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Count Basie & His Orchestra: The Collection (CD: Acrobat, 3 CDs)Count Basie & His Orchestra: The Collection (CD: Acrobat, 3 CDs)
William “Count” Basie was one of the most innovative and influential personalities in jazz during the middle decades of the 20th century. Basie’s music transcends the worlds of small group jazz, big band music, swing and R&B, with many future stars of the genre coming to prominence playing with his orchestra. Having honed his skills with Bennie Moten’s band in Kansas City, he formed his own orchestra in 1936 after Moten’s death and after a lengthy engagement in Chicago signed to Decca.

This 3CD set includes his releases for Decca during those years, which laid down a marker as to the talent and style of his bands, and constitute a significant and satisfying body of work. The collection features many of his well-known compositions like One O’Clock Jump, Blue And Sentimental, Blues In The Dark, along with some of the classic standards of the era. A number of the tracks feature vocals by the great singers Jimmy Rushing and Helen Humes, and among the predominantly big band recordings are some by Basie with a trio comprising Fred Green, Walter Page and Jo Jones. Among the other musicians in his line-up were Buck Clayton, Lester Young, Harry Edison and Dickie Wells. (Trapeze Music) 


Price:  £16.99 


Count Basie & Benny Carter: Legendary Radio Broadcasts (CD: Storyville, 2 CDs)
The first 15 minutes of the oldest preserved broadcast from Chatterbox, Pittsburgh, February 10, 1937 are included on this CD featuring Count Basie. Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Walter Page, Jo Jones and vocalist Jimmy Rushing are members of the band. Two other broadcasts are included. CBS American Dances the complete broadcast, New York, July 9, 1938 and also the complete broadcast from Southland, Boston, 1940. Dicky Wells, Harry Edison and Helen Humes are now in the band. CD2 features Benny Carter. After a three-year stay in Europe, Benny Carter Assembled and rehearsed a big band to perform at extended engagements at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. His nightly broadcasts from The Home Of The Happy Feet were recorded on at least ten different occasions. Five numbers, broadcast from the Savoy Ballroom on May 20, 1939, are included on this CD. Three other broadcasts are from Trianon Ballroom in California 1946 and Southern California Ballroom, late 1942 0r early 1943. The third is recorded in NBC Studios, Hollywood 1943. It is a swinging big band and Benny Carter can be heard on alto saxophone, trumpet and clarinet. (Proper Music) 


Price:  £19.99 

Count Basie & Benny Carter: Legendary Radio Broadcasts (CD: Storyville, 2 CDs)


Count Basie: Jukebox Hits, 1940-52 (CD: Acrobat)Count Basie: Jukebox Hits, 1940-52 (CD: Acrobat)
 


Price:  £10.99 


Count Basie - The Legendary New Testament Band 1952-55 (CD: Acrobat, 3 CDs)
Count Basie was one of the most influential personalities in the history of jazz history and his legacy is still celebrated today. As pianist, organist, bandleader, composer and innovator, he enjoyed a stellar career which spanned half a century across the middle decades of the 20th century. That career encompassed several musical and stylistic eras, and one of the most notable of those was the period in the early 1950s, when he formed a new orchestra, which became known as “The New Testament Band”, which adopted a musical approach considered fresh and distinctive for the period.

Formed circa 1952, after Basie’s brief hiatus from the full orchestra as he was working with a small group of six to seven pieces during the industry imposed recording ban that began in 1948, the new approach was captured on recordings which were done at sessions covering a period of around four years. Many of the titles were issued on Norman Granz’s Clef and Verve labels during the mid-1950s.

This 63-track collection comprises just about all the recordings which were released on the albums The Count, Basie Jazz, Basie Rides Again, The Swinging Count, Dance Session, Dance Session No.2, and Basie. The orchestra began to set standards of musical achievement that have been emulated by every jazz orchestra since that time. One of the things that set Basie’s collective apart from all others was the fact the Basie allowed and encouraged his musicians to compose and arrange. As one would expect, the performances featured here include some notable jazz names, including vocalist Al Hibbler, as well as renowned arrangers like Neal Hefti, Buster Harding and Manny Albam.

It’s a collection which offers an enlightening, entertaining and substantial snapshot of Basie’s music at a key moment in his career. (Trapeze Music) 


Price:  £16.99 

Count Basie - The Legendary New Testament Band 1952-55 (CD: Acrobat, 3 CDs)


Count Basie: The Complete Atomic Basie (CD: Roulette)Count Basie: The Complete Atomic Basie (CD: Roulette)
Cover equation: E = MC2 = Count Basie Orchestra + Neal Hefti Arrangements. Big-band power, precision and swing from one of Basie's finest outfits. This 1957 recording is his best-known album, with orchestral riffs and "head" arrangements derived from Kansas City style---all shaped and written by Neal Hefti. Featured soloists are trumpets Thad Jones and Joe Newman; altoist Frank Wess; a forceful Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis on tenor; and the leader's own spare piano. Examples of superbly controlled ensemble playing on "After Supper," "Midnite Blue," and the famed "Lil' Darlin'." For blues feeling and force, hear the trumpet "Duet," in-the-groove "Splanky," and vigorous "Fantail." Excellent introduction to Basie power and E. Recommended. (Andrew Clark, Editor, Riffs & Choruses: A New Jazz Anthology. Continuum Publishing.)

