Tales of the Big Bands: Basie, Part 3

The top echelon singers loved the Basie band. Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra are among the most recognizable names that recorded with Count Basie. Basie also had the good fortune and sense to employ hip singers as part of the orchestra. You’ll recognize the names Billy Holiday, Helen Humes, Jimmy Rushing, and the subject of our final Basie blog entry, Joe Williams, Basie’s “Number One Son.”

Many of the quotes and images in this blog entry were obtained during interview sessions conducted for the purpose of creating a 1996 documentary on Joe’s life entitled “A Portrait in Song,” which was produced by Burrill Crohn.

Joe joined the Basie band on Christmas Day in 1954. He was not a total unknown to the Count. Joe sat in a number of times with Basie’s septet at the Brass Rail in Chicago, and the Count must have heard something he liked. Basie signed Joe up when his “new testament” band came to fruition. The Joe and Basie combination was an instant success, resulting in the early 1955 release of “Count Basie Swings/Joe Williams Sings,” which contained Joe’s signature song, “Every Day I Have the Blues.” Trombonist Bill Hughes was a young man at that time and was thrilled to be a part of this ensemble.

BH: I think when [Joe] first joined this band he had performed with Basie’s sextet or something, somewhere before. Basie had heard him. I had never heard the guy until he came in and when he came in I looked at him, you know, like the pants were a little high, his wardrobe wasn’t all that great, and I was saying I wonder why Basie’s hiring this guy, until I heard him sing that night. Then I was saying I wonder what took him so long to hire this guy. And I remember I was young then and I remember walking down the streets of New York and almost every record store you’d hear this sound coming out and it would be Joe Williams singing these things. And I would be saying to myself, wow, I’m a part of this. And the band was so hot. And Basie was so hot. And every night man, it was just a joy to go and play this music. Actually I don’t think the Basie band would have survived as long as it has without Joe having been that catalyst back in 1954.

An observation often made about the Basie band is that they could sound like a small group even though it was a large ensemble. Basie must have had that in mind when he signed Joe on with no arrangements ready for him. The band was able to set riffs and create head arrangements for the first couple of weeks until things could be written down that suited Joe’s voice and unique abilities. Joe talked about those first few months in the band:

JW: We had no arrangements. None at all. We got to Jackson, Mississippi I guess it was. And they had a place they called the Two Spot. And we were there about four or five days. And I got together with Ernie Wilkins and Frank Foster and arranged “Every Day I Have the Blues,” “Teach Me Tonight,” — Foster did “In the Evening,” and something else. And there was “Every Day I Fall in Love,” and something else he did. But yeah, that was ’55. And when we got back we had these things to present, plus the things they were doing that were head [arrangements], like “Roll ‘em Pete” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”

It would be inevitable that Joe would be compared with Mr. Five-by-Five, Jimmy Rushing, whose fifteen year tenure with the orchestra ended in 1950. But Joe didn’t look backwards. He was confronted with the considerable shadow of Jimmy Rushing when he went to England with the band in 1957:

(The photograph of Joe and Jimmy above was taken at

the Newport Jazz Festival in 1962.)

JW: We went [to England] in 1957 and one of the critics stated at the end of his obvious critique or review, that most of the applause was given to a young singer named Joe Williams, who is no Jimmy Rushing. I said I certainly hope so. I wasn’t trying to be a Jimmy Rushing either. That’s why I fought Basie so hard, it’s that if they asked me did I know anything of Jimmy Rushing’s. I told them no, I didn’t. And I didn’t, really. It would have been simple for me to learn, I could learn his stuff in one night and perform it. But that was not the object of the exercise. I wasn’t singing 1930’s, 1940’s, or even 1950 music. I was adding things that I wanted to present, that’s all. And I’m glad it found favor, not only with the musicians but with the audiences as well. I had to fight to get him to do it. But I learned from it. He would sit, after we presented it, and it was enthusiastically received by the public, then he would look at me and go — and I gleaned what he meant, that he wouldn’t have to say anything, like if you believe in something strong enough, fight for it, even those that are closest to you. Because he was paying for the arrangements in those days.

