Filmed back in 1944, this is simply the coolest jazz video ever, starting out with an opening shot of Lester Young’s pork pie hat. (Sorry, but if I had to tell you, you’re not quite as cool as you might be.)
Lester Young is the coyest, least satisfying of the great jazz musicians. He broke into the jazz spotlight with Count Basie’s band back in the mid-thirties. By the late forties he was all-but universally idolized by both jazz critics and his fellow musicians, and he was well-recorded, thanks to the devotion of jazz impresario Norman Granz.
Despite this success, Young spent most of his career in a semi-sulk, often deliberately playing below his natural level. But if he usually preferred to hide behind his cloud of self-pity, when Lester’s moon came out (he had no commerce with the garish sun) the radiance had no parallel.
Many years ago I used to spend my Sunday mornings listening to jazz on the radio and reading the Washington Post. On one occasion there was an article in the Post magazine featuring photos of some pseudo-primitive (and not very good) sculptures purporting to capture the essence of Charlie Parker. The photos reminded me of the African Museum of Art, which had recently opened on the Mall, and which I had recently visited. I was also reminded me, for some reason, of an exhibit of jazz memorabilia at the Smithsonian that I had also visited.
As I read the article I had a striking, almost out-of-body experience, which I usually do not at all enjoy. I seemed to float to the ceiling and look down on myself, with thoughts of the African art museum and Lester Young’s saxophone floating through my mind. I suddenly returned to earth with a bump, realizing that the tune on the radio was Charlie Mingus’s farewell salute to Lester, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. This all prompted the following poem, which, even with this elaborate setup, may not make much sense.
Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Lines Written in Praise of Lester Young
I
The African stands air-conditioned and underground, in a grand museum.
Crouching on a pedestal, surmounted by a glass cage,
His stone thighs, unwearied by the centuries, now endure a new continent.
Indirect lighting, another miracle, washes the shadows from his face,
While I observe.
Around me the refined air rises in invisible columns
Spreading petals like tulips,
While patient needles transcribe the equanimity of the atmosphere.
Was ever a pharaoh so entombed?
Whence his limestone?
A scholar could tell me
And guess at the markings on the chest of the man who made him.
Beyond that the indirect lighting gives no clue.
The short body has no gesture,
And the eyes refuse to speak.
I search and surrender, heels turning on the polished floor.
At the doorway a man in uniform shifts on tired feet,
Awaiting my departure.
He looks away, thinking of television,
While the stone god crouches,
Silent as a saxophone.
II
Dismembered now, the saxophone sleeps in pieces,
Amid the pillars of a grand museum, fitted in worn velvet.
A cunning column of air at heart, ingenious,
It lacks all vibration.
The cascade of levers coating the pierced brass lies untouched.
Where are the brown fingers, the African lips?
III
In the still air of my apartment
A transcribing needle arouses the atmosphere
Beating on my eardrum like a fountain, like a wave transported
And there, on the carpet,
The slippered print of Harlequin—
Faceless, evanescent, immortal.
