this particular recording captures them the day after the close of a four-week run at Roseland Ballroom in NYC, which opened on Christmas Eve, 1936. At this point in time, the band was still building its reputation, and a review in Metronome from the same month as this recording shows that reviewers were still warming to the ensemble's sound:

True, the band does swing, but that section is invariably out of tune. And if you think that sax section is out of tune, catch the brass! And if you think the brass by itself is out of tune, catch the intonation of the band as a whole.

Ouch.

Bb

C

Eb

*Pale imitation here