Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Drummer and singer Lee Young was born on March 7, 1914 as Leonidas Raymond Young in New Orleans, Louisiana to parents who were both musicians and teachers. The younger brother of tenorist Lester Young, his father drilled music into his children long before they started school, preparing them for the carnival and vaudeville road. The family finally settled in Los Angeles.

Steeped in the roots deep in New Orleans jazz, Lee played and recorded with Fats Waller in the thirties, and helped forge a burgeoning and vibrant jazz scene in Los Angeles in the ‘40s, and in 1944 he was drumming with Les Paul, J. J. Johnson, and Illinois Jacquet at Norman Granz’s first Jazz At The Philharmonic. In the Fifties he conducted and drummed for Nat King Cole.

Young was the first Black musician to be a regular studio musician in Hollywood and taught Mickey Rooney to play drums for a movie. By the 60’s he was a successful A&R man and record producer for Vee-Jay and Motown with a reputation for predicting what would sell.

Young is considered one of the most significant figures in jazz who directly connected the world to the early glories of jazz: the birth of jazz in New Orleans, the jazz age, the swing era and bebop. He led an integrated band at a time when it was not fashionable. He worked with Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton and Les Hite. Lee Young passed away at the age of 94 on July 31, 2008.

Lee Young: 1914-2008 / Drums

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