Prez and Billy Holiday

Dave Gelly, author of Being Prez: The Life and Music of Lester Young is the weekly jazz critic for The Observer and contributes to many other British periodicals. He was invested with the MBE by HM The Queen in 2005 and is also a professional saxophonist. In his book Gelly follows Lester Young through his life in a rapidly changing world, showing how the music of this exceptionally sensitive man was shaped by his experiences. Watch the clip below and then read Gelly’s explanation of why he picked it as emblematic of Young.

This clip, featuring Billie Holiday and Lester Young, dates from 1957. It was the last time they made music together and possibly the last time they ever met. Within two years both would be dead, their names forever linked by their unique relationship and the beauty of the music they created together.

They first met in 1934, at a Harlem after-hours club, when she was 19 and he was 25. Billie had been singing professionally for less than two years and was virtually unknown outside Harlem. Lester was passing briefly and unhappily through the ranks of Fletcher Henderson’s band. On that night Billie sang, Lester played alongside her and an instant empathy was forged. It was as if they could think each other’s thoughts and feel each other’s emotions – a single mind with two voices. The records they made together, beginning in 1937, are filled with tiny moments of pure joy, surprise, and the casual grace of youth.

Their personal relationship was equally remarkable. They were not, as their friend, the trumpeter Buck Clayton, delicately put it, ‘romantically inclined’. Billie went for tough, dominant men, and Lester was the exact opposite – timid, shy and complicated. Nevertheless they found endless delight in one another’s company. It was Billie who gave Lester the name ‘Prez’ – short for ’The President’ – and he in turn named her ‘Lady Day’. The names followed them to the grave, and indeed beyond.

Everyone knew about this extraordinary platonic relationship, but nobody could quite figure it out. The simplest explanation would be that at least one of them was gay, and since it clearly wasn’t Billie, it must be the mild-mannered, soft-spoken Lester. In fact Lester wasn’t gay, merely discreet about his private life. When the gay rumour finally reached him his comment was typically cool: ‘I never even auditioned,’ he said.