Lester Leaps In: The Life and Times of Lester Pres Young

He was jazz's first hipster. He performed in sunglasses and coined and popularized phrases like "that's cool" and "you dig?" He always wore a suit and his trademark porkpie hat. He influenced everyone from B. B. King to Stan Getz to Allen Ginsberg, creating a lyrical style of playing that forever changed the sound of the tenor saxophone.

In this groundbreaking biography of Lester Young (1909-1959), historian Douglas Daniels brings to life the man and his world, and corrects a number of misco...