Many times during my preparation for a post in Weekly Music Commentary I reflect on my life as a child and young adult. With the content of my blog centered around music, I am led to thoughts about my father. There are many regular readers of this blog, and several close friends who know that my father was a jazz musician. He was a tremendous influence for everything I have endeavored musically. This very much includes Weekly Music Commentary. For certain, this week is one that memories of my father are prevalent. That’s because this week I chose to feature the great Jazz pianist, composer and bandleader Count Basie.
My memories of the music of Count Basie starts possibly around the age of seven or eight, long before I started to actually play or formally study music. His music, and many other jazz artists, was at the forefront of the music played in my house as a child. I often wonder now if my father purposefully exposed me to jazz, realizing that one day I would play and study jazz music. Perhaps he was just a musician parent exposing me to the music he loved. Regardless, I listened to a lot of jazz music as a child. I not only listened to jazz, my father made sure I knew about the artists themselves. Yes, those conversations indirectly led me to music blogging.
Even though I would listen to a great deal of Count Basie big band music while young, I gradually started to listen to popular music of this time. Motown acts like the Jackson Five dominated my listening. My father never discouraged my taste in music, he was glad I was listening to music of any kind. However, right before my teen years I started to formally study music, and things changed for me. Of course, I still listened to much of the popular music of the day, but the jazz of artists like Count Basie made more sense. I was developing an appreciation for instrumental music. Now, years later I’m writing this post and hoping that young musicians might gain the same appreciation for Count Basie that I developed as a youth.
William James Basie was born to Lillian and Harvey Lee Basie in Red Bank, New Jersey August 21, 1904. His father worked as a coachman and caretaker for a wealthy judge. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several wealthy families in the area. Both of his parents had some type of musical background. His father played the mellophone, and his mother played the piano; in fact, she gave Basie his first piano lessons.
The mellophone is a three-valved brass instrument pitched in the key of F or E♭. It has a conical bore, like that of the euphonium and flugelhorn. The mellophone is used as the middle-voiced brass instrument in marching bands and drum and bugle corps in place of French horns, and can also be used to play French horn parts in concert bands and orchestras.
The music career of Count Basie can be traced back to his teen years. He developed into a natural piano player, but wanted to play the drums. He was discouraged from the drums by friend Sonny Greer. Many might know that name because he was drummer for Duke Ellington’s band in the early years. Basie switched to piano exclusively. Greer and Basie played together in venues until Greer set out on his professional career. By then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardson’s “Kings of Syncopation”. When not playing a gig, he hung out at the local pool hall with other musicians, where he picked up on upcoming play dates and gossip. He got some jobs in Asbury Park at the Jersey Shore, and played at the Hong Kong Inn until a better player took his place.
Around 1920, Count Basie moved to Harlem which was one of the hotbeds of jazz musicians at the time. According to my father it was a move that brought Basie into contact with a variety of other artists at the time. Of course he already knew Sonny Greer, but also Willie “The Lion” Smith and James P. Johnson. From there Basie began to tour with several acts that brought him closer to many more jazz greats. Among them was the great Louis Armstrong.
Back in Harlem in 1925, Basie gained his first steady job at Leroy’s, a place known for its piano players and its “cutting contests.” The place catered to “uptown celebrities,” and typically the band winged every number without sheet music using “head arrangements.” He met Fats Waller, who was playing organ at the Lincoln Theater accompanying silent movies, and Waller taught him how to play that instrument.
In 1929, Basie became the pianist with the Bennie Moten band based in Kansas City, inspired by Moten’s ambition to raise his band to the level of Duke Ellington’s or Fletcher Henderson’s. Some years later, when the band voted Moten out, Basie took over for several months, calling the group “Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms.”When his own band folded, he rejoined Moten with a newly re-organized band. A year later, Basie joined Bennie Moten’s band, and played with them until Moten’s death in 1935 from a failed tonsillectomy. When Moten died, the band tried to stay together but couldn’t make a go of it. Basie then formed his own nine-piece band, Barons of Rhythm, with many former Moten members including Walter Page (bass), Freddie Green (guitar), Jo Jones (drums), Lester Young (tenor saxophone) and Jimmy Rushing (vocals). The band played at the Reno Club and sometimes were broadcast on local radio. Late one night with time to fill, the band started improvising. Basie liked the results and named the piece “One O’Clock Jump.” According to Basie, “we hit it with the rhythm section and went into the riffs, and the riffs just stuck. We set the thing up front in D-flat, and then we just went on playing in F.” It became his signature tune.
At the end of 1936, Basie and his band, now billed as “Count Basie and His Barons of Rhythm,” moved from Kansas City to Chicago, where they honed their repertoire at a long engagement at the Grand Terrace Ballroom. Right from the start, Basie’s band was noted for its rhythm section. Another Basie innovation was the use of two tenor saxophone players; at the time, most bands had just one. When Young complained of Herschel Evans’ vibrato, Basie placed them on either side of the alto players, and soon had the tenor players engaged in “duels”. Many other bands later adapted the split tenor arrangement.
This was the start of the successful run for Count Basie’s Orchestra. They would now become innovators among jazz bands of the day. The big band era was booming at this time. Even though World War II seemed to mark the end of the big band era at the time, Count Basie was right in the forefront with his innovation, adapting to the times with smaller groups at times, reforming the 16-piece orchestra in 1952 to a receptive audience.
When I finally started college in the 1980’s, Basie’s big band left a mark on the education of young jazz artists. In fact, what I found was that the large top jazz ensemble of my school would be the ultimate place for any horn player. Colleges across the country had the same structure which continues down until today.
Interestingly, as I made my way to my college jazz ensemble, the band played a lot of Basie blues standards arranged by longtime trumpet player Thad Jones and others. My father was quite proud of my accomplishments at the time. We not only spoke about some of the musicians that played with Basie’s orchestra, but also the music itself. Yes, our conversations reached a new level musically at that time. I guess he and I can give credit to Count Basie for that as well.
After my college experience, my hope is that every musician might have an opportunity to perform in a big jazz band. I learned so much about the relationship of the rhythm section with each other, and the rest of the band. Mostly, I learned to listen to other members in the band. Of course, that might sound simplistic, but jazz orchestra’s must hear each other and learn to perform together. That was the secret to the Count Basie sound. Why do they sound so tight?, I would ask my father. The answer: individual members learned to work together to form a unified sound. Easier said than done. That’s part of the reason Count Basie remains a legend – years after his death.