Review of Basie Columbia Columbia Box

[clandy44]

This review from today's WSJ makes an interesting point about the relationship of Basie's music in the 30s to the other arts. As anyone who has this box will confirm, it is over the top in sound and quality.

The Streamliner

Swing of Count Basie

By JOHN MCDONOUGH

In his recent book, "Jazz Modernism," Alfred Appel, professor emeritus at Northwestern University, broke rare new ground in jazz writing by linking Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller and other jazz players to Matisse, Joyce and other icons of the modern high-art canon. He argued without a speck of condescension that jazz, painting, literature and other arts actually did talk to each other, even if subliminally, through the medium of modernism.

Upon spending several lively hours with "Count Basie and His Orchestra: The Columbia Years -- America's #1 Band!" a new four-CD collection from Columbia/Legacy covering the band's formative years from 1936 to 1951, I find myself persuaded that Mr. Appel is on to something and that to view Basie's music only within the constraints of jazz is to miss the range of his reach. His name not only belongs alongside the likes of Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, as you would expect, but also the pioneers who interpreted the technology of the machine into visual arts and design in the 1930s -- men such as Henry Dreyfuss, Norman Bel Geddes and Frank Lloyd Wright.

If economics answers to an all-pervading "invisible hand," surely the arts must have a similar force channeling the buzz from music, art, industrial design, architecture, etc. into some cohesive and unified stream. Call it common sensibility if you like, or zeitgeist, or the spirit of the times. Only in the perspective of time does it ultimately become clear.

COUNT BASIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA: THE COLUMBIA YEARS -- AMERICA'S #1 BAND!

Columbia/Legacy $44.98

There are 90 selections in the Basie package, 22 of them from live radio broadcasts. Thirty are by Basie small groups; the rest by the full orchestra. Nearly all remind us that in the 1930s Basie, his band, piano, and particularly his rhythm section rewrote the most fundamental laws of motion in jazz. And therein lies the link, because few things dominated the spirit of the late '30s more than the larger wonders of motion, speed and the new aerodynamic shapes that became expressions of a futuristic and optimistic modernism.

Count Basie materialized, as if by some invisible hand, at almost precisely the moment when streamlining reached a critical mass in breakthrough designs and public fascination. In one brief 18-month period from 1934 to 1936, America saw its first diesel streamliners, Raymond Loewy's Hupmobile, the Chrysler Airflow, the smooth metallic shrouds that transformed traditional steam engines into futuristic projectiles on wheels, the first production DC-3s, "Flash Gordon," and the statuesque curves of Jean Harlow sheathed in white and silver satin.

In the midst of all this, popular music also took a sudden turn as well -- from a frumpy two-beat angularity lingering from the '20s toward the unbroken propulsion and rhythmic flow of swing. Basie's music was a musical mirror image of the same spirit of modernity that found beauty in sleek designs inspired by the physics of velocity, designs that merged all sub-forms into a continuum of smooth, rounded, transitional lines.

Toward the end of disc four there is a remarkable Basie version of "I Got Rhythm" that perfectly illustrates this. As the band retires after a chorus, tenor saxophonist Lester Young, the most streamlined and gifted of Basie's great soloists, glides in skimming like a stone across a sustained F for over four measures, capping the sprint with an exclamatory B-flat. It's more striking for its sheer aerodynamic contour than any content -- that, and the fact that a decade earlier Louis Armstrong might have ridden that F by hammering out a string of staccato quarter notes while bumping along on a two-cylinder rhythm section. Jazz lurched into the '30s as a boxy jalopy. It exited, largely under Basie's leadership, as a streamliner.

Another Basie soloist worth noting is Dickie Wells. Using the trombone's sliding intonations, he found ingenious ways to disobey the formalities of tempo with oblique swerves and eccentric phrasings. Outside the Basie context, they could sound awkward. But they make perfect sense here. On one small band tune, "Dickie's Dream" on disc one, Wells drifts leisurely in on top of Young, in a flowing, almost imperceptible transition of overlapping C's across four measures. The transition is as seamless as a soap bubble, all disjunction between the two camouflaged in the gentle, curved lines of a Saarinen or Eames silhouette set to music.

If anyone personified and objectified the subtle sweep of Basie's understated swing, it was Jo Jones, drummer on all but a handful of these performances (and sometimes so understated as to be barely audible). It was Jones who forged his mastery of the high-hat cymbal into a fragile but steely force that breathed with the natural elegance of a gull's wings. It was said that he "played like the wind," a perfect metaphor for the ideals of streamlining, which derived in part from such organic models as birds in flight.

Basie never saw his music in this way, of course. I doubt if he'd ever heard of Raymond Loewy or contemplated the interconnectedness of the arts. It wasn't that he resisted intellectualizing his music. He was simply incapable of it.

