Not too happy with this one. Ghost written, but supposedly in Basie's own words, it too often descends to repeating what can be found in recorded or written sources, while the Count candidly admits "I don't really remember." So, too many passages read like this: "We began our tour of Europe in London on the third of October and spent the rest of the month hopping to The Hague, Paris, Brussels, Berghausen, Munich, Frankfurt, Helsinki, Stockholm, Milano, Koln, Hamburg, Berlin, Nancy, Antwerp, Zurich, Geneva, arriving back in Great Britain in time for Edinburgh, Scotland and a few days off in London before a four-night gig in Ronnie Scott's wonderful place."
Perhaps the best things are the anecdotes, for example this about the 1938 Joe Louis-Max Schmelling fight:
"John Hammond took me along as his guest, and he had ringside tickets. So what happens? We're getting settled in our seats just as the fight is about to begin, and I dropped my goddamn straw hat and it's rolling about down by my feet and I'm trying to pick it up. I'm bending down there looking for my hat so I can settle back in my seat and watch Joe take that cat apart, and everybody started jumping to their feet, hollering, and I looked up and the goddamn fight was all over."
And this about Billy Eckstine: "Whenever we are working together on the same bill somewhere, he is always subject to go out and introduce my set by telling the audience some joke about me, such as that I've been using that three-note tag phrase at the end of "One O'Clock Jump" ever since I first played it as an amen to the blessing for the Last Supper."
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