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Beatstreet

Count Basie and His Orchestra: I Told You So

Original Jazz Classics/Universal, Rs. 295

When this album was recorded in 1976, Count Basie had been leading a big band for just over four decades, except for a hiatus of a few years in the early 1950s. Not just any big band, but arguably the greatest barring Duke Ellington’s, and the one that best epitomised the term “swing”.

Only Freddie Green had been with him all those years, but the rhythm section comprising Basie on piano, Green on guitar, and various musicians on bass and drums had never faltered in laying down a relentless beat over which various others improvised solos through the decades. And so it is here, the only difference being that Basie, who had rarely come out of the rhythm section to take solos in his middle years, had by this time resumed treating the audience to evidence of his considerable talents in this regard.

The other soloists are drawn from the trumpet, trombone and reed sections, the last contributing, besides a liberal sprinkling of tenor sax solos, a couple of delectable solos on flute. While the Basie band was noted, indeed almost unique, among big bands for the abundance of its solos, the three sections of course also give a dazzling demonstration of the more usual feature of the big band: the finely-balanced interplay and dialogue among them, and between soloists and one or more sections.

The fast-paced “Blues for Alfy” is perhaps the best illustration of all these qualities. After a brief intro on piano with strong support from bass and drums, the trumpet and trombone sections are set off against each other on the theme, followed by solos on trumpet, flute, trombone, piano, and, briefly, drums. The solos are punctuated by returns to the theme rendered by the whole ensemble. Almost as action-packed is “Ticker”, with, again, a solo piano intro, the trumpets and trombones in dialogue on the theme, and then solos on piano, trumpet and tenor sax. But indeed, every track is a distillation of the best of big band music.

Count Basie: Mostly Blues... and Some Others

Pablo/Universal, Rs. 295

Recorded in 1983 ten months before Count Basie’s death at the age of nearly 80, this album is a fine example of the great big band leader’s talent in another direction. Basie had led various assemblages of first-rank musicians in jam sess ions for a couple of decades and they had produced inspired music. Here he was again with such a group no less inspired despite the fact that he was by this time wheelchair-bound.

The line-up here comprises the Count on piano, Snooky Young on trumpet, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis on tenor saxophone, John Heard on bass, Roy McCurdy on drums, and, uniquely, two guitarists. Of them, Freddie Green had been in the Basie big band’s rhythm section for nearly five decades, and Joe Pass had starred in several Basie-led jam sessions over the years.

The two guitarists are heard to best advantage on the gentle-paced “I’m Confessin’ That I Love You”, which opens with a solo guitar (evidently Pass) intro and then features one guitarist (who has to be Green) playing the theme while the other improvises a solo behind him! Green continues while Basie solos, after which Pass returns for another solo.

Young and Davis, clearly laid off on “I’m Confessin’ That ...”, get their opportunities to show why they were valued members of the Basie band in the 1950s. Young’s brilliant sound leads the rendition of the theme on the medium-tempo “Snooky”, composed in his honour, and on the slow-paced “I Want a Little Girl”, on both of which Davis takes ripping solos. They join forces to play the theme on “Blues in C”, another medium-paced number, featuring an intro by Basie and solos by Young, Davis, Pass, and Basie. On “Blues for Charlie Christian”, a fast-paced tribute to the first great jazz guitar soloist, who died very young, the whole ensemble plays the theme before solos by Basie, Pass (naturally), Davis and again Basie.

The eight tracks here together bear ample testimony to Basie’s love for the blues, his masterful sense of swing, and his ability to make a jam session produce superlative music.

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