Basie taught Joe that if he believed strongly enough in the direction he wanted to take, and if he worked for it, it would pay off in the end. Joe also learned a bit about when to get off the stage. Joe talked about a trip to Stockholm, Sweden in 1956.

JW: So Basie said to me “you’ve been killing them in the States, everybody just loves you over there.” He said “let’s see what you’re going to do now, ‘cause none of these people understand English. [There were] ten thousand people standing on their chairs and they were busy, you know, like screaming and hollering. And I said to Mr. Basie, “what are we going to do, Bas?” He says “for once you’re going to quit while you’re ahead.” I never forgot that lesson, man.

Another musical lesson from Basie offered a poignant description of Basie’s character:

JW: As a leader, I watched and observed [Basie]. He never saw mistakes. Those of us who knew, it was like, gee that wasn’t what we do 98 times out of a hundred. That was an accident. And so instead of looking where it came from, he’d always happen to be looking someplace else. Somebody over there you know. He missed it. He never heard it. He did something marvelously unusual. [When a musician did something that pleased him] he would go light up like a Christmas tree. What I learned from him was that when you were working with first class musicians particularly, or any musician for that matter, you live with what they contribute. You don’t have to give them direction necessarily or anything. Let them find their own level of what goes in support of what, according to their own depth and perception. You have to. And that way you get an unusual presentation and one that is always fresh and refreshing to you. You don’t get tired.

Considering all the young men who passed through Count Basie’s orchestra, Joe must have been very special to earn the moniker “Basie’s Number One Son.” When Joe decided it was time to move on and leave the band, in 1961, the Count attended Joe’s first gig with the Sweets Edison quintet.

While great singers all love performing in front of stellar bands, the feeling is not always mutual. Vocalists, by their very presence on stage, move the spotlight off the instrumentalists. A singer needed to earn his/her respect with the band both musically and from their personal character. Many musicians spoke of Joe’s musical talent — his ability to sing blues, ballads and anything in between in any key. The second part of the equation was addressed by baritone saxophonist John Williams, who crossed paths with Joe during the singer’s many appearances with the Basie orchestra in the 1970’s:

JW: Well in reference to being a singer I always like to say that if Joe Williams isn’t the greatest singer in the world, there’s none greater. And in reference to being a human being, I think that one of the greatest attributes that a human being could have is good manners. And this is the one thing that I noticed about him that made him sort of, I mean set him apart from many of the other performers with whom I’ve worked. And Basie used to say “God doesn’t like ugly,” in reference to people who are ill-mannered. And I could see why he was proud to call Joe his Number One Son because Joe always, from the moment I met him, was a person who had very good manners. And it starts with self-respect. He had self-respect so it was very easy for him to show us respect. And I just didn’t feel like a lowly baritone player who had very few solos to play, just an ensemble player, a guy supporting the front line. I felt just as important in Joe’s presence as one of the featured musicians. So anyway, good manners was the thing that really caught my attention.

Joe’s respect for other performers included fellow singers as well. In the concert documentary mentioned above, Joe performed live at Hamilton College, with the Count Basie Orchestra under the direction of Grover Mitchell. He surprised the producer and production staff when on his first song (“Every Day I Have the Blues,” his signature tune), he invited Chris Murrell, the then-current Basie vocalist, to join him on stage and trade verses. After the concert we asked both Bill Hughes and Joe himself why he chose this moment to spotlight another singer.

BH: Yeah, he invited Chris. He’s very generous with the microphone. But most of the great jazz singers I’ve ever seen have been generous with the microphone. They are eager to have their fellow artists come up and show what they can do.

JW: I vowed within myself that if ever I found someone who wanted that microphone as badly as I wanted it, then I would share it with them. My manager John [Levy] used to give me hell about it because he says you share your space and your time with the musicians and you’ll have people say “wow!” and you say “put the spotlight on somebody else.” He said “then you have to go back and grab them again.” Well I feel as though I can. I can afford to present someone. Because I don’t have to stand there and have them keep that spotlight on me.

