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Billy Lester: High Standards
by Richard J Salvucci
This is a very difficult recording to evaluate. If Billy Lester is living in Italy, the Italians are lucky. Someone has to be beyond sophisticated to pull off what Lester has done. He has, in essence, taken the GAS (Great American Songbook) and, with perhaps one exception, has improvised to the chord changes over the tunes. Imaginatively. Very imaginatively. Unfortunately, it really takes a pretty deep knowledge of music theory to appreciate what Lester has done. But if you have ...
Continue ReadingThe Billy Lester Trio: High Standards
by Pierre Giroux
With The Billy Lester Trio pianist Billy Lester offers a thrilling new chapter in his decades-long exploration of melodic abstraction and rhythmic vitality. Joined by bassist Marcello Testa and drummer Nicola Stranieri, Lester delivers a set that is as spontaneous, virtuosic, and inventive as any in his discography. For those unfamiliar with his music, this album serves as a perfect introduction, capturing the magic of his off-the-cuff ingenuity while reaffirming his singular voice in the jazz piano tradition. ...
Continue ReadingBilly Lester Trio: High Standards
by Jack Bowers
Pianist Billy Lester's album High Standards, recorded in 2017 in Italy, encompasses Lester's singular versions of eight memorable standards from the Great American Songbook. Although Lester plays sublimely, and his Italian rhythm section is first-class, the lingering impression is that something is missing. Yes, something is clearly missing...but what could it be? Lester's technique is impeccable, his improvisations sharp and clever, while the rhythm section (bassist Marcello Testa, drummer Nicola Stranieri) is focused and alert, lending strong ...
Continue ReadingBilly Lester: Unabridged
by Howard Mandel
Pianist Billy Lester is a musical original. That's obvious from the first, oh, 17 seconds of Unabridged, his sixth album and second all-solo recording. Listen to the unusual, brief motif with which Lester opens “Overture: Passionate Musings," then develops, complicates and completes it faster than you'd tie a shoelace. Pause--and he continues. Not to just recapitulate or elaborate the cell-like theme through variation, but to expand it as a theme in a concentrated, melodically flowing way that's not ...
Continue ReadingThe Billy Lester Trio: Italy 2016
by Dan McClenaghan
Piano trios jazz can charm or seduce, and occasionally mesmerize. In modern times, they can also rock the house, but they seldom jump out of the speakers at you with joy. The Billy Lester Trio, ?Italy 2016, does just that. The initial impression of pianist Lester's influences--as the opener “An Evening With Friends" plays--is Bud Powell. The music has a bounce and ebullience, a joy of life that was essential to Powell's artistry. Further listening and the Lenny Tristano tint ...
Continue ReadingBilly Lester: Visceral
by Francis Lo Kee
On this set of five standards and one original, pianist Billy Lester displays a strong original approach to jazz improvisation. He also leads a flexible, yet muscular trio, that moves along with him with telepathic skill. Lester has a wide range of approaches: single-note right-hand lines, dissonant block chords, left-hand bass runs that move in counterpoint to the right hand (and his use of the low register piano is fairly unique to most of what you hear ...
Continue ReadingBilly Lester: Four into Four
by Elliott Simon
Four into Four, recorded live at NYC’s Roulette, with its sense of swing and tight rhythms, gives the impression that the Billy Lester Quartet can see for miles, but then those who stand on the shoulders of giants can. Pianist Lester is a self-admitted anachronism who during the ‘50s and ‘60s, while piano jazz evolved modally along the route charted by Bill Evans and McCoy Tyner, became a Powell/Tristano and Louis Armstrong devotee. His writing style turns a jazz standard, ...
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