Count Basie

One O’Clock Jump LIVE 1987 – Count Basie Orchestra in Full Swing   

                                            Count Basie

   

Count Basie was born as William James Basie on August 21, 1904, in Red Bank, New Jersey. He became a legendary American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, his minimalist piano style, and others.

William Basie was born at 229 Mechanic Street on August 21, 1904. His father, Harvey Lee Basie, was a coachman and caretaker; his mother, Lillian Childs Basie, was a laundress, taking in washing and ironing. A brother, James, died when William was a young boy. The family always owned a piano, and Lilly Ann paid twenty-five cents per lesson to teach William to play. In addition to helping his parents, William also did chores at Red Bank’s now-defunct Palace Theater. A projectionist taught him to rewind the reels, switch between projectors, and operate the spotlight for the vaudeville shows. On the afternoon the Palace’s house pianist failed to show for work, Basie offered to fill in – but was denied. Nonetheless persistent, the young Basie waited for the film to start, crept into the orchestra pit, and accompanied the film anyway. He was invited back to perform that evening.

Though Basie’s initial intentions were to become a drummer, his ambitions in that direction were forever erased after hearing drummer Sonny Greer from Long Branch. Greer, who later rose to fame as the drummer for the Duke Ellington Orchestra, was so obviously superior to Basie that he made a hasty retreat to the piano. The men became friends and formed a duo.

Decades later, the two would be among fifty-seven musicians photographed on the stoop of a Harlem, brownstone by Art Kane, in a shot to accompany an Esquire magazine article on the “Golden Age of Jazz.” The photograph would later become as famous as the subjects it depicted, as inspiration for the documentary A Great Day in Harlem.

Before he was 20 years old, he toured extensively on the Keith and TOBA vaudeville circuits as a solo pianist, accompanist, and music director for blues singers, dancers, and comedians. This provided an early training that was to prove significant in his later career.

In 1924, Basie moved to New York City. There, he met and was influenced by noted stride pianists James P. Johnson and Fats Waller. Though just a teenager, Basie was touring as a pianist and accompanist on the major vaudeville circuits. It’s believed that his experience in these roles ultimately lead to Basie’s reputation as a bandleader who had no issues with younger musicians taking up the spotlight.

In 1927, a canceled tour left Basie stranded in Kansas City, Missouri. He remained there, eventually joining bassist Walter Page’s Blue Devils, an outfit that also included vocalist Jimmy Rushing and trumpeter Oran “Hot Lips” Page. Each would one day figure prominently in Basie’s own band.

Basie left the Blue Devils early in 1929 to play with other bands in the area, and later that year schemed his way into the top band in the territory, the Bennie Moten band.

Like many bandleaders of the day, Moten ran what was called a “commonwealth band,” with each member of the band having a say in the band’s operations. During one dispute about an upcoming performance, the band voted to oust Moten as its leader and – though he was not one of the instigators – installed Basie as its new leader.

The new band billed itself as Count Basie and his Cherry Blossom Orchestra, marking the first time that “Count” was officially added to his name. Though stories abound at the genesis of his nickname, Basie later recalled it as a tribute to his penchant for slipping off during arranging sessions with Moten. As soon as they got a few good bars down, Basie recalled, he’d slip out, leaving Moten to exclaim, “Where is that no ‘count rascal?”

Though Basie embraced his opportunity to lead a band, he quickly jumped ship to work with Moten’s new band, where he remained until Moten’s unexpected death in 1935. Soon, Basie and saxophonist Buster Smith pieced together their own nine-piece outfit, comprised of former members of the Blue Devils and the Bennie Moten Band. This new collective, Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm, secured a residency at the Reno Club in Kansas City – a stay historians regard as Basie’s biggest career turning point.

Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Dennis Rowland, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.

Basie and his Orchestra appeared in five films, all released within a matter of months in 1943: Hit Parade, Reveille with Beverly, Stage Door Canteen, Top Man, and Crazy House. He also scored a series of Top Ten hits on the pop and R&B charts, including I Didn’t Know About You, Red Bank Blues, Rusty Dusty Blues, Jimmy’s Blues, and Blue Skies. 