'The Count's best-known single album, including "Whirlybird" and "Li'l Darlin'". Tenor soloist, and later band manager, Lockjaw Davis enlivens several of the tracks, all written by prolific Basie contributor Neal Hefti.' (The Rough Guide To Jazz)

A BEBOP SHOP MILESTONE- An essential recording for your jazz CD shelf 


Price:  £9.99 


Count Basie: April In Paris (CD: Verve)
 


Price:  £9.99 

Count Basie: April In Paris (CD: Verve)


Count Basie: April In Paris (Vinyl LP: Verve)Count Basie: April In Paris (Vinyl LP: Verve)
April In Paris was one of the earliest albums to be released on Norman Granz’s new label, Verve Records. Basie plays organ and piano, and the rhythm section of Eddie Jones on bass, Sonny Payne on drums and Freddie Green on rhythm guitar drive the whole album with restrained intensity. The album helped reconnect jazz lovers with one of the finest bands of the swing era, yet there is nothing retrospective about April in Paris; it is alive with vitality, elegance, sophistication, and modernity. (Universal Music) 


Price:  £25.99 


Count Basie: At Newport (CD: Verve)
When the Count Basie band walked onto the stage at Newport in 1957, the very air was saturated with electricity. The nearly 8,000 fans in the audience could feel it, too—a sense of history in the making. The crowd was there to see a reconstituted version of the original Basie band, with luminous sidemen like Lester Young, Illinois Jacquet, Jo Jones, and Jimmy Rushing on the stand, alongside the updated edition—a sleek, sophisticated unit that was a hotbed for ascending stars like Thad Jones and Frank Foster. Basie's set goes on record as the most exciting and hard-swinging performance of one extraordinary night. (Verve Music Group) 


Price:  £9.99 

Count Basie: At Newport (CD: Verve)


Count Basie: Basie Land (CD: Verve)Count Basie: Basie Land (CD: Verve)
 


Price:  £9.99 


Count Basie: Basie in London (CD: Verve- US Import)
 


Price:  £13.99 

Count Basie: Basie in London (CD: Verve- US Import)


Count Basie: The Count Basie Story (CD: Proper, 4 CDs)Count Basie: The Count Basie Story (CD: Proper, 4 CDs)
The Basie Band that came out of Kansas City in the 1930's made an enormous impact on the jazz world. With a line-up that included Buck Clayton, Lester Young, Herschel Evans and what rightfully has been called the finest rhythm section the world has ever known.

The 99 tracks in this box set are testimony to the greatest swing band ever. The 48 page booklet traces Basie's story and his 40 years as leader of bands that were the epitome of swing. Also included is a discography and many rare photographs. Tracks include: One O'Clock Jump/Swinging The Blues/Jumpin' At The Woodside/My Heart Belongs To Daddy/Rock-A-Bye-Basie/Dickie's Dream/Lester Leaps In/Down For Double/Harvard Blues/The King/Seventh Avenue Express. (Proper Records) 


Price:  £16.99 


Count Basie & Joe Williams: Count Basie Swings , Joe Williams Sings (CD: Essential Jazz Classics)
 


Price:  £12.99 

Count Basie & Joe Williams: Count Basie Swings , Joe Williams Sings (CD: Essential Jazz Classics)


Count Basie Orchestra: High Voltage (CD: MPS)Count Basie Orchestra: High Voltage (CD: MPS)
Reissue of the Count Basie Orchestra's 1970 album 'High Voltage', arranged by Chico O'Farrill and featuring Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Cecil Payne, Joe Newman, Freddie Green and Harold Jones among others.

When in January, 1970 Count Basie entered the studio with his 17-piece big band to record 'High Voltage', he ushered in the last full decade as bandleader of his Orchestra. The Orchestra had left its imprint on the sixties by recording with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. There would be more great albums with star vocalists in the seventies, but the band's purely instrumental works, which had begun in 1965, would also continue. Back then Basie had engaged acclaimed Cuban composer/arranger Chico O'Farrill to arrange the music for such concept albums as "Basie Meets Bond" and "Basie's Beatle Bag", transforming them into crossover gems.

On 'High Voltage' O'Farrill demonstrates his affinity to Basie's big band sound, this time with a repertoire of standards. For this album, Basie specifically chose pieces the band had never recorded in their more than 30-year existence. This is saying something, since the band covers such an impressive span of jazz history, from the beginning of the swing era to the bop-influenced bands of the 50's on through to the present album.

The Count's new drummer Harold Jones propels Fred Fisher's "Chicago" with a tremendous drive. The Rogers and Hart classic "Have You Met Miss Jones" features beguilingly dense deep-register horn lines and an almost languorous piano, and Eric Dixon's tasty flute solo spices up "The Lady Is A Tramp". With its smoky sophistication, Eddie Lockjaw Davis' Tenor dominates "Bewitched", whereas guest trumpeter Joe Newman's muted tongue-in-cheek solo highlights "Day In Day Out". Of course, Basie himself also steps forward: for instance, on the Fats Waller-like intro to "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You", and with the playful grace notes on "If I Were A Bell"." Reminiscent of the Las Vegas shows the band performed with Frank Sinatra, "Get Me To The Church On Time" is also a masterful dialogue between the horn sections. (Proper Music) 


Price:  £12.99 


Basie All Stars: Live At Fabrik, Hamburg 1981 - Vol.1 (CD: Jazzline)
Previously unreleased recording of the Basie All Stars, some of biggest names from Count Basie's band - minus the legendary bandleader. 


Price:  £14.99 

Basie All Stars: Live At Fabrik, Hamburg 1981 - Vol.1 (CD: Jazzline)

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