The Jazz Archive continues to acquire interviews. In July of 2011 we visited Iola Brubeck, wife of Dave Brubeck, and she reminisced about Count Basie and Joe Williams.

IB: I should have brought this up when we were talking about the idea for The Real Ambassadors because Joe Williams was a part of that. That summer I was in New York and I went to Central Park and Joe Williams was with the Basie band, and he was just so great. And the night before I had gone to a Broadway musical. And I said to myself Joe Williams said more and reached me more emotionally with the Basie band that night than that big production I’d seen the night before. And that was one of the reasons why I started thinking in terms of a Broadway show.

MR: He was a big help to us getting this started.

IB: That’s what I understand. Well I loved Joe Williams. He was a wonderful, wonderful man. He was another example of a black man who, right at the height of the sort of division that was going on in jazz was not effected by that. And I can remember in Europe one time, Joe and some other musicians were sitting outside a hotel in the summertime, on a sort of patio, and our car pulled up and Dave and I got out of the van and Joe got up from where he was sitting with the other musicians and came over and they embraced, he gave Dave a hug and so forth. And it was just kind of a way of him saying “cool it guys.”

Joe left Basie in the early sixties and went on to a successful solo career lasting over three decades. In 1995 when the Hamilton College Jazz Archive was founded we were fortunate to have Joe lend his credibility and his name as we contacted musicians to request interviews. He passed three years later. The College recognized his contribution by designating my position the Joe Williams Director of the Hamilton College Jazz Archive.

The Count Basie Orchestra swings on, and its succession of leaders all played in the orchestra when The Count was at the helm. Its current conductor is drummer Dennis Mackrel.

Tales of the Big Bands: Basie, Part 1

For many fans of big band music, the Count Basie Orchestra was the epitome of what an 18-person ensemble could and should sound like. Throughout his five decade career, Basie (a/k/a “The Chief”), held tight to his inner compass of what and how his bands should play. Though he was a man of few words, he made his feelings and intentions known through subtle but forceful direction. The Hamilton College Jazz Archive oral history project focused first on Basie alums and we are blessed with a wealth of material about Count Basie and his career. The first entry will focus on why his band sounded like it did.

We heard from Clark Terry in his conversation with Joe Williams at the end of our Ellington blog post. Clark spent time with both bands, and offers his opinion on Basie’s number one strength:

CT: I’ll tell you about this cat, Basie. Although Ellington was more endowed with harmony and theory and so forth, Basie was the king as far as tempo, and he taught us all the greatest lesson in the world and that is the utilization of space and time. They say he learned it through the medium of just socializing at Kansas City at the Cherry Blossom and the little places where you would have people sit, in a small room like this where you would have gingham tablecloths and he’d play a little bit with Jo Jones, and Walter Page, or Freddie [Green], and The Fiddler [Claude Williams], or whoever was there, and he’d go socializing. Bing-a-dink and he’d go over there socialize “yeah, baby, how you doing?” Bing-a-dink, go over there and have another taste over there and have two or three tastes. Meanwhile Jo Jones and Biggun [Walter Page] are still going [scats]. And he’d come in [scats]. So he was so endowed with rhythm and utilization of space and time, so he knew exactly the way a tune should be before you played it. Now the one, the best example is when Neal Hefti was writing for the band, he brought in a tune and passed it out, and Basie played it and Basie shook his head. He said “what’s the matter, you don’t like the arrangement, Chief?” He said “no.” He said “what’s wrong with it?” He said “the tempo.” Well the tune was about here [claps]. So he said “well what do you think it should be?” “About here” [claps slowly]. Well the tune was [scats]. He brought it in to be [scats slowly].

JW: That was “L’il Darling.”

CT: He heard it. Right away he said “uh oh.” And look at the result. If he’d a kept it up there it would have just been another also-ran tune. He was the king of space, time.

Basie’s band of the late 1930’s was the loosest of his aggregations, operating more like a large combo. Much of the music they played was created on stage or in rehearsals and called “head arrangements,” only to be written down later. Harry “Sweets” Edison talked of the challenge of becoming a part of such a swinging band, and associating with Basie’s fellow musicians:

MR: At the time you joined the Basie band, how much of the music was written out?

