Count Basie 100th

[mmilovan]

"PARIS -- This year is the double anniversary of Count Basie's birth

-- Aug. 21, 1904 -- and death -- April 26, 1984. Although there are

concerts dedicated to the memories of Fats Waller (also his 100th

birthday), Edith Piaf and Glenn Miller, the list of more than 100

important summer jazz festivals in Europe and the United States in

Down Beat magazine does not include one major testimonial to Basie.

This is incorrect. The Ascona Traditional Jazz Festival in Ascona,

Switzerland is honoring the centenaries of Basie, Fats Waller, and Coleman Hawkins from June 25 to July 4."

And, of course, Columbia already did everything for this occasion, right?

Sad...

Shame...

Pity...

Edited May 6, 2004 by mmilovan

[mmilovan]

Full article:

"Footpatting with Count Basie

by Mike Zwerin

International Herald Tribune, May 5, 2004

PARIS -- This year is the double anniversary of Count Basie's birth

-- Aug. 21, 1904 -- and death -- April 26, 1984. Although there are

concerts dedicated to the memories of Fats Waller (also his 100th

birthday), Edith Piaf and Glenn Miller, the list of more than 100

important summer jazz festivals in Europe and the United States in

Down Beat magazine does not include one major testimonial to Basie.

Record companies have not announced any memorial boxed-set reissues,

and when asked about special recording plans, Bill Hughes, the leader

of the Count Basie Orchestra, which will appear at the Lionel Hampton

Room of the Miridien Etoile in Paris from May 10 to 12 and is touring

Southeast Asia later in the year, said: "We may have a recording date

in Malaysia."

Such peripheral appreciation belies the importance of the big band to

the history of 20th-century music, as well as Basie's founding-father

role. There is as much musical and cultural relevance on a Count

Basie recording, such as the 1958 "Chairman of the Board" (Roulette),

as on a recording of a Beethoven symphony. Not more, not instead of

-- as much.

The big jazz band was a 20th-century outgrowth of the symphony

orchestra made possible to a large degree by Adolphe Sax's invention

of the saxophone family -- instruments that were easier to learn,

cheaper to buy and projected further than clarinets, oboes and flutes.

Many black instrumentalists did not read music in the early 20th

century. The first black big bands were a collection of musicians

inventing riffs, putting them together and remembering them. Their

lack of reading helped them to hear better. Swing, the creation of a

groove, the African contribution, came first. Basie called

it "footpatting."

White musicians could read but they couldn't swing. Black musicians

could swing but they played out of tune (an element that would come

to be called funk). Such discriminations were certainly

oversimplifications, but they were not totally inaccurate in the

early days. With more education and the gradual integration of the

bands of Benny Goodman, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, Charlie Barnet and

Basie himself, it became harder to tell the difference.

Duke Ellington was a case apart. He cast his musicians to play

themselves rather than their instruments. His orchestra was his

instrument. In addition, he was a composer and Basie wasn't and the

dapper Duke looked sexier than the pudgy Count. Either way, Ellington

seems to be better wearing the test of time.

But Basie's band stood above the other so-called "riff bands" of the

1930s thanks to his minimal piano and to his principal soloist,

Lester Young, the "Mozart of the tenor saxophone." "Taxi War Dance,"

for example, starts with Young's floating, lyrical, still undated

improvisation, and then there are riffs and more solos and more riffs

and Young takes it out. There's no "tune." It was as much Young's

band as Basie's.

After Young left in the 1940s, he could afford only smaller groups

and he was fading away until the 1950s, when he formed a subtle and

soulful wind machine that put to rest the myth that it was not

possible to play in tune and swing at the same time; as well as the

myth that black bands could not play pianissimo. And for that matter,

the myth that pianissimo was not commercial.

Basie's guitarist Freddie Green, who knew only how to play

pianissimo, was leading the Basie band from the middle. Although he

never soloed, he was the power behind the throne of a bandleader

known as "the little man who isn't there." Although it was the

foundation, the listener felt his rhythm guitar but did not really

hear it. You were not supposed to hear it. He would leave out half

the notes of the chord to keep you from hearing it. It could sound as

if there were two cellos walking with the bass. A delicate footpat.

Once, after Green told a new drummer to play something one way and

Basie told him another, the drummer asked which of them was actually

the leader. Without hesitation, Basie pointed to Green. It was also,

to a large degree, the band of arrangers such as Ernie Wilkins, Thad

Jones and Frank Foster, who knew how to use dynamics with

sophistication. Neil Hefti's laid-back "Li'l Darlin'" was a

commercial hit; as was the shouting "April in Paris." The

album "Frank Sinatra at the Sands" (Reprise) accompanied by Basie

playing Quincy Jones's arrangements in Las Vegas in 1966 was a

marriage of people born to make music together and is a classic.

