The Breath of Prez: Finding the Soul of Balboa in Jazz

The air in the Savoy Ballroom, even just thinking about it, smells like sweat, pomade, and a desperate kind of hope. A hope that the music will hold you, that the dance will carry you, that for three minutes you can forget the dust bowl and the Jim Crow and just… be. I’ve spent years chasing that ghost, not in historical recreations (though I’ve done my share of those, bless the vintage-obsessed souls), but in the muscle memory, the subtle shifts in weight, the listening. And lately, I’ve realized a lot of what I was missing in my Balboa wasn’t technique, wasn’t footwork, wasn’t even connection. It was breath. Specifically, the breath of Prez.

Lester Young. The President. A man who didn’t just play the tenor saxophone, he spoke through it. And for a long time, I heard the notes, the beautiful, languid lines, the almost conversational phrasing. I understood the what of his playing. But I hadn’t grasped the how. I hadn’t felt the air moving through the horn, the deliberate pauses, the way he’d almost… exhale a phrase into existence.

See, I’d been stuck in a Balboa rut. Technically proficient, sure. I could hit the breaks, navigate the circles, even throw in a cheeky push. But it felt… mechanical. Like a well-oiled machine, not a conversation. My partner and I were executing steps, not responding to the music. We were good, but we weren’t alive.

Then came a late night, a bottle of cheap bourbon (don’t judge, it’s research), and a deep dive into a 1940 recording of “Lester Leaps In.” Not just listening, but obsessing. I wasn’t focusing on the melody, or the chord changes, or even the solos. I was fixated on the spaces between the notes. The tiny intakes of breath before a phrase, the way he’d let a note hang, suspended in air, before gently releasing it. It wasn’t just about what he played, it was about the silence he commanded.

It hit me like a shot of rye. Balboa, at its core, isn’t about complicated patterns. It’s about responding to the subtle nuances of the music, about anticipating the shifts in energy, about mirroring the phrasing of the band. And phrasing, in jazz, is inextricably linked to breath.

Think about it. A horn player doesn’t just blast a continuous stream of sound. They breathe. They shape the sound with their diaphragm, with their lungs, with the very air they’re expelling. They create tension and release, anticipation and resolution, all through the control of their breath.

I started experimenting. Not on the dance floor, not at first. I’d put on a record – “Lady Be Good” with Count Basie, “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” with Benny Goodman, anything with Prez blowing – and just breathe with the music. I’d inhale on the downbeat, exhale on the offbeat. I’d try to match the length of my breaths to Lester’s phrases, to the rise and fall of the melody. It felt ridiculous at first, like some kind of new-age jazz therapy. But slowly, something started to shift.

I began to feel the music not just in my ears, but in my chest, in my diaphragm, in the rhythm of my own breathing. I started to understand how a single note could be pregnant with possibility, how a pause could be more powerful than a flurry of activity.

Then I took it to the dance floor. And it was… messy. I was overthinking it, trying to consciously control my breath, and it felt even more mechanical than before. My partner looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head.

But I persevered. I stopped trying to breathe with the music and started to listen with my breath. I let the music guide me, let it dictate the rhythm of my inhalations and exhalations. I focused on feeling the music in my body, on responding to the subtle shifts in energy, on anticipating the next phrase.

And then, it clicked.

Suddenly, the dance wasn’t about steps anymore. It was about conversation. It was about responding to the music, about mirroring my partner’s energy, about creating a shared experience of joy and freedom. The breaks felt more natural, the turns more fluid, the connection more intimate. We weren’t just executing steps, we were interpreting the music, we were telling a story.

It wasn’t a dramatic transformation, mind you. It wasn’t like I suddenly became a Balboa virtuoso. But it was a subtle shift, a deepening of understanding, a newfound sense of connection. I started to feel the ghost in the groove, the spirit of the Savoy, the legacy of Lester Young breathing life into the music.

Now, when I hear Prez, I don’t just hear a saxophone player. I hear a master of breath, a poet of silence, a man who understood the power of space and the beauty of restraint. And when I dance Balboa, I try to remember that lesson, to breathe with the music, to let the air move through me, to let the ghost guide my feet.

Because in the end, jazz isn’t just about the notes. It’s about the space between them. And sometimes, the most important thing you can do is just… breathe.