Today is John Lewis’s 96th birthday anniversary. Lewis grew up in Albuquerque, where he heard Lester Young in the early thirties, and graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1942. After army service in WWII, he moved to New York and replaced Thelonious Monk in the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra. Over the next few years, he studied at Juilliard and worked with Young, recorded with Charlie Parker, and made several sessions with Miles Davis, including the Birth of the Cool. Lewis’s original rhythm section mates with Gillespie (Milt Jackson, Ray Brown, and Kenny Clarke) reconvened in 1952 as the Modern Jazz Quartet, which he guided as music director for over 40 years.
Of the use he made of his classical background, he said, “It’s only one of the means to an end. I’m only conscious of finding a means to some variety. You get sick of the same thing…” One thing that Lewis and the MJQ never seemed to tire of was “Django,” Lewis’s memorial to Django Reinhardt, which was introduced in 1955. Here’s John playing it with bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen and the MJQ’s drummer Connie Kay in 1965.