In a club, Basie would start a set with that minimal medium-tempo

strum he was famous for while the audience went on talking and

clanking their glasses, barely aware that the music had begun. Until

a sudden fortissimo tutti chord in their faces blew their ears back.

Then the audience would laugh and, after an instant drop back to

pianissimo, applaud. A pianissimo being applauded is a miracle that

deserves to be recalled."

[PHILLYQ]

Thanks for posting that piece- it's always great to see a master appreciated by SOMEBODY. A shame that Basie's centennial is not more widely celebrated- his music defines swing in a muscular yet relaxed manner.

[John L]

What would jazz be without Count Basie?

Thank you for this thread, Milan. 100 years! We HAVE to celebrate. We have to do something.

[LAL]

I'm going to my first ever jazz live performance/concert, next month, and the performers will be the Count Basie Orchestra! Can't wait for that one!

[Jerry]

Listening to and enjoying the impulse album: Count Basie and the Kansas City 7.

I really love Freddie Green. Too bad you can't always hear him clearly.

[PHILLYQ]

I'm playing 'The Complete Atomic Basie', with arrangements by Neal Hefti, gloriously swinging. Thank you, Count.

[BruceH]

That old Decca double-album; that's the one for me.

[mmilovan]

We have to do something.

Two things come to my mind:

1) Website

2) (web based) Discography/sessionography

Edited May 6, 2004 by mmilovan

[EKE BBB]

We have to do something.

Two things come to my mind:

1) Website

2) (web based) Discography/sessionography

With the ammount of Basie material they own, some members could work on this. And I´m not looking at anybody...

[Chrome]

As alluded to in the Zwerin article (thanks for posting it mmilovan!), I think it comes down to, unfairly, a mainstream perception of Duke = classy, high-brow, intellectual vs. Count = down-to-earth, low-brow, simple.

Plus, another "let's face it," there is/was probably an element of racism involved. I would bet for a lot of the mainstream public, especially in decades past, Ellington was more palatable to whites than Basie.

For me, I usually prefer Basie.

[PHILLYQ]

As alluded to in the Zwerin article (thanks for posting it mmilovan!), I think it comes down to, unfairly, a mainstream perception of Duke = classy, high-brow, intellectual vs. Count = down-to-earth, low-brow, simple.

Plus, another "let's face it," there is/was probably an element of racism involved. I would bet for a lot of the mainstream public, especially in decades past, Ellington was more palatable to whites than Basie.

For me, I usually prefer Basie.

[EKE BBB]

For me, I usually prefer Basie.

Why to choose? Love them both!

[John L]

As alluded to in the Zwerin article (thanks for posting it mmilovan!), I think it comes down to, unfairly, a mainstream perception of Duke = classy, high-brow, intellectual vs. Count = down-to-earth, low-brow, simple.

Plus, another "let's face it," there is/was probably an element of racism involved. I would bet for a lot of the mainstream public, especially in decades past, Ellington was more palatable to whites than Basie.

For me, I usually prefer Basie.

A related point:

One interesting message of Ted Gioia's excellent book West Coast Jazz is, ironically, how influential Count Basie was on the so-called "cool jazz" artists in L.A. in the 1950s. Intuitively, one would think that Ellington would be the greater influence. But Gioia's book gives the opposite impression.

[catesta]

I love the Basie sound.

[BruceH]

For me, I usually prefer Basie.

Why to choose? Love them both!

Indeed!! YES (and amen) to that!

[neveronfriday]

Join up ... "Doing something about it."

Cheers!

[tjluke68]

There is the Red Bank, NJ Jazz & Blues Festival in June, which is having some bands perform Basie tunes. I believe the festival wares (posters, shirts, etc) all have Basie's likeness on it. I emailed them a few weeks ago and said THEY BETTER BE DOING SOMETHING TO COMMEMORATE HIS 100th.

Here's what I got:

Tom:

There are a number of activities at the Festival this year (as well as

a big

event at

Count Basie Theatre in town later in the summer) to celebrate Count

Basie's

birthday. A number of the performers will be playing Count Basie

tunes

as a tribute (indicated on the schedule at

http://www.redbankfestival.com/ent_schedule.html).

See you at the Festival!

So some good news in his hometown - 'BOUT TIME!!!