Count Basie

Bill Basie studied music with his mother as a child and played piano in early childhood. He picked up the basics of early ragtime from some of the great Harlem pianists and studied organ informally with Fats Waller. He made his professional debut as an accompanist for vaudeville acts and replaced Waller in an act called Katie Crippen and her Kids. He also worked with June Clark and Sonny Greer who was later to become Duke Ellington’s drummer.

It was while traveling with the Gonzel White vaudeville show that Basie became stranded in Kansas City when the outfit suddenly broke up. He played at a silent movie house for a while and then became a member of the Walter Page Blue Devils in 1928 and ’29. Included in the ranks of the Blue Devils was a blues shouter who was later to play a key role as early male vocalist with Basie’s own big band, Jimmy Rushing. It was in fact the rotund Rushing who happened to hear Basie playing in Kansas City and invited him to attend a Blue Devil's performance. Basie soon joined the band after sitting in with them that night.

After Page's Blue Devils broke up Count Basie and some of the other band members integrated into the Bennie Moten band. He remained with Moten until his death in 1935. After Moten’s death the band continued under the leadership of Bennie’s brother Buster, but Basie started a group of his own and soon found a steady gig at the Reno Club in Kansas City employing some of the best personnel from the Moten band himself.

The band gradually built up in quantity and quality of personnel and was broadcast live regularly from the club by a small Kansas City radio station. It was during one of these broadcasts that the group was heard by John Hammond, a wealthy jazz aficionado, who had himself worked as an announcer, disc jockey and producer of a live jazz show on radio. Hammond decided that the band must go to New York. Through his efforts and support (at times even financially) the band enlarged its membership further and went to New York in 1936. Hammond installed Willard Alexander as the band’s manager and in January of 1937 the Count Basie band made its first recording with the Decca record label.

By the following year the Basie big band had become internationally famous, anchored by the leader’s simple and sparse piano style and the rhythm section of Freddie Greene guitar, Walter Page bass, and Jo Jones drums. The great soloists of this band included Jimmy Rushing as vocalist, Lester Young and Herschel Evans tenor saxes, Earl Warren on alto, Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpets, and Benny Morton and Dickie Wells on trombones, among others. Also contributing to the bands success were the arrangements by Eddie Durham and others in the band and the “head” arrangements spontaneously developed by the group.

Despite the occasional losses of key soloists, throughout the 1940’s Basie maintained a big band that possessed an infectious rhythmic beat, an enthusiastic team spirit, and a long list of inspired and talented jazz soloists. Among the long line of budding stars to pass through the Basie aggregation's ranks during these years were tenor men, Lester Young, Herschel Evans, Don Byas, Buddy Tate, Lucky Thompson, Illinois Jacquet, and Paul Gonsalves. On trumpets the list includes Buck Clayton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Joe Newman, and Emmett Berry. In the trombone section Dickie Wells, Benny Morton, Vic Dickenson, and J.J. Johnson all had stints with Basie in the 40’s.

Except for a period in 1950 and ’51, when economic conditions forced him to tour with a septet, Basie maintained a highly swinging big band that, at one time or another, included Clark Terry, Wardell Gray, Al Grey, Frank Wess, Frank Foster, Thad Jones, Sonny Payne, Joe Wilder, Benny Powell, and Henry Coker. In 1954 Joe Williams became the band's full time male vocalist. By 1955 he had infused the Basie band with new life and further commercial success beginning with Every Day I Have The Blues. Also during this period arrangers Neal Hefti and Ernie Wilkins contributed many fine swinging arrangements to the band's book. These great men of music coupled with Basie’s undying allegiance to the beat and the 12 bar blues allowed the band to consistently turn out records of extremely high caliber well into even the 1970’s.

Count Basie's health began deteriorating in 1976 when he suffered a heart attack that put him out of commission for several months. Following another stay in the hospital in 1981 he began appearing on stage driving an electric wheel chair. Count Basie died of cancer at 79.

Along with a number of Grammy awards the Count and his big bands won the following Jazz polls: Esquire’s Silver Award in 1945; Down Beat reader’s poll in 1955, ’57-’59; Metronome Poll ’58-’60; Down Beat Critics Poll ’54-’57; Playboy All Stars’ All Stars ’59. As pianist Basie won the Metronome Poll in ’42-’43. In 1958 Count Basie was elected to the Down Beat Hall Of Fame.
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Swing Bands

by Monk Rowe
September 20, 2024

For pure swing, the bands led by Count Basie will never be equaled. Harry Sweets" Edison, Ed Shaughnessy, Snooky Young, Gerald Wilson and Joe Williams offer personal anecdotes and insights that help us understand the man who personified big band swing. ...

Radio & Podcasts

Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, Charlie Parker & Ella Fitzgerald

by Joe Dimino
February 25, 2024

We dedicate the entirety of the 843rd Episode of Neon Jazz to the history and culturally vital institution, Harlem's Apollo Theater. After finding an illustrated book on the history of this landmark institution in the history of African American culture, it was essential to cover the jazz side of things from the book's perspective. We begin with the legendary Duke Ellington and end with Tiny Bradshaw. In between, we get into classics from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Earl Hines, ...

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Building a Jazz Library

The Best of Basie

by Bob Bernotas
August 21, 2023

In 1935, pianist William “Count" Basie (born August 21, 1904), a fixture on the jny: Kansas City jazz scene since the late 1920s, organized his own rocking, riffing, blues-based big band. The following year this freewheeling unit came east and took New York by storm. For the next decade and a half, Basie's stellar cast--which included such original jazz stylists as tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry Sweets" Edison, trombonist Dicky Wells, drummer Jo ...

