I got to thinking about how I know what I do about the blues, and thanks to youtube, some of the answer is here . I know, those are suits and Lenny certainly wasn't a bluesman. But he could explain blue notes and syncopation in 1955 and be heard. Not an easy thing to do. He'd just written music for On the Waterfront. West Side Story was 2 or 3 years in the future. If you follow to the other 4 parts of this, it ends in pure mid-fifties jazz. But the first three installments discuss blues even when calling it jazz. The funniest part is his description of the "evolution" of blues into an intellectual persuit and bemoans the fact that "no one dances any more" because it took concentration to listen to what blues had become. Within 10 years, the basic blues would be back in fashion and young people were literally dancing in the streets.