The Count Basie Orchestra - Basically Basie (Studio Dates 1937-1945)

Bill Basie was born in 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey. He'd had some piano tuition when, a teenager, he met Fats Waller. The same age as Basie, Fats was already known as a titan of stride piano. Under Waller's tutelage young Basie's progress was sufficient for him to deputize for Fats when gigs clashed. Soon Basie was a Rent Party regular. He joined a vaudeville troupe. In 1927, in Kansas City, illness forced Basie to quit. He decided to stay and joined Walter Page's Blue Devils. By 1930 Basie was with Bennie Moten, with whom he made his earliest recordings - his solos on the sizzling Toby and Lafayette show Fats' influence. He sang on Moten's, Somebody Stole My Gal - which Jimmy Rushing would later record with the Basie Orchestra. Basie had left the Moten band, when in April 1935, the leader died. Basie assumed leadership and found a residency at The Reno Club. Tenorman Lester Young joined Basie in 1936. Having worked from childhood in his father's band, Young spent his teens in the South West, with 'King' Oliver, then with the bands of Art Bronson, Andy Kirk and George E. Lee. He then replaced Coleman Hawkins in Fletcher Henderson's band. His light, airy tone did not find favour there, so joining Basie was an easy call. The Basie personnel included trumpeter Carl 'Tatti' Smith and Joe Keyes. Both Texas born, Dan Minor and Eddie Durham were on trombone. With bassist Walter Page and drummer Jesse Price, this was substantially the band heard on radio by jazz fanatic, John Hammond, who arranged for the Orchestra to work its way to New York. Hammond found that Basie's contract with Decca was pretty ungenerous. He organised a session at Vocalion, using a small group from the orchestra. Those performances are included here. Count Basie once said: ...a band can really swing when it swings easy. When it can play along like...cutting butter. He remembered his musicians as ...a great bunch... any success we had is due entirely to the grand spirit among us.