SE: We didn’t have any music.

MR: That was my question. Now how did that work? And how did you learn what to play when you first got in there?

SE: Well, that’s an interesting question. Because when I first joined the band, everybody in the Count Basie band had played with Bennie Moten’s band. So they all knew what they wanted to play. They all had notes to different — like “One O’Clock Jump,” “Swinging the Blues,” “Out the Window.” It was a head arrangement you know. They just, the brass section would get together and they would play, set a riff behind a melody Basie would play on the piano. The saxophones would go in to another room and they would set a riff. And when we all came back to the rehearsal hall, we’d all have an arrangement, you know? So that went on with me for about a couple of years. And finally I told Basie I said “I’m going to quit.” He says “why? You sound good.” I said “well all these arrangements that you play every night — I can’t find a note. I can’t find a note to ‘Swinging the Blues’ and playing it fast.” I haven’t had a chance...I really was disgusted.

MR: Discouraged, huh?

SE: Yes. So I said “I’d rather for you to take my notice.” He said “well if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night.” So that’s what I did. He encouraged me to sit there. And it was very difficult. Because when they played a tune like “Out the Window” or of course “One O’clock Jump” wasn’t too fast, you could find a note, but “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.” Hell they’re playing and you’re trying to find a note to play, and it’s passed, and they’re finished before you can find a note.

MR: There’s no rehearsal time to do that. You’re playing every night, right?

SE: Sure, sure. But he encouraged me, and I stayed there for twenty years in and out you know. And had it not been for Count Basie, I wouldn’t be here with you, because nobody would have never heard about me. He gave me a chance and I had so much fun I don’t know why he kept me with the band because I was having a ball. You know every night was fun to me. Just absolutely — sitting next to Lester Young — gee whiz, what a thrill you know. Jo Jones. Walter Page. Freddie Green, Buck Clayton, sitting next to him — you know it wasn’t but three trumpets, Buck Clayton, Ed Lewis and myself; there was two trombones, and four saxophones. And four rhythm section. So I should have paid him to be in the band because I was having so much fun.

One of the first things an aspiring big band musician had to learn was the difference between two-beat and four-beat — a subtle but profound change in the basic feel of swing. Trumpeters Snooky Young and Gerald Wilson were both Basie alums and often played a musical game of tag team in and out of various bands. They talk about that subtle swing difference, when they were interviewed together on September 30, 1995 in Los Angeles:

GW: When I joined Count Basie, who do you think I was supposed to replace? Snooky Young. Snooky left the band. They were playing someplace, and Basie called me and he says “Snooky there had to go back East, Gerald,” and I played a couple of days with him at the Lincoln Theater. I think you left and so they didn’t have a trumpet player. So I went and played a couple of days at the Lincoln, and so Basie said “well look, Snooky had to go and he’s going to re-join us when we get to Chicago. You come on and go to Chicago with us and then Snooky will be back.” I said “fine” you know. So I left with the Count Basie Band, which I loved. I mean let me tell you, that was another great day for me to be able to join a band like Count Basie, because I was going to get a chance as a writer to sit where swing had really started. And remember that there was the original rhythm section, which they called the “All American Rhythm Section,” with Walter Page, Jo Jones, Count and Freddie Green. So for me that was going to be another education deal. Because I’m going to sit here now as a writer, I can just observe really what’s going on. And what’s going on with this swing. Because you must remember the Count Basie band and that rhythm section, they’re the ones that put the word in, the real meaning into swing. All bands had to change to that type of rhythm section. All bands. The Lunceford band would have had to change, Duke Ellington. Everybody. If you’re not playing this type of rhythm, you’re not into the newest form of rhythm that would finally take over the world. And because you must remember that bebop had no rhythm of their own. They had to use that same kind of rhythm in their first efforts. So it was a great day for me. But Basie had more in mind, by the way, because when we got to Chicago, Snooky didn’t show up. He didn’t show up. And I said, you know I thought I was going to come back home. But he had other ideas. He also needed a writer at that time. And I was the man.