About 30 years ago, I interviewed him. I took the occasion very seriously, intent on digging into the roots of his innovations and getting insights from the man himself on his creative logic. What I got instead were looks of confusion, a lot of hemming and hawing, and a strong sense that he'd rather be wasting his money at the race track than his time with me. He didn't understand what I was after because he couldn't see it in his own work. Ten years later, a 400-page autobiography written with Albert Murray contained no more insight than my interview.

I finally understood that Basie's most original music, much of which is included in the Columbia/Legacy set, was a completely natural and unpremeditated reaction to unique circumstances and opportunity. That is the only way, perhaps, in which the "invisible hand" of sensibility can manifest itself free of the distortions of unnecessary knowledge -- something best left to those of us who imbibe our arts from the galleries with intent to commit criticism.

[John L]

Basie unable to rise to McDonough's intellectual level in the discussion of his own music?

Basie the naive primitive being guided by the "invisible hand" to create "unpremeditated" music "free of the distortions of unnecessary knowledge?"

Poor McDonough. He is so burdened by intellectual superiority and "unnecessary knowledge" that he mistakenly distracted Basie from time could have spent "wasting his money at the race track" in a futile attempt to carry on a high level discussion of music.

WHAT A TOTAL CROCK OF SHIT

But this is just par for the course for Mr. McDonough.

Edited December 17, 2003 by John L

[ghost of miles]

I'm no fan of McDonough either. His observations here do seem to play into very old-school (as in 1930s) jazz critic tendencies.

The box OTOH is indeed great. Just picked up a couple of Grammy nominations, too, including one for Loren Schoenberg's liner notes (which are illuminating, as usual).

[chris]

There's some discussion of the Appel book referred to going on in the Jazz in Print forum. Let's just say there isn't universal agreement, peace, and love regarding this volume ...

[clandy44]

I didn't pay much attention to the comments made about Basie not being able to explain his music-I can almost picture Basie, in a kindly but mischievous way, deciding to stonewall this dude, whose overly earnest manner probably brought bad karma into the room. But, what Page, Jones, Green and Basie did with the rhythm section does make for some thoughtful comparisons to other artistic and industrial developments in the 1930s.

[mmilovan]

The box OTOH is indeed great.  Just picked up a couple of Grammy nominations, too, including one for Loren Schoenberg's liner notes (which are illuminating, as usual).

The box is probably great for its good sound. And for novice Basie's listener, it is probably something special.

But for some of us, who expects, dreams, and think about complete Columbias it is not winner. I, myself, am in wait for that unique box for almost 13-15 years.

And with no hope for change, because THIS set got all the nominations and prizes.

"And - that's all folks. We (Columbia) did, what we did, what else to do....? What would you like, COMPLEEEEETE Basie? C'mon, who will buy that?"

Edited December 17, 2003 by mmilovan

[John L]

I hear you, Milan.

The sound quality is great. The liner notes are excellent.

But the box set could have been so much more. A lot of the best is missing. A few complete small group dates from the 1950s and a vastly incomplete record of the 1939-1940 band.

[couw]

3 people with Prez in the avatar, cool beans!

[Dmitry]

Looks like McDonough OD'ed on Andre Hodeir.

It's not easy to write boring on Basie. But obviously it's possible!

[mmilovan]

3 people with Prez in the avatar, cool beans!

I think pryan have Pres in his avatar too!

[pryan]

3 people with Prez in the avatar, cool beans!

I think pryan have Pres in his avatar too!

I did at one point but have since been alternating avatars.

[Lazaro Vega]

The "invisible hand" is a crock, first and foremost. The highway system, the school system, NASA, Haliberton in Iraq: none of that was determined or implemented by competition and then weeded out, it was all helped along by the government, especially back when the government was more about the people of America than corporate welfare.

McDonough is grinding an ax on Basie's back. When that's the way the article begins, its a red flag for reading the eventual criticism. Essentially using the lead to spell out an agenda that the music will now support.

Some ideas which may in fact deal with his notion of "the invisible hand" in cultural expression are from the realm of psychology, particularly Jung's concepts of archetypes, which make for interesting application to all kinds of human behavior, yet have nothing to do with the inhuman, indifferent efficiencies of unhindered capitalism.

Edited January 6, 2004 by Lazaro Vega

[Tjazz]

This box set is now available thru BMG club. B)

[Brownian Motion]

But for some of us, who expects, dreams, and think about complete Columbias it is not winner. I, myself, am in wait for that unique box for almost 13-15 years.

I strongly recommend the Basie box that Past Perfect put out a couple of years ago. I picked one up on Ebay for 40.00 plus shipping--not a bad price for a 10 CD set. It contains about everything the Basie band recorded for Columbia and RCA in the 30s and 40s, including some stuff you may only listen to once or twice. None of the Decca sides from the 30s are included. No alternate takes. Sound quality is better than average.