In 1950, financial restraints forced Basie to disband the orchestra. For the next two years, he led small bands between six and nine pieces. Basie reorganized the Orchestra in 1952, and this new band was in high demand and toured extensively around the world. (This became known as the “New Testament Band”, while the first Orchestra was the “Old Testament Band.”) They played command performances for kings, queens, and presidents, and issued a large number of recordings both under Basie’s name and as the backing band for various singers, most notably Frank Sinatra.

Some argue Basie made some of his best work during the 1960s and ’70s: Shiny Stocking, L’il Darlin, Corner Pocket, and even a hit single, Everyday I Have the Blues, with Joe Williams. During this period, he also recorded with music greats, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Oscar Peterson.

Basie was a true innovator, leading the band for almost 50 years and recording on over 480 albums. He is credited for creating the use of the two “split” tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and beautifully layering masterful vocalists. Basie was often recognized for his understated yet captivating style of piano playing and his precise, impeccable musical leadership.

Basie earned nine Grammy Awards and made history in 1958 by becoming the first African-American to receive the award. He has had an unprecedented four recordings inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame – One O’Clock Jump (1979), April in Paris (1985), Everyday I Have the Blues (1992), and Lester Leaps In (2005), along with a slew of other awards and honors not only for his music, but for his humanitarianism and philanthropy around the world.

https://njjs.org/celebrating-count-basie-in-his-hometown-2/

https://syncopatedtimes.com/count-basie/

https://countbasie.rutgers.edu/biography/

https://thebasie.org/countbasiebio/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Basie

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Clark Terry - swing and bebop trumpeter

                                           Clark Terry

Clark Virgil Terry Jr.December 14, 1920 – February 21, 2015) was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator. He played with Charlie Barnet (1947), Count Basie (1948–51), Duke Ellington (1951–59), Quincy Jones (1960), and Oscar Peterson (1964–96). He was with The Tonight Show Band on The Tonight Show from 1962 to 1972.

                 Clark Terry Music of Joy Playlist

 His career in jazz spanned more than 70 years, during which he became one of the most recorded jazz musicians, appearing on over 900 recordings. Terry also mentored Quincy Jones, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Pat Metheny, Dianne Reeves, and Terri Lyne Carrington.

Clark Terry’s career in jazz spanned more than seventy years. He was a world-class trumpeter, flugelhornist, educator, composer, writer, trumpet/flugelhorn designer, teacher, and NEA Jazz Master. He performed for eight U.S. Presidents and was a Jazz Ambassador for the State Department tours in the Middle East and Africa. More than fifty jazz festivals featured him at sea and on land on all seven continents. Many were named in his honor.

Clark Terry always played music that was exuberant, swinging, and fun. A brilliant and very distinctive soloist. He gained early experience playing trumpet in the viable St. Louis jazz scene of the early '40s, where he was an inspiration for Miles Davis, and, after performing in a Navy band during World War II, upon his discharge from the Navy in 1945, he found work with Lionel Hampton's band. He rounded out the 1940s playing with bands led by Charlie Barnet, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Charlie Ventura, and George Hudson. He gained a strong reputation playing with the big band of Charlie Barnet, 1947-1948, the orchestra and small groups of Count Basie, 1948-1951, and particularly with Duke Ellington, 1951-1959. Terry, a versatile swing/bop soloist who started specializing in flugelhorn in the mid-'50s, had many features with Ellington, including "Perdido", and started leading his own record dates during that era. He visited Europe with Harold Arlen's unsuccessful Free & Easy show of 1959-1960 and as part of Quincy Jones' Orchestra.

He worked and recorded with artists such as J. J. Johnson, Oscar Peterson, and Ella Fitzgerald, then co-led a quintet with Bob Brookmeyer. Thereafter, he led his own small and large bands, including his Big Bad Band, beginning in 1972. He also became part of Norman Granz's traveling all-stars, Jazz at the Philharmonic.