MR: That must have been a thrill. Is it possible to put into words what that rhythm section did?

GW: Well you know, you remember Jo Jones was an innovator into drumming. Jo Jones was a real innovator. He had some things going that drummers had not been doing. Walter Page had been one of the first to start the walking bass rather than playing the root and the fifth. In other words Boom Boom BOOM Boom. In earlier days, they just played the one note. Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom Boom. So Page started walking on the chords more or less. And Freddie Green, who had you know, nobody can play the guitar, rhythm guitar, like Freddie Green. To this day.

SY: That’s right.

GW: To this day. He never bothered about a solo.

SY: You know when I left Lunceford’s band and getting back to what he’s saying, I went directly into Basie’s band. And those two bands was night and day. I mean Lunceford’s rhythm was a two beat rhythm thing, you know. And it was great and all like that, but you’d come out of that and move into Basie’s band, I almost felt like I didn’t know how to read music. ‘Cause everything was laying so different.

MR: Especially for a lead trumpet, right?

SY: That’s right.

MR: Because you’ve got to be in sync.

SY: That’s right. And I had to learn how to play with Basie’s band, because, well, can you explain that better than I can? Because it’s very difficult, because you asked a question that kind of hit on that, and I left from one band and went directly into this band, this swing band what you’re saying. And I noticed a difference. But Lunceford had great rhythm and everything, but it was a two beat rhythm. And so most bands was playing two beats. Not like Lunceford’s band did though.

GW: Yeah, Lunceford had the two beats.

SY: They had the two beats, Lunceford’s band.

GW: But they had to get that, you know to play jazz, the ultimate jazz beat is when you’re playing four four. It’s the ultimate rhythm. And they had this thing. Jo had it going here, he had it going here, and it was the thing that all bands needed, and still to this day, I mean the band you play with now, all bands, you’ve got to have this.

The early 50’s were challenging years for big bands. Even the Basie band was struggling economically and the Count pared down to a 7-piece group for a number of years. Bassist Jimmy Lewis found that the Count’s knack for creating intense swing could be applied to a small group as well as a big band:

MR: Is this when Basie had the small group?

JL: Yes, the small group. We had Wardell Gray, Clark Terry, Gus Johnson on drums, Freddie Green on guitar, me on bass and like we used Bud DeFranco playing tenor. … We worked the Brass Rail [Chicago] down at the loop. We opened up one night and all the people were sitting at the table, and so Basie started off real soft. We started playing soft you know. I thought I was playing louder than anybody, I mean I’m just playing it. Basie says “don’t play so loud.” He said “they’ll hear ya.” So I cut down on the bass. And Basie set a tempo and then he’d watch the people’s feet. He said “okay, everybody’s starting to feel you over the conversation.” He said “now Gus, pick up your sticks.” Gus was playing with brushes. He said “pick up your sticks.” He said “we’ve got ‘em now.” And by the time we opened up, everybody turned and you couldn’t believe it. Buddy DeFranco walked out to the stand, and man, everybody would start to play. He and Clark Terry started doing tricks. Clark would take his horn, take the mouthpiece off and just put it in the end of a glass and blow you know, and make all kinds of funny sounds you know. And Gus Johnson, then here comes Wardell Gray. He’d walk up and he’d just play something like Lester Young. … And Freddie Green boy, he was like a metronome sitting there. And you couldn’t get away from him. The tempo might move up a little bit, I’d get excited, and Freddie would say “Come back here. Right here.” And boy that thing would take off. And Basie, he’d sit there and give signs. He had all kinds of signs. He’d do his face, you know when he’d want you to play louder or softer you know. And when he’d get ready to close a number he’d double his fists. And like if he wanted some excitement, he’d stand up from the piano and look at you. And boy, and Gus was sitting on the drums and you’d hear this thing, it sounded like it was coming up out of the floor. And boy the people just went crazy.

We will hear again from Jimmy Lewis in a subsequent Basie blog entry.

