Lester Young Trio

Release history

The recordings were produced by Norman Granz and the first 4 tracks were released in 1951 on a Mercury Records 10 inch LP, The Lester Young Trio. Another 4 tracks were released in 1953 on Norman Granz' Clef Records label as The Lester Young Trio No. 2. All 8 trio tracks were combined on a 12 inch Norgran LP, The Lester Young Buddy Rich Trio released in 1955. Nat King Cole was under contract with a different record label at the time so was credited only as "Aye Guy" on the original Mercury / Clef / Norgran releases.

In 1994 Verve Records released a CD version of The Lester Young Trio which combined all 8 tracks from the 1946 Hollywood trio recordings, plus an alternate take of "I Cover the Waterfront" and an additional shortened version of "Back to the Land", together with 4 additional tracks recorded earlier by a quintet with Nat King Cole (but without Lester Young or Buddy Rich).

The Lester Young Trio

LP side A

1. "I Cover the Waterfront" (Green, Heyman) – 4:05
2. "Somebody Loves Me" (MacDonald, DeSylva, Gershwin) – 3:54

LP side B

1. "I've Found a New Baby" (Palmer, Williams) – 4:07
2. "Back to the Land" (Young) – 4:05

The Lester Young Trio No. 2

LP side A

1. "I Want to Be Happy" (Caesar, Youmans) – 3:58
2. "Peg O' My Heart" (Bryan, Fisher) – 4:06

LP side B

1. "Mean To Me" (Ahlert, Turk) – 4:15
2. "The Man I Love" (Gershwin, Gershwin) – 3:58

Bonus tracks on Verve 1994 CD re-issue

2 tracks from the original 1946 Young-Cole-Rich trio recording sessions:

4 tracks from earlier Nat King Cole sessions (without Young or Rich):

Personnel

Personnel on 4 of the CD re-issue bonus tracks