As a jazz educator, he was one of the earliest active practitioners to take time off from the road to enter the classroom, conducting numerous clinics and jazz camps. This work culminated in his own music school at Teikyo Westmar University in Le Mars, Iowa. Terry was the subject of the 2014 documentary Keep on Keepin’ on about his work mentoring blind piano prodigy Justin Kauflin.

A distinctive stylist, he was also an engaging entertainer, often alternating trumpet and flugelhorn in a solo duel with himself in concerts. He recorded and performed in a wide variety of settings, such as the One-on-One recording of duets with 14 different pianists. Terry received numerous awards and honors, including a Grammy Award (and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010), the French Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a knighthood in Germany, and a star on St. Louis' Walk of Fame.

        Clark Terry Interview by Joe Williams - 5/19/1995 - Clinton, NY Clark Terry's Big Band Workshop If you are a young horn player you will learn a lot from Clark Terry.

https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/clark-terry

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/clark-terry-mn0000133832

https://clarkterry.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Terry

 

Vi Redd

 

                                 Vi Redd

Elvira Louise Redd, September 20, 1928 – February 6 2022, was an American jazz alto saxophone player, vocalist, and educator. She was active from the early 1950s and was known primarily for playing in the blues style. She was highly regarded as an accomplished veteran and performed with Count Basie, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Linda Hopkins, Marian McPartland, and Dizzy Gillespie. 

Vi Redd was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of New Orleans jazz drummer and Clef Club co-founder Alton Redd and Mattie Redd. Her mother played saxophone, although not professionally, and her brother was a percussionist. She was deeply influenced during her formative years by her father, who was one of the leading figures on the Central Avenue jazz scene. Another important musical mentor was her paternal great aunt Alma Hightower, who convinced the 10-year-old Redd to switch from piano to saxophone. During junior high school, Redd played alto saxophone in a band with Melba Liston and Dexter Gordon.

                                 Vi Redd Jazz Playlist

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Vi began singing in church when she was five years old, after studying piano for a while, and when she was in high school, she went on to blow a C Melody saxophone that her great-aunt Alma Hightower had given when she was 10.

Vi Redd had much in common with trombonist Melba Liston. Both played a horn, in Vi’s case, alto saxophone and occasionally soprano saxophone; both were Los Angeles girls, and both studied with Mrs. Hightower. Under her tutelage, Vi cut her musical teeth...

When one does research on the career of Vi Redd, the term that recurs more than any other is “under-recorded”. How true that is. Though Ms. Redd has played and toured with artists such as Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Sarah Vaughan, and Max Roach, she has only two albums to her name and a scant four more with other artists.  Notable among these is Now’s The Time, an all-female session led by Marian McPartland in 1977.  Throughout the years, she gigged around the Los Angeles area and supported herself as a schoolteacher between engagements.  She finally received a bit of long-overdue recognition in 2000, when she was honored at “Instrumental Women: Celebrating Women-N-Jazz“, a concert at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

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In a society where women were expected to be discreet and submissive, perhaps it was the sheer volume or the brazen nature of an instrument such as the saxophone that led people to consider it ‘unfeminine’ and dismiss female players. Nevertheless, one saxophonist whose style and ability could not be ignored helped turn the tide on sex discrimination in jazz. In these years, she cultivated a sax style reminiscent of Charlie ‘The Bird’ Parker’s, and sang powerful bluesy melodies alongside her playing. Her bebop influence and reverence for Parker is alluded to in tracks such as ‘I Remember Bird’.

https://www.freshsoundrecords.com/14409-vi-redd-albums

https://www.discogs.com/release/1155487-Vi-Redd-Birdcall?srsltid=AfmBOorWpYaOjgpc8VMmYHXrytRV7fbSbiYiUnN_kckgb6Llugz5_fKQ

https://jazzwomenarchives.wordpress.com/2019/01/16/vi-redd/

https://twssmagazine.com/2020/12/15/vi-redd-the-under-recorded-over-looked-empress-of-jazz/

https://curtjazz.com/2011/10/01/unsung-women-of-jazz-7-vi-redd/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vi_Redd  

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Melba Liston - American trombonist

 

                    Melba Liston - American trombonist

      “The horn has always saved me from any sadness. Anytime I need a lift, the trombone takes care of me. I’m not so good at it as it is to me. The trombone set me up for an arranger, and then when I’m writing, I forget the trombone. But then when things get dull, I go back to the trombone, and it saves me again.” - - -       Melba Liston   

       Melba Liston's playing is sensitive and rich, both relaxed and buoyant. Her compositions and arrangements are creative, beautiful, and interesting, but above all, she swings like crazy! Melba Doretta Liston was an American jazz trombonist, arranger, and composer. Other than those playing in all-female bands, she was the first woman trombonist to play in big bands during the 1940s.