The heyday of the big bands occurred before the Civil Rights era. While some swing bands made tentative moves towards integration after the Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa combination, there was an obvious distinction between black and white bands for many years. Grover Mitchell, a Basie trombonist and an eventual leader of the band, reminds us why the Ellington and Basie orchestras were able to sound as they did:

MR: The Basie groups that you played with had some marvelous players, and some of the best ensembles that he had. Who were your favorite bandmates?

GM: Well we had some genius-level people you know. Ellington’s band and Basie’s band, the one thing that caused them in some way to be at the ability level that we were able to maintain was we, in the older days and prior to 1964, we couldn’t get jobs in studios you know. We couldn’t play at the networks and all that. And so Ellington and Basie had access to the greatest black musicians alive. In other words, that’s what we had to aspire to. And you couldn’t think of going to NBC or ABC or be in a Hollywood studio, which later I did, and quite successfully. But in those days they had access to the greatest black musicians available. The greatest. And so they had their choice. That’s something.

MR: That’s a really important statement. I haven’t heard it put quite that way.

GM: I know, most people won’t say it. They’re afraid to say it. But I know it. Because we would sit there and our greatest competition was each other because we, you know, until Clark Terry and those guys in 1964 and ‘63 started getting into the networks and all that kind of stuff. There was a couple of guys here and there you know; CBS was pretty good, they had a guy over there. And a New York contractor named Lou Shoobe, he was quite fair, and so some guys got jobs. But for the most part you couldn’t even dream of getting a studio job, it was just unheard of in those days.

Both Grover and Clark Terry spent time in Duke’s and the Count’s bands. It’s not a stretch to say that this is tantamount to a classical musician touting the fact that he spent one part of his career with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy then moved on to the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.

Tenor saxophonist Frank Foster is high on the list of important Basie figures. He was one half of the two tenor team of Frank [Foster] and Frank [Wess], in the New Testament Band. Foster became one of Basie’s most dependable writers, but even he was subject to the Basie musical scrutiny.

MR: How about the first time you brought an arrangement to Basie?

FF: The first arrangement I brought to the Basie band was one I brought from Korea with me that I had played with a band in Korea. It was an original cha-cha-cha.

MR: No kidding.

FF: And the band needed a couple of Latin flavored songs for the dancers that they were playing. And they only had one mambo. So this was a mambo, not a cha-cha-cha.

MR: You wrote a mambo?

FF: Yeah. This was an original sort of thing based on a mambo groove, and it was very simple. And I brought it in to the band and we played it. And Basie encouraged me to continue writing. And the results of that encouragement were “Blues Backstage,” and “Blues in Hoss’ Flat,” and eventually “Shiny Stockings.” But it’s not all peaches and cream or roses as it were. If you could count the arrangements that were rejected as stacked up against those that were accepted, the stacks would be pretty even.

MR: No kidding.

FF: Right.

MR: So you’d take it into a rehearsal and did it take him a long time to decide?

FF: No. It never took him a long time. If the arrangement played down the first time and nobody had to decipher it as though it were hieroglyphics and it swung, it was in. Generally if it took too long and people had to labor over phrases and how does this go and what does this mean, and if it sounded like too much dissonance, or too many “pregnant nineteenths” as Basie used to say...

MR: Did he say that?

FF: Yeah he said “son, when you write an arrangement, don’t put too many pregnant nineteenths in there.” So I knew what he meant by “pregnant nineteenths.” And if was too busy, too overloaded, every time it got rejected. Which brings me to the story of “Shiny Stockings.” We were playing a place in Philadelphia called Pep’s Bar. And we’d just arrived in town that morning and we had to rehearse that day because it was customary to rehearse on the opening day of each nightclub engagement. For the Basie band that was practically the only time we ever rehearsed, was the opening day of an engagement at Birdland or Storyville or the Blue Note or the Crescendo or this place in Philadelphia. But we had arrived late and checked in late at the hotel, a long trip from somewhere. Everybody is tired, ill-tempered, hungry, and no one felt like rehearsing. You know we’d rather have done anything than rehearse. But we had to rehearse that day. And I brought “Shiny Stockings” in. And the first rehearsal of “Shiny Stockings,” it just sounded like a 43 car pile-up on the New York Thruway. Everybody ran into everybody. I said oh my, he’ll never play this song and I put so much into it. Well Mr. Basie must have heard something, because with that horrible rehearsal, he must have understood how tired everyone was and how unwilling we were to rehearse and that was the result of our attitudes. He must have heard something because we played it and played it and played it and I guess you could say the rest is history.

