Iola Brubeck, 1923-2014

Iola Brubeck, in 2011

In the process of gathering 300+ interviews for the Fillius Jazz Archive, I have found myself in a number of memorable settings, none more so than the two visits to the home of Dave and Iola Brubeck. My interview with Mr. Brubeck took place on November 21, 2001, and we made a return visit on July 17, 2011 to do a session with his wife, Iola. This time my wife Romy accompanied me as cameraperson and for logistical support. Going to the home of a jazz icon can be intimidating, but both Dave and Iola put us at ease.

Iola Brubeck passed away on March 12, 2014. She was a wife and mother, and an integral part of Dave’s career, acting at various times as manager, critic and as creative collaborator. Iola wrote lyrics for a number of important compositions, and acted as a sounding board and second set of ears for Dave.

One of their important collaborations was the play with music entitled “The Real Ambassadors,” recorded in 1961 with a stellar cast, and performed only once at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival. I’m happy to learn that “The Real Ambassadors” will receive its first New York performance on April 11 and 12, 2014, in the Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It’s bittersweet that the Brubecks will not be at the performance. Iola’s contribution to this work was lasting and memorable. My favorite composition from the production is “Summer Song” — an enchanting piece that features Louis Armstrong on the vocals. We wrote about this appropriately in the summer of 2012, and you can read that entry here. There is a gorgeous cover version of “Summer Song” (combined with “Summertime”) by Jackie Cain and Roy Kral, featuring Brubeck’s longtime saxophonist, Paul Desmond. Oddly, neither Dave nor Iola had heard this version of their own song, and I was pleased that I could play it for them and later send them a copy. Personally, if any of my compositions had been performed by well-known jazz artists, I would have been all over it.

I was pleased to learn that the late singer Joe Williams (who was instrumental in the creation of the Fillius Jazz Archive) played a role in the birth of “The Real Ambassadors.” Jazz people all seem to know one another, and we get the impression that everybody loves everybody else. Iola told this anecdote regarding Joe and Dave:

IB:    It’s interesting too, and I should have brought it up when we were talking about where did you get 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 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:   Well thank you Joe. 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.”

MR:   Another great story.

IB:    A lot of humanity.

In my house we have a certain back and forth about creative work, and I often wondered what a conversation was like between Dave and Iola when he presented her with his latest effort. I do know that she did not simply say “oh yes, that’s fine, keep going” if she didn’t like the direction in which he was headed. Iola addressed this in our interview:

MR:   I’ve gotten the sense over the years that [Dave] has used you as an opinion and a sounding board about some of his work. When I was here ten years ago he was working on a piece. Unfortunately it was the beginning of the Afghanistan war, and he was working on a piece that I believe he said the text encouraged women not have children because the times were so awful. And you told him nobody’s going to want to sing that, it’s too sad. And it made me think that you’re fairly forthright with your opinions about his work.

IB:    Well yes. If it’s in an area where I think I know something I’ve always felt that I was sort of like the audience. And if I think there’s something that an audience would really love I will tell him that, or if I think it’s something they won’t — musically I won’t step in that area at all. You know I’m not qualified in any way. But going back to the first recordings of the trio, I remember there is a recording on one side, in those days it was 78’s so you had two sides. “Body and Soul” with Cal Tjader on bongos. And Dave didn’t think that maybe that should go on that side. And I said “that’s the best thing you’ve done” because I was thinking from an audience standpoint. And sure enough it was something that really went over extremely well. So I guess a sounding board is maybe what you would call it.

MR:    Well it’s very valuable to have an outside ear I think, because sometimes musicians can’t divorce themselves from what they did personally on the performance.

IB:    It isn’t always an objective opinion perhaps, but at least it’s outside the actual creating of the piece itself. And then of course we’ve worked together on a lot of different projects, and that way we are — I was going to say critical of each other, but we’re not critical of each other, we’re just honest with each other.

I asked a question of Iola that I have never asked of anyone else. As I was talking to this gracious and charming woman, I was trying to picture her displaying a temper, and I couldn’t imagine what would make her mad.

MR:    I don’t know if you can answer this question, but you and Dave seem like such peaceful people. I wonder, is there anything that makes you angry?

IB:    Yeah. Injustice. That is something. It’s not a just world. You have to accept that fact, but I hate to see anyone treated badly, not even the right to be themselves, and the stereotyping of people, that’s an injustice, by the color of the skin or the way they look or the way they walk or the way they’re dressed or whatever. That I really can’t tolerate. That’s where I’m intolerant.

MR:    Are you an optimist though? Is Dave an optimist?

IB:    Oh yeah. Why not? The alternative is to be unhappy and not enjoy the day as it is. I think you know, at this point in our lives we have to accept each day as a gift and I think that being pessimistic and all that angst that one goes through one times in younger people, it’s okay. I mean that’s part of growing up and coming through it. I think we’ve all had those periods. But generally speaking Dave and I both, even at the worst times, have felt well we’ll get through this.

I’ve been fortunate in this work to converse with and stand close to a select group of people who exude a consistently positive and uplifting spirit. Simply being in their presence made me feel better. Dave and Iola Brubeck both radiated this quality, and I feel fortunate to have had the chance to capture them on camera during their later years.