Radio & Podcasts

Subtle Is as Subtle Does

by Patrick Burnette
August 20, 2020

Ya want big bands? We got big bands. Sometimes we got one in each speaker. In this exploration of the more extroverted side of jazz, the boys check out works by a blazing trumpet player (and world-class womanizer), a so-so clarinetist with a heart of gold, two piano-playing band leaders who both worship Duke Ellington, and two (but it sounds like thirty) major-league skin-pounders. Much musing on the glory days of fifteen musicians criss-crossing the nation via bus routes, and ...

Live Review

Documenting Jazz 2019

by Ian Patterson
February 28, 2019

Documenting Jazz Conservatory of Music and Drama TU Dublin jny: Dublin, Ireland January 17-19, 2019 Jazz music, which has pretty much always meant different things to different people, has been comprehensively documented since its arrival in the first decades of the twentieth century. The most obvious form of documentation, that's to say studio recording, is almost as old as the music itself, whilst live recordings, both official releases and bootlegs, radio ...

Radio & Podcasts

Count Basie - Dueling Tenors and the Great American Rhythm Section (1937 - 1940)

by Russell Perry
February 5, 2019

In the eleventh hour of Jazz at 100, we followed Count Basie through the Benny Moten Band in Kansas City and heard his first recordings as a leader. In 1937, after Benny Moten's death, he took the nation by storm with his driving band lead by the “All American Rhythm Section" and the dual tenor saxophones of Herschel Evans and Lester Young. We are joined in this hour by Robert Jospe—drummer, recording artist, composer and member of the ...

Radio & Podcasts

Love Songs for August

by Mary Foster Conklin
September 22, 2018

"What fresh Hell is this?" We begin with songs by Dorothy Parker, who, though best known for her sharp wisecracks, turned out several luscious standards in her day. In the second hour, we salute the great Count Basie then usher in the Leonard Bernstein centennial celebration; plus there is a bumper crop of new releases to share. Playlist Harry Allen “I Wished on the Moon" from The Candy Men (Arbors) 00:00 Rosemary Clooney “I Wished on the Moon" ...

Video / DVD

Backgrounders: Basie With Quincy and Hefti

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 25, 2023

In 1958, the French Vogue label put out a double LP in Europe entitled Count Basie Plays Quincy Jones & Neal Hefti. Essentially, it was a re-issue of two previous Roulette releases—Basie One More Time: Music From the Pen of Quincy Jones (1960) and Basie Plays Hefti (1958). Both are classics in the Basie canon and remain masterpieces today. Quincy Jones and Neal Hefti, alone with Ernie Wilkins and Frank Foster were among the leading composer-arrangers for Basie's New Testament ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Count Basie

Source: Michael Ricci
August 21, 2023

All About Jazz is celebrating Count Basie's birthday today!

Video / DVD

Count Basie: Copenhagen, 1962

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 21, 2023

American jazz fans are often left wondering why Europeans, Scandinavians and the Japanese are so passionate about the music while listeners here don't seem to have much of an appetite for it. One reason is the vast amount of touring that American jazz musicians did in those parts of the world in the 1960s and beyond. For fans overseas, the music was a celebration of optimism and freedom after years of horror and hardship. One artist who toured regularly internationally ...
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Music Industry

Documentary: Born to Swing

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 24, 2023

In 1973, the BBC aired a 50-minute documentary from director John Jeremy on the alumni of the Count Basie Band of 1943. And then the documentary went out of print. Fortunately for us, the person behind Remembrance of Things at YouTube found an old VHS tape at the public library and uploaded it as a vital historical document. The documentary includes interviews with Buck Clayton, Buddy Tate, Jo Jones, Dicky Wells and Earle Warren. You'll also hear from Gene Krupa, ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Count Basie

Source: Michael Ricci
August 21, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Count Basie's birthday today!

Video / DVD

Count Basie in London in 1977

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
October 21, 2021

There were two TV arts programs called Omnibus. One aired in the U.S. from 1952 to 1961 and was sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The point of the 44 episodes was to raise American taste with educational programming. The show aired on Sunday afternoons at 4 p.m. (ET) on CBS and again on ABC that evening. Hosted by Alistair Cooke, the series won more than 65 awards, including eight Emmys and two Peabodys. In the U.K., Omnibus was a British ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Count Basie

Source: Michael Ricci
August 21, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Count Basie's birthday today!

Recording

Dance Along With Basie, 1959

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
April 14, 2021

You won't find one of my favorite Thad Jones albums listed under his name. It's Dance Along With Basie, recorded for Roulette at the tail end of the 1950s. Cut over four sessions during the December holiday season in 1959, the album features mostly mid-tempo, swinging arrangements of standards. They're all strikes and perfect for a twirl around the dance floor. Despite the updated swing of Basie's New Testament band of the 1950s, the band was always first and foremost ...
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Video / DVD

Basie and Ella Docs

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 1, 2020

There are dozens of documentaries on jazz but precious few about the private lives of great jazz musicians. Eagle Vision recently released two—Count Basie: Through His Own Eyes and Ella Fitzgerald: Just One Of Those Things. In both cases, the use of footage, still images and interview subjects are compelling and the music is rich. While a bulk of the material in the films covers familiar ground, you'll likely discover a few things about these artists' private lives you may ...
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