Count Basie

Musician

• Born: August 21, 1904
• Birthplace: Red Bank, New Jersey
• Died: April 26, 1984
• Place of death: Hollywood, Florida

Jazz musician

Basie led one of the most prominent jazz bands of the big band era and helped establish and popularize swing music during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Leading his orchestra from the piano, Basie developed an economical style that influenced numerous piano players.

Areas of achievement: Entertainment: vaudeville; Music: bandleading; Music: jazz; Music: swing; Radio and television

Early Life

William James Basie (BAY-see) was born on August 21, 1904, in Red Bank, New Jersey, to Lillian Ann Childs and Harvey Lee Basie. Basie received his first piano lessons from his mother and later studied with Fats Waller, a New York stride pianist, who also taught Basie how to play the organ. Basie performed with various groups in New York City from 1923 to 1926 and also toured with several vaudeville acts. When one of the vaudeville troupes with which Basie was touring disbanded in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1927, Basie remained in the city working as a silent-film accompanist.

During the late 1920’s and 1930’s, Basie performed with a number of bands that toured throughout the Midwest and Southwest. He first served as the pianist for Walter Page’s Blue Devils from 1928 to 1929 and joined Benny Moten’s orchestra in 1929 as a pianist and arranger. Aside from a period in 1933-1934 when Basie led a small contingent of musicians from Moten’s group, he remained with the Benny Moten Orchestra until Moten’s death in 1935. Many of the musicians Basie performed with during this time, such as Walter Page on bass, Lester Young on tenor saxophone, and Jo Jones on drums, provided the core for Basie’s own group.

Life’s Work

After Moten’s death, Basie founded his own group of nine musicians known as the Barons of Rhythm and began an extended engagement at the Reno Club in Kansas City. Local radio broadcasts from the club drew the attention of record producer John H. Hammond and led to an eventual record deal. The group soon expanded to fourteen members and became known as the Count Basie Orchestra. In November of 1936, the band left Kansas City and toured to Chicago and New York City, which became the band’s home base.

During the late 1930’s, the popularity of the Count Basie Orchestra quickly grew amid a number of hit recordings, radio broadcasts, tours, and residences at notable New York venues. Released during this time were a number of commercially successful songs such as “One o’Clock Jump” (1937) and “Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (1938), both written by Basie himself. Trombonist Eddie Durham served as another arranger, but many of the group’s songs were head arrangements, pieces generated during rehearsal and later transcribed. Basie preferred singers with strong blues leanings, and the group appeared with a number of the top singers of the day, including Billie Holiday, Helen Hulmes, and Jimmy Rushing, at venues such as the Apollo Theater.

The fame of the Count Basie Orchestra grew further after a series of concerts at the Famous Door in New York City from July to November of 1938 were broadcast nationally on CBS radio stations. In addition to touring in the East and Midwest, the Count Basie Orchestra conducted its first major cross-country tour in 1939, including its first visit to the West Coast. During the mid-1940’s, the band appeared in a number of films, including the musicals Reveille with Beverly (1943) and Stage Door Canteen (1943).

After the decline of big band jazz in the mid-1940’s, Basie disbanded his orchestra in 1950 and led smaller groups before returning to the big band format in 1952. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, in addition to numerous recording sessions and domestic tours, the group toured Europe for the first time in 1954 and Japan in 1963. The band also became one of the preeminent jazz bands for accompanying vocalists, recording albums with Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennett. The Count Basie Orchestra achieved some of its largest commercial successes since the swing era in 1955 with the singles “Every Day (I Have the Blues)” with vocalist Joe Williams and an instrumental recording of “April in Paris,” which Basie later played in the 1974 film Blazing Saddles. During this period, Basie emphasized written arrangements more than head arrangements, so the sound of the band changed slightly with each new arranger. In general, the rhythm section maintained its relaxed, yet precise, swinging style, although Basie choose soloists who displayed more modern influences.

Although his health rapidly declined during the mid-1970’s, Basie remained active. In 1976, Basie suffered a heart attack, but he returned to performing a few months later. During the last years of his life, he occasionally performed from a wheelchair. Although his role was much reduced, Basie continued to lead the group until his death from pancreatic cancer on April 26, 1984, in Hollywood, Florida. After Basie’s death, his group continued under the leadership of former Basie band members Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Grover Mitchell, and Bill Hughes.

Significance

Although he was also innovative as a pianist, Basie’s largest contributions to music came as the bandleader of the Count Basie Orchestra. His group was one of the few African American bands to achieve widespread mainstream success in the pre-World War II era. The Count Basie Orchestra helped make swing music the most popular style of music in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and the band was able to remain successful for several decades afterward. The group’s success was due in no small part to the shrewd management of Basie: his ability to identify and retain talented soloists, his choice of first-rate jazz arrangements, and his willingness to feature other artists in his group more than himself. Basie himself became an ambassador of jazz, and his band became a jazz institution. As a pianist, Basie utilized a minimalist, blues-influenced style that allowed him to lead his band from the piano and occasionally contribute short solos. His spare, economic piano style later influenced bebop and cool jazz musicians such as John Lewis.

Bibliography

Basie, Count, and Albert Murray. Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie. New York: Da Capo Press, 2002. Published posthumously, Basie’s autobiography provides personal stories drawn from the entirety of his career.

Dance, Stanley. The World of Count Basie. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1980. Consists of interviews conducted by the author with Basie, his band members, and numerous others associated with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Horricks, Raymond. Count Basie and His Orchestra: Its Music and Its Musicians. New York: Citadel Press, 1957. One of the earliest books written on Basie, it examines him as both a pianist and a bandleader and includes biographies of the musicians in his band.

Sheridan, Chris. Count Basie: A Bio-Discography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. Contains numerous short biographical accounts organized around Basie’s vast recordings.

Vail, Ken. Count Basie: Swingin’ the Blues, 1936-1950. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2003. Chronologically follows Basie’s rise to prominence through his performances, recording sessions, and film appearances.