Young, Lester, American saxophonist (1909-1959). Concert programme for the Birdland All Stars Tour at the Stadhalle in Freiburg, Germany and photographs.

€ 3,500.00

Signed on the front cover by Lester Young, Bud Powell, the German big band leader Kurt Edelhagen, and the saxophonist Franz von Klenck. Additionally signed by all four members of the Modern Jazz Quartet (John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Percy Heath, and Conny Kay), two of the three members of the René Urtreger Trio (René Urtreger and Christian Garros), and the German music journalist Joachim-Ernst Berendt, whose "Jazz Book" (first published in 1952) became a definitive work on jazz, translated into many languages and still updated and reprinted.

Marking Powell’s first and Lester’s last performing tour of Europe, the stellar line-up for Birdland owner Morris Levy’s three-week tour also featured Miles Davis. "It is quite clear that Lester had a good time and enjoyed being on stage with Miles Davis", states biographer Frank Büchmann-Møller, "some of the photographs from the tour show him with an almost happy smile on his face" (p. 187). There exists a partial recording of the concert in which Lester and Miles can be heard performing "How High the Moon" and "Lester Leaps In". Although Powell was clearly present on this date, he did not apparently perform: as biographer Guthrie P. Ramsey explains, he was "fighting many personal and professional battles" at this time (p. 187).

Together with a vintage gelatin silver publicity portrait, signed in blue ballpoint pen by Lester Young (252 x 204 mm; pinholes in border at top and bottom, small piece missing from the top right-hand corner, small patch of emulsion peeled and missing at Lester's elbow), and a small candid black and white photograph of Lester Young with a chic female companion at the entrance to the Hotel Claridge in Paris, circa 1940s (87 x 61 mm; light creasing otherwise in good condition).