Count Basie revolutionize the big band sound in the history of jazz. The Count Basie Orchestra is an institution still toady.
Life
William “Count” Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey on August 21, 1904. At a very young age his mother, a pianist herself, gave William his first piano lessons. He was never much of a student, so Basie spent much of his time at a local theater called the Palace Theater. He was able to have free attendance to all the performances because he would do occasional chores around the theater. One night at a performance the pianist didn’t show, and Basie sat in with the group, learning the music by ear. From then on he frequently performed at the theater with groups, and also played for silent movies. Though he played the piano, Basie wanted even more to play the drums. He lived in the same community as Sonny Greer, who went on to be Duke Ellington’s drummer. Discouraged by Sonny’s remarkable talent Basie switched to playing piano solely when he was fifteen. When he made the switch he and Sonny played with each other frequently and dances, resorts, weddings, and any other gigs they could get a hold of.
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Count Basie and Bob Crosby. 1941 Washington DC.
Basie moved to Harlem in 1924. It was not long until he started playing with musicians in the jazz scene there like James Johnson and Willie Smith. He also ran into Sonny again, who was now the drummer for one of Ellington’s earliest groups called the Washingtonians. In 1925 Basie met Fats Waller after getting his first steady gig at a club called Leroy’s, which catered to celebrities. He played piano with a band that was known for winging almost every song they played with no music. Basie also had informal training with Waller for a short while. Along with performing at Leroy’s, Basie toured with several groups between 1925 and 1927. In 1929 he found himself in Kansas City after being stranded there through touring. Basie quickly started playing for silent movies and became a member of the Bennie Moten group. A partnership with Moten, as well as knowing Ellington’s band, inspired Basie to put a band of his own together. Moten and Basie did some dueling piano tours together through Chicago for a short time and with some member changes in Moten’s band he was soon voted out as the bandleader. By this time Basie had gained the nick name “Count.” So for a few months he took the band over calling it “Count Basie and His Cherry Blossoms.” Moten died from complications of surgery in 1935. Count Basie moved his band to Chicago in 1936 and changed its name to “Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm.”
Count Basie’s group was recognized right away for its rhythm section, and its use of two tenor sax players instead of just one, like most groups at the time. In October of 1936 Basie recorded his band in the studio with John Hammond. John said this about the session, “It was the only perfect, completely perfect recording session I’ve ever had anything to do with.” After a year of these recordings circulating, the band was known for Basie’s sparse piano solos, backed by “jumping” beats from the rhythm section. By this time as well in 1936, the band was now known as the Count Basie Orchestra. Up to 1940, the band had recorded international hits like One O’clock Jump, and Jumpin’ At The Woodside, and toured successfully throughout the 40′s with many famous blues and jazz singers of the age. Vocalists like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Basie also added bits of be bop in his arrangements as long as it made sense to him, playing at Birdland with artists like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie.
Due to financial problems in 1950, Basie disbanded and started touring with smaller groups of five or six players. In the late 50′s up until the mid 70′s Basie toured extensively throughout America and overseas with big bands, vocalists, and small groups. In the mid 1970′s serious illness effected Basie’s career and ability to play. He made few appearances in the 80′s, having to play from a wheelchair. Count Basie died in Hollywood, California on April 26, 1984.
Influence
Count Basie is responsible for introducing generations of musicians to the big band. With his orchestra now an institution, it gives younger musicians a chance to learn jazz through one if its purest forms. The band has won over seventeen Grammy awards through the years, and every acclaimed jazz poll in the world at least once. The changes Basie made to the big band changed the way everyone else did it, like using two tenor saxophones was a revelation to most big bands because the sound of the saxophones became extraordinarily solid. The band also helped several vocalists to the main stage and into the spotlight like Billy Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. Besides the big band’s reach around the world, Basie himself as a jazz pianist has inspired many performers today.
Style & Technique
Count Basie had one of the most recognizable playing styles out of all the pianists of his day, with a sound all his own. That style was characterized by the space he would use in his playing, and a delicate touch with a stern sound. His solos are famous for there space and melodic lines, some of it was humerus because Basie always played with a light heart. He rarely ever played out, or used tensions that were out of the chord being played. Basie’s playing was so heavily rooted in the blues, unlike other pianists like Oscar Peterson, who he performed with many times through the years. Though he was from New Jersey his sound was influenced so much by the Kansas City Stomp sound that jazz was embracing at the time he was coming into his playing, he never lost that blues that he had grown up with. Having not taken much training when he was younger, a lot of Basie’s technique was unconventional, which would explain much of the way he would phrase his playing, but nevertheless he was a natural at learning music by ear.
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