       Although a formidable trombone player, Melba Liston was primarily known for her arrangements, especially working with Randy Weston. Growing up mostly in Los Angeles, some of her first work came during the 1940s with two West Coast masters: bandleader Gerald Wilson and tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon.

Despite the antipathy Melba inspired in some of her peers, she helped the careers of younger singers. She taught for many years at the Conservatorium in Melbourne and looked for a "new Melba". She published a book about her methods, which were based on those of Marchesi.

         In Gordon's small combos, she began to blossom as a trombone soloist, and Gordon wrote a song as a tribute to her, "Mischievous Lady."Through Wilson, Liston met many jazz greats. Dizzy Gillespie was so impressed with her talents that when the Wilson band broke up in 1948, he asked her to join his ensemble. Though many of her male bandmates were reluctant to accept her, she quickly earned their respect once they saw how engaging and complex her arrangements were. "Melba didn't write easily," longtime friend and trumpeter Clora Bryant says.  Despite her obvious talent as a soloist, Liston became an in-demand big band section player, which likely fueled her later work as an arranger. During the 1940s, Liston also worked with the Count Basie band and with Billie Holiday. She joined Dizzy Gillespie's bebop big band in 1950, and again for two of Gillespie's State Department tours in 1956 and 1957, which included her arrangements of "Annie's Dance" and "Stella by Starlight" in performances. She started her own all-woman quintet in 1958, working in New York and Bermuda, before joining Quincy Jones' band in 1959 to play the musical Free and Easy. She stayed in Jones' touring band as one of two female members until 1961.

In the 1950s, Liston began a partnership that she would return to on and off for more than 40 years. From the seminal 1959 recording Little Niles through 1998's Khepera, Liston was the arranger on many of Randy Weston's albums. Her arrangements, with a powerful base of brass and percussion and expressive solo performances, helped shape and embellish Weston's compositions.

       Other affiliations during the 1960s included co-leading a band with trumpeter Clark Terry, writing for the Duke Ellington orchestra, singers Tony Bennett and Eddie Fisher, and the Buffalo Symphony Orchestra. During the 1970s, she worked with youth orchestras in Los Angeles, continuing to write for Basie, Ellington, and singer Abbey Lincoln. Liston also became a staff arranger for the Motown label. Later that decade, she took up residence in Jamaica, where she taught at the University of the West Indies and was director of Popular Music Studies at the Jamaica Institute of Music.

      Born in 1926, Liston first laid eyes on the trombone in grade school; immediately, she said, she knew she wanted one. With encouragement from her family and music teachers, she began to develop her talent in school and local ensembles. One of her high-school friends, alto saxophonist Vi Redd, says that Liston was always musically ahead of her peers. "Melba's just always been an advanced musician," she says. "We had to struggle to keep up with her." Liston led her own groups in the '70s and '80s until a 1985 stroke left her

partially paralyzed. Though she was left unable to play, Weston convinced her to continue writing music. With the help of a computer, she kept producing arrangements for Gillespie and Weston, and Liston wrote rich musical settings up until her death in 1999.

       

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melba_Liston

https://wbssmedia.com/artists/detail/3445

https://jmih.org/event/women-pioneers-of-jazz-celebrating-melba-liston/

https://www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/celebrating-legacy-jazz-legend-melba-liston

https://www.npr.org/2008/07/09/92349036/melba-liston-bones-of-an-arranger

https://www.arts.gov/honors/jazz/melba-liston

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 The Great American Songbook – Nnenna Freelon and the Charleston Jazz Orchestra

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