Dave and Iola Brubeck

Today Dave and Iola Brubeck are celebrating their 70^th anniversary. They have supported each other during the ups and downs of a life in jazz, and I was lucky enough to interview them both — ten years apart — in their Connecticut home.

Dave Brubeck

After the Hamilton interview project was well underway, I began to get requests to do presentations about the Archive to small groups. Some of these were at the college, others in community venues. People often approached me after these presentations and asked if I met with this person or that person, favorite jazz personalities who were elderly but still vital. I don’t know if I would have thought to pursue an interview with Dave Brubeck, but after one presentation at Hamilton an alumni couple approached me and asked if I had done an interview with Brubeck. When I answered that I had not, they said I should pursue it. They said that Dave lived near them in Connecticut and they spoke glowingly of him and his community philanthropy, and indicated he was very approachable. Shortly thereafter I contacted the Brubeck Institute which was just getting underway at that time, and I was directed to George Moore, the fellow who handled most of Brubeck’s business contacts.

I was 14 or 15 when I first heard “Take Five” on the radio. It was one of very few jazz songs that made the AM radio playlist in the sixties and it altered my listening habits significantly. The Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on saxophone was the first group I sought out and began to analyze.

When it was determined that I would be able to interview Dave for the Archive, my only contact was with Brubeck’s business manager, George. He was helpful, but he made the idea of conducting an interview with Brubeck quite imposing. First of all it was decided that we would do the interview at Brubeck’s home, and George made it clear in a polite way that Dave would not want to talk about the past, the “Take Five” type questions. This is analogous to getting a chance to interview Paul McCartney but being warned to not ask about The Beatles. The time of Brubeck’s life with the quartet for which he is most renown is with Desmond, but it was a relatively brief period of his life and hence the warning from George not to go back there with my questions.

I suppose if I had the opportunity to ask questions about Brubeck’s period in the sixties, I would have asked him if he was surprised that “Take Five” made the AM playlists, or if casual listeners were aware of the odd time signatures, liner notes notwithstanding. I might have asked him why he added the 4/4 swing section interludes in “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” with its 9/8 time signature. Maybe I would have asked him to comment on Al Jarreau’s lyrics to the piece or ask him how that came about. Early on when I began doing these jazz interviews I learned not to make the mistake of asking questions which contained an agenda or an opinion if I could avoid it. A question such as that might have been “Did you add the swing section in ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’ because you thought the audience needed a safe haven by this part in the song?” Asking questions in this way causes unwanted outcomes in the interviews. It’s not my job to try to dazzle either Brubeck or any potential audience of the video with my expertise or insights. The point was to direct the subject and then to create subsequent questions based on the interviewees’ responses. That’s the only way you can possibly get at the true feelings, motives and ideas of the interviewees. It’s not the time to hear any of my opinions, difficult as it is to restrain myself at times.

I would have prepared many questions on this era if I’d had the chance, and it probably would have been a good interview. As it turned out, Brubeck reminisced on this period in his life, but he went there of his own accord, without my prodding. I was grateful for that meandering of thought.

George sent a series of four cassettes of interviews Brubeck had recently done, and listening to these cassettes probably represented the most homework I had ever done on one person, keeping notes and trying to figure out how to engage him in subject matter that was more recent, material I wasn’t all that familiar with, such as his symphonic compositions.

Thinking back, it clearly was the one interview that had me the most nervous beforehand. I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly. Normally the equipment necessary to conduct these interviews involved two cameras with lighting, separate DAT machines for audio, and backdrop curtains. Typically in hotel rooms we’d move furniture around to accommodate the set up. In the case of going to someone’s home you want to disrupt as little as possible and get in and out as quickly as you can, yet still get a good-looking video. I also knew that he had another appointment scheduled for later that afternoon. The cameraman and I were planning to drive that day from one place in Connecticut to another, and we arrived in Brubeck’s community well over an hour before our scheduled appointment, necessitating that we kill time and heightening my nervousness.

When we finally pulled up and met George, it looked like an appropriate set-up. We would be situated on a closed in porch overlooking a little ravine, and Brubeck would be seated at his piano. We did not meet Brubeck until we were all set up and then George went and brought him to the interview. I felt anxious for the interview to get rolling, and for the challenge of picking-up that comfort level with people, which is always the preliminary part of the interview. I wanted him to feel that I was asking questions that he would enjoy discussing.

Watching the interview now, I think I spent too much time on subjects I hadn’t anticipated. I wasn’t prepared for the depth of his spirituality. I don’t know whether I would have been able to prepare for it even had I known, but I recall not feeling comfortable getting into discussions about religion. The things that inspire Dave Brubeck to write seem weighty compared to what inspires me to compose. To me, musical compositions are mostly about getting a start and then solving the problem, how to get from one place to another in an interesting manner. In one sense, though, that part of the musical puzzle is the way he thinks, as when he talked about getting a commission along with some other composers to do new settings of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” the choral movement at the end of the Ninth. He didn’t want to do it, because he thought the piece was sacrosanct, but when his musical mind took over he immediately went to the challenge. How then could he do this? Oh! It’s perfect in five:

And then:

 This is the kind of immediate musical problem solving that composers often demonstrate.

