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About Count Basie Orchestra
Instrument: Band / ensemble / orchestra
Count Basie Orchestra: Paris Jazz Concert, April 1972
by Jack Bowers
There are at least two things one must keep in mind when considering live or studio recordings made some years ago by well-- known Jazz artists or groups and released on compact disc by not--so--well--known labels. One is playing time; the other is over--all sound quality. The Count Basie Orchestra's Paris Jazz Concert, which took place twenty--seven years ago and was repackaged this year by Malaco Classics, passes the first test with flying colors, clocking in at a generous 72:35, ...
Continue ReadingCount Basie Orchestra: Live at the Sands
by Jack Bowers
During a career that spanned more than sixty years, Frank Sinatra performed many times at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. When Ol’ Blue Eyes appeared there in February–March 1966, the occasion was especially memorable, as his “warm–up act” (and accompanist) was no less than the celebrated Count Basie Orchestra, a pairing that led to two marvelous albums, “Sinatra Live at the Sands,” and this one, which features the Basie ensemble onstage “before Frank,” playing the music that coaxed Sinatra’s ...
Continue ReadingCount Basie Orchestra: Count Plays Duke
by Jack Bowers
The Count Basie Orchestra's debut for MAMA Records embraces the best of two worlds - the Count's hard-swinging brass, reeds and rhythm and the graceful and enduring melodies of Duke Ellington (and Billy Strayhorn). It doesn't get much more inviting than that. If the Basie organization has lost any appreciable ground under the Count's successors - first Frank Foster, now Grover Mitchell - it isn't readily apparent. Everyone seems in topnotch form on these seamless interpretations of a baker's dozen ...
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