trb@drutx.UUCP (BuckleyTR) (05/01/84)
NOTE: The following is copied without permission from Gene Amole's column in the Sunday, April 29 Rocky Mountain News, Denver Colorado. I thought it was a very good article and a good tribute to Count Basie. ------------------------------------------------------------- Taste. The program had ended at 5 p.m. I had scooped up my commercials and records and was getting ready to leave when "The Kid from Red Bank" asked if he might play the studio Hammond organ for a few minutes. It was 1946. William "Count" Basie was playing a one-nighter at O.K. Farr's Rainbow Ballroom. He was in the old KMYR "Studio A" to be interviewed on "Meet The Boys in The Band," a record show I was doing at the time. Those "few minutes" lengthened into more than three hours. I sat there alone in the studio and listened to Count Basie play an unforgettable concert for an audience of one. As I listened, I pretended it was all for me, but I knew all along that it was really Basie playing for Basie. That was the first of many times I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Basie, as most of his friends called him. He was one of the most polite, gentle, generous and accomodating public figures I have ever known. His love for the organ went back to 1922 when he studied piano informally in Harlem with the great Fats Waller, also a devotee of the organ. It was during that same period Basie met and was influenced by James P. Johnson. Basie played "stride" piano then, as did most of his contemporaries. It wasn't until the mid-1930s in Kansas City that he changed his technique to the economical, bluesy sound he employed until his death. He used tasty melodic right-hand leads and cues to maintain rhythmic control of the powerful band behind him. No one ever successfully imitated that style. Even though he was born in Red Bank, N.J., Basie's name became synonymous with the Kansas City style of music. Regional differences in jazz were substantial in those days, and Basie found himself at home in the Kansas City tradition of organizing the big band around a rhythm section as Benny Moten and Jay McShann had done. And what a rhythm section! Basie was on piano, of course; Walter Page, bass; Jo Jones, drums; Freddie Green, guitar. The section's distinctive sound was caused in no small part by Jonses' use of the top-hat, rather than the bass drum, to drive the tempo. No one, before or since, could play the top-hat like Jo Jones. This supple but solid rhythm section provided soloists superb backing. Similarly, the brass and reeds could explore endless riff possibilities as in "Jumpin' at the Woodside, "One O'Clock Jump," "Music Makers" and the early "Song of the Islands." There is no space here to list all the soloists whose roots are deeply imbedded in the Basie tradition. But certainly tenor saxaphonist Lester "Prez" (for president) Young deserves special mention. His cool, highly personal style not only inspired the band but strongly influenced future generations of saxaphonists. There were many others: Buck Clayton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, "Little" Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Dickie Wells, Benny Morton, Don Bayas, Joe Williams. Bill Basie was an American original, a man of exquisite musical taste. He will not be replaced. Ever. ------------------------------------------------------ Tom Buckley AT&T Information Systems ihnp4!drutx!trb