In 1956, Pres played out some live tape at a Diamond City jazz club. It's no secret. It's been kicking around for 30 years now and its more than 1/2 century old. So what we do when we hear it is reconnize the oldness and the return of something good that's worth holding on to.
His biography -- pure crossroads blues -- is what it is. His less deepthinking biographers make too much use of the words gentle, laconic and sad, for sure. Somehow, the whataboutit that doesn't come through in most tellings is the hard work, the intellectual effort, which is the cathedral Lester made in the middle of wide and stormy sea of his life.
We'll leave it at that.
For now.
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