One interesting moment in the interview was his description of finishing pieces in oddball places, like writing a Christmas mass in the back of a Volkswagen bus as his wife was driving them to visit one of their sons at summer camp. I remember when finishing my graduate hours, taking a course called “The Philosophy of Testing,” which was excruciatingly dull. I recalled being in this class in the basement of a church in the Upstate New York boondocks, sitting in the back of the room using a big book to camouflage manuscript paper as I worked on an arrangement of “Your Smiling Face,” the James Taylor song. I remember that vividly because I was in the talking stage of forming a new group and I intended to use the arrangement for the new band.

There were two significant moments in the interview. The first was about him traveling in Russia, and talking about how the music brought the Soviets and Americans together. As he spoke I realized he was starting to choke-up on camera and I remember thinking to myself how far is this going to go, how long do I wait before I try to say something, do I respond to what the subject is or do I move into a different area. My response to this came from doing the homework and being aware of a previous comment he had made in another interview. People often say that music is the universal language. His previous interview comment was that rhythm is the universal language. I used that comment and also used the well-known piece he wrote back in the sixties called “The Real Ambassadors,” where he was touting music and its pioneers, including Louis Armstrong, as the real ambassadors, and thinking he was one of them, so that’s what I chose for my panic-stricken comment. I said “you said it the best, when you said rhythm ties humanity together. Am I correct? That’s an absolutely amazing story. And you are one of the real ambassadors. We’re most appreciative that you’ve done that in your lifetime. [Pause] I’m really interested to hear about your vision for the [Brubeck] Institute.”

The second significant moment in the interview was when I played a small excerpt from a Jackie [Cain] & Roy [Kral] medley of the two songs “Summertime” and “Summer Song,” from their “Time and Love” album. It had some significant springboards for discussion. “Summer Song” was his composition and his wife Iola’s lyrics. It was from their musical “The Real Ambassadors,” and it was a song that Louis Armstrong had originally sung. Also significant was that Paul Desmond was playing on the cut from the Jackie & Roy recording. It was a nice moment when he realized what it was that I had brought for him, and his spontaneous and wholly positive reaction to it, a piece he clearly had not heard in decades. Significant for me was his serene facial expression when he heard the dissonance resolve in the a cappella section at the words “swimming hole,” because the beauty of this was the precise reason I chose to bring that piece from among the myriad I could have selected.

Afterwards I was humbled and fortunate as he took me to his workspace. He had two pianos, one being an upright that was set on cinderblocks so that he could play standing up. I recalled that as a young man Brubeck had a serious swimming accident where he hurt his back, and dealing with that injury was still part of his life. He showed me the piece he had been working on that morning. The interview was done in November of 2001, and the piece was about the war in Afghanistan. He had mentioned it in the interview, and said that Iola had commented that no one would want to hear this, and he shouldn’t write it, because it was too sad. He played a little of it for me and asked what I thought of it. I can’t remember what I said. I’m sure I said it was lovely or striking. I did refrain, however, from making an idiotic crack such as “well if you work for a few more years you can become a well-known composer, Mr. Brubeck.”

Iola Brubeck

In the summer of 2011 I returned to the Brubeck home, this time to interview Iola Brubeck, as she is a lyricist. Iola and I had been trying to find a time that was convenient for both of us, and it was a relief to finally be able to obtain this interview, as she is also in her early nineties. This time I was under no constraints as to questions being off limits, and she seemed genuinely pleased to have the opportunity to be interviewed for our Archive.

Over the years, Iola’s impact on Dave’s career cannot be understated. It was Iola, for example, who suggested they focus their efforts on the then-budding college circuit in the fifties, an astute observation. Dave and Iola were both raised in California and attended college at the University of the Pacific in Stockton. After college, and as he began his career, Dave was working clubs in San Francisco. Iola said it was Duke Ellington who advised Dave that if he ever wanted to make it big in jazz that it was necessary to move to the New York market. At that time they bought the house where they now reside in Connecticut, and proceeded to raise their six children.

At the time of the interview I asked Iola if she still traveled with Dave. She said that for a few years they only traveled to places they could get to by car, for example the Newport Jazz Festival. But she said that nowadays she didn’t venture far from home. She said that it wasn’t exciting anymore to get on a plane and travel.

Iola was a gracious and humble interviewee. Like many of our interviewees, she didn’t realize she’d be receiving a modest honorarium from the college in exchange for her time. Hamilton requires that a W-9 IRS form be filled out for any amount at all if funds are to be disbursed by the college. I found it delightful that Iola didn’t know her own Social Security number. She had to retire to the office in the house to fetch it.

A few weeks after we sent the Brubecks a DVD copy of Iola’s interview, she emailed me to say that she and Dave had watched it together and that they both enjoyed it. I felt proud to be able to conduct an interview that would please Dave Brubeck, as most interviewees do not acknowledge receipt of the finished DVD.

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.