MR: I guess so.

FF: But many other songs that sounded like that in rehearsal never got played. And we had an expression, if we were rehearsing something and it wasn’t going well, either because it was too busy or the harmonies weren’t right or it sounded amateurish, we had an expression, “Pasadena,” which meant pass it in. And after we worked on that chart for about ten, fifteen minutes, Marshall Royal, who was the straw boss, he’d say “Pasadena.” And I guess this was sort of code terminology so that if the arranger was somebody outside the band, he wouldn’t know what we were talking about, but you’d see all this music converging on one spot, and it was being passed in.

MR: Well I guess it was a left handed compliment to say I was rejected by Count Basie.

FF: I’ll tell you, Basie, he would always make it up, because years after, this must have been in the early 60’s now, “Shiny Stockings” was introduced to the book in 1955, Basie pulled me over in the corner and he said “kid, you know you wrote that ‘Shiny Stockings?’” I said “yeah.” He said “you really put one down that time, boy.”

MR: It was five years later, huh?

FF: Yeah, right.

MR: He was a man of few words most of the time?

FF: Definitely. But every word meant something.

MR: Just like his playing, right?

FF: Right, exactly. Like his playing.

A non-Basie musician offered a brief story that summed up the respect and admiration that jazz musicians had for Basie and his band. Alto saxophonist Jerry Dodgion was never an official member, but did have the opportunity to play on the 1966 LP “Hollywood Basie’s Way.”

MR: You played on this particular record with Basie. Remember that one?

JD: Sure I do.

MR: Nice record. How did that come about?

JD: Well I knew almost everybody in the band because I’d gone to hear the band so much in those years. And one day Billy Mitchell called me and he said “what are you doing Thursday?” I said “I’m not doing anything, why?” He said “well would you like to make a recording date with Count Basie?” I said “that’s why I’m alive.” I mean that’s the dream, I mean unbelievable, I thought that’s never going to happen. Well he said Bobby Plater had to take off, because he was writing a date for Lockjaw that was scheduled at the exact same time so he couldn’t be there, so would I come in and play. I said great. So I got to play with Marshall Royal, with Basie, and that was always a dream too, you know, because [Royal was] the consummate lead alto player for that band. As Thad [Jones] used to say, “tailor made lead alto.” That was really a thrill. Wonderful.

It’s bittersweet to reflect on the fact that six of the nine Basie alums quoted here are now deceased.

Our next blog will spotlight road stories originating from Basie band members.

Against the Tide

When the oral history gathering began for the Hamilton College Jazz Archive in 1995, a great deal of our focus was on alumni of the Count Basie Orchestra. This is an ever-diminishing class of stellar musicians and we are sorry to hear that trombonist Benny Powell passed away on June 26 at the age of 80. We were fortunate to interview Benny twice, in 1995 and again in 1999.

Benny was born in New Orleans on March 1, 1930. He was playing professionally in his teens and joined the Lionel Hampton Band in 1948. In 1951 he joined the Count Basie Orchestra and quickly began sharing the trombone solo chores with section mate Henry Coker. Benny stayed with the Basie band for twelve years, winning the Down Beat Critic’s Poll in 1956 and recording frequently with small groups during this period. In the 60’s he led his own combos, played with the Merv Griffin Show band, helped administer the Jazzmobile and continued big band work with Thad Jones and Mel Lewis. He spent much of the 70’s in Los Angeles, where he performed with Bill Berry and Bill Holman. Benny was also a valued sideman in ensembles led by pianist Randy Weston.

When Benny joined Basie in 1951 at the tender age of 21, The Count liked to play things close to the vest, and Benny related that he played with the band for twelve years and never was officially told by Basie that he had been formally hired.

