Jazz Articles about Count Basie

Blue Highways and Sweet Music: The Territory Bands, Part I

by Karl Ackermann
June 25, 2018

Part 1 | Part 2 OriginsBy the second half of the 1920s, New York had supplanted Chicago as the center of jazz. The “Jazz Age"--a label incorrectly ascribed to F. Scott Fitzgerald--could rationally have been framed as the “Dance Age." Prohibition, and the speakeasies that it spawned, were packed with wildly enthusiastic patrons of the Charleston, Black Bottom, Shimmy, Collegiate Shag, the Baltimore and the Lindy Hop. It was often a simple step or two that distinguished one ...

Good Morning Blues

by Richard J Salvucci
January 11, 2018

Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie as told to Albert Murray William James Basie 399 Pages ISBN: 978-1-5179-0143-1 University of Minnesota Press 2016 (1985) In May 1959 Count Basie and his Orchestra played a “Breakfast Dance and Barbecue," like back in Kansas City, hosted by Roulette Records, for whom Basie had recently started to record. Lord, what a band: Thad Jones, Joe Newman,, Snooky Young and Wendell Culley on trumpet; ...

Christmas 2015 V: A Concord Christmas – David Benoit, Jane Monheit and the Count Basie Orchestra

by C. Michael Bailey
December 19, 2015

Well, it ain't over 'til it's over...The Concord Music Group issued two notable Holiday releases. The David Benoit Trio with Jane Monheit and the All American Boys Chorus Believe Concord 2015 What Believe is, is a slick updating of Vince Guraladi's A Charlie Brown Christmas (Fantasy, 1965), which celebrates its Golden Anniversary this year. There is good, as well as bad, in that statement. The newly-minted holiday compositions “Believe" and ...

Count Basie: Basie's Beatles Bag

by AAJ Staff
December 25, 2010

Many recording artists covered The Beatles in the '60s; even their own producer, George Martin, released George Martin Instrumentally Salutes The Beatle Girls (One Way, 1966). Pianist/bandleader Count Basie recorded two albums of Beatles tunes in that decade: Basie's Beatles Bag (Verve, 1966) and Basie On The Beatles (Happy Tiger, 1969). Both discs contain vital versions of John Lennon/Paul McCartney classics, but Basie's Beatles Bag is rawer and more cohesive. Arranged by Chico O'Farrill, it selects some ...

Count Basie: Live in Berlin & Stockholm 1968

by Graham L. Flanagan
January 30, 2010

Count Basie Live in Berlin & Stockholm 1968 Impro Jazz 2009

Every jazz fan, while listening to an album by one of their favorite legends of the genre, occasionally closes their eyes to imagine what it might have been like actually to be there for the recording itself. Due to the fact that jazz performances and recording sessions were in the past so rarely filmed (and because time travel has yet to ...

Count Basie: Swiss Radio Days, Vol. 20: Mustermesse Basel 1956, Pt. 2; On My Way & Shoutin' Again! & Swinging, Singing, Playing

by George Kanzler
October 4, 2009

Count Basie OrchestraSwiss Radio Days, Vol. 20: Mustermesse Basel 1956, Pt. 2 TCB2009 Count BasieOn My Way & Shoutin' Again!Verve2009 Count Basie OrchestraSwinging, Singing, PlayingMack Avenue2009 If the rhythm section of Count Basie's Old Testament big band of the '30s-40s is remembered as the “All-American Rhythm ...

Count Basie Orchestra: Swinging, Singing, Playing

by Robert J. Robbins
September 22, 2009

Count Basie OrchestraSwinging, Singing, PlayingMack Avenue2009 Although over a quarter-century has elapsed since the passing of William “Count" Basie in 1984, the bandleader and pianist's legacy has proved one of the most durable from the big band era, and the Basie band's Swinging, Singing, Playing maintains the Basie tradition and carries it triumphantly into the new millennium. Dennis Wilson (not to be confused with his late Beach Boys namesake), who served in ...