Benny was a thoughtful man, and described himself as a maverick, partly in the way that he would dip his toe into commercial work but always play an active role in what he considered to be more creative music. He also was a self-described sharp dressed man, shedding his tuxedo as soon as he could, and changing into his own “little slick stuff” which often included traditional African attire.

His secret to making a living as a maverick musician , as quoted by Benny in 1999 was: “I go against the tide but I guess I’d call myself a legitimate maverick, because I’ve been going against the tide all my life. But my secret is I can go against the tide and not be abrasive.”

Benny had some well-formed opinions about jazz and the arts in general. He was a theater person, took great stock in education, and took pride in the fact that he could perform in front of “kindergartners or Congress.” In our 1999 interview he said about his own philosophy, “most successful musicians understand humankind. Whether you’re talking to a president or a porter you should be able to communicate.”

He championed the contributions of the African-Americans and their innovations in jazz and blues, and he also recognized all the historical collaborations that took place, especially in the jazz arena:

BP: One of the things I think that’s never been played enough is Benny Goodman’s role in showing a visible democracy. Up until then you’d see pictures of Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Dr. George Washington Carver; Eleanor Roosevelt with Marion Anderson, but they weren’t doing anything. Benny Goodman with Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa, was one of the first visible evidence that we could work together in that kind of respect. And I don’t think history books have made enough of that. I think if that were the case then we wouldn’t still have these arguments, because we would decided that then, we all made this stuff. Now if you go into the non-racial thing then you’re disrespecting my heritage because you see the Blues came from people being whipped and beaten and all of that. I know we’d all like to forget about that, but I think it was because of that — I have a contention, no great art is ever created by happy people. It’s always adversity that creates art. So when I do my lectures, I start off my lectures with Negro spirituals because they chronicle the experience, which is “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen,” and then I tell the people about the voice of being cut off. Anyway, it’s a deep story behind it, and jazz is being left out.

Most musicians have a few musical moments in their career that remain indelibly etched in their memories and I thought I knew one of Benny Powell’s. True Basie fans know that in 1955 Benny was the trombonist who played the striking solo on the bridge of “April in Paris,” one of the band’s most memorable recordings. It was this audio excerpt that I chose to play for Benny during our 1999 interview. It led him somewhere else, however.

MR: I wanted to ask you if you remember the specifics of this particular recording session.

[Audio of “April in Paris”]

BP: My first impression is how blessed I am to have been a part of that because as I hear it I think about Freddie Green, I think about Marshall Royal, that was just the two things that jumped out at me right away, since Marshall Royal played lead alto and it was so solid, then you could hear Freddie Green in the back. I don’t really remember as much from this date as I do from the one we did with Duke Ellington.

MR: Oh, both bands?

BP: Yes. It was called Battle Royal. I think I was like a kid in a candy store because I think where I was seated, I was sort of like I was in eyeshot of both Basie and Duke Ellington, and I kept pinching myself, I said you’re not here, you’re going to wake up any minute. And these guys were such statesmen themselves, because someone remarked the other night at Lincoln Center on the Duke Ellington thing, about that same date. I think it ended up with Basie playing a solo on “Take the A Train,” and Duke playing a solo on “One O’Clock Jump.” But those guys were such statesmen, they’d say well Mr. Basie, this number just demands your presence. “But no, Maestro, I wouldn’t dare.” Oh man those guys were cool. Oh man. And I was a little kid, you know, and I’m looking at these guys. And I don’t believe it. But also I remember one of the biggest sensual thrills I’ve ever gotten, on the end there’s both of these bands playing these huge chords, I think that arrangement was by Jimmy Jones who used to be accompanist for Sarah Vaughan. I think he had a hand in that. But man at the end there’s some power chords in Sonny Payne’s solo. The drum is playing through all of that. Oh man, if you were in the room, sometimes try it yourself. Go to somewhere in a pretty enclosed room, and turn up the sound. Oh man. I mean it will just do all sorts of thing to yourself. It will rearrange your cells.

I was humbled to read Benny’s inscription on my LP copy of “April in Paris” which read “To Monk, Thank you for keeping the flame burning.” Benny is part of that flame.