Tales of the Big Bands: Basie, Part 2

In Basie, Part 1 we listened to musicians speak about the magic of the Count Basie sound. The day-to-day stories of sidemen also yield an inside look at the trials and tribulations of playing in a touring band. Let’s return to bassist Jimmy Lewis, who offered us his view on the Basie swing machine in Part 1.

When musicians recall bad or difficult gigs, it is rarely about the music, but more often about logistics. Jimmy offered up a memorable story about getting to one of those out-of-the-way gigs.

MR: Let me ask you about a little thing. You had a story about flying with Basie?

JL: Yeah, you know we had some Army camps to do. We had to ride in the Army planes, the ones with two tails and that big thing in the middle. So one day we got on this thing going to one of the camps, and it was noisy, this thing was so noisy you couldn’t hear. Now Billy Eckstine and all those guys were used to riding. But me, I was scared to death. We all had parachutes. Basie had on a parachute over by the door you know. So we were going to Corpus Christi, Texas. So the plane took off, but before we got there, something happened just before we got ready to land. They couldn’t get the landing gear down. So the guy kept punching it in back, there was some long pole they couldn’t get it down. So the man said “we’re going to have to circle around and go further, and come back around again.” So they went around, and started back to see if we could land, and still couldn’t get it open. So one of the guys, the one who was right by the back door here, pulled that big door open. Now we were flying. So I said “what’s this — what are you doing?” The guy said “well see, we’re trying to get a little more air in the plane.” I said “air in the plane!” I said “man, we don’t need no more air.” So he said “well, I’ll tell you, we’re having a problem with the landing gear, and you might have to bail out.” And Basie looked at me. He said “what do you mean bail out?” And so he asked the pilot, he said “look, are you going to bail out too?” The pilot said “no, I’ve got to stay with the plane.” Basie said “well I’m going to stay with you,” he said, “I’m going on with you. Because if I jump out and I pull this string and the ‘chute don’t open up, man, I can’t fly — I don’t have no wings.” Well everybody was laughing. And so Billy teased me, he said “man, we’re going to crash” — oh baby, I don’t know what to do. And I’m running back and forth. It’s funny, you know I’d never been in a plane before anyway.

MR: Something finally happened because you’re here with us.

JL: So we get to Corpus Christi, Texas. Now, so finally we land. Everybody set there about fifteen minutes before they got out of the plane. It was quiet — boy you could hear a mouse — quiet you know. So everybody started getting out one by one, taking off the parachute, taking their instruments and go outside. We got outside, and we had to play under some trees. We get out there, and set up under these trees out there, in the hot summertime. Oh, man, it looked like a big field. And people, as far as you could see. And they had all these big speakers about like that. So they set the band stand up, all the band stands, they put the music, you know the fella he’d taken care of all that. And so then Basie went up to test the piano to see if it was in tune you know. So then he called us, his band. We got up there and Basie was telling about this trip, how much trouble we had with the plane and all that. So the people settled down. We started playing. As soon as we started playing, all these little chrysalis come out of the tree and started falling on the bandstand. And it’s falling in the bell of the horns, and the guys would dump it out and keep playing. I got me some string, tying it all around my pants legs you know, in case they would crawl up my leg. And so when we finished the job, now we’ve got to take this same plane and go to California. So me and Wendell Cully, we walked out to the plane and looked in, and we see all these parachutes on the seats, and Cully said, “they look like dead people, man.” He said “we can’t take this thing, can we?” I said “no.” So I said well let’s go tell Basie we don’t think we’re going to go on this. So we went and told Basie and he said “I don’t blame you, but,” he said “I’ve got to stay with the band and so you go ahead and see if you can get a train out, and meet us in California.” So we did. We got a train. We got to California three days later. And I think we missed one gig. But we got to the gig and we played and everything. So we asked Basie, “how was the trip?” He said “man that was the worst trip I ever had.”

Travel was not the only daily challenge. Road bands, especially the black bands, often times had to settle for less-than-optimal accommodations. Musicians always shared rooms, in some cases even the boss had to share a room with one of the sidemen. Clark Terry, who is always good for an inside story, shared this anecdote with his friend Joe Williams about rooming with the Count:

CT: I have to tell you my favorite Basie story.

JW: Yeah, yeah.

CT: Yeah you know what am I telling you? Well we’re playing Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, and this was during a period when we were not allowed to stay in the big hotel, we were relegated to the homes of Miss Brown, Miss Jones, Miss Green and so forth.

JW: Oh, those were the good old days. “Have you had your breakfast?” “No, M’am.”

CT: So we were in Miss Green’s or Brown’s or somebody’s home, and she said “well I’ve got one room left and I’ve got two beds in it, and one is a big bed and one is a little bed, and I can take two of ‘em.” So Basie and I are the only two left. So I’m going there with Basie, and the big bed is in the middle of the room, a huge bed and he’s got that. And my bed is a little slab up against the wall. So I said okay, it’s beautiful. At least it’s some place to sleep other than the basement of the police station. So here we are, now Basie can’t get to sleep with the light out.

JW: I know, yeah.

CT: He had to have that light on. And he had to read his comic book every night and he’d laugh, ah, ha, ha, ho, ha, ha. Well I couldn’t go to sleep with the light on. So I said well I know what I’ll do, I’ll just play possum and wait until I hear the comic book hit his belly. Then I’ll know he’s asleep. Well I should preface this by saying that it’s always customary for people when they go to bed we all empty our pockets on the dresser, you know, and undress and put the pajamas on and go to sleep. So I had put all my things there and Basie put all his things on the dresser. We didn’t have that far, just the little table top that we put our stuff on. So the light is right by this little table top, and so I had to get up and go over, and when I heard the book go “plop” on his belly, I eased over to the light and grabbed the chain and pulled the chain. Now the minute I pulled the chain, before I released it, he starts turning in the bed saying “put it back.” I was never sure whether he said put the lights back or whether —

JW: Oh Lord. “Put it back.”

CT: “Put it back.”

Almost without exception, Basie alums talk about the skill that the Count displayed in leading his band. While being a man of few words, his approach to hiring and maintaining his band with the members he wanted was as unique as his playing. Trombonist Benny Powell joined the newly formed Basie band after the small group experiment, and addressed Basie’s leadership personality:

BP: I joined [Basie’s] band when I was 21. I’ll tell you the essence of my experience with Basie. I don’t know if it’s the essence but it’s certainly the beginning. I was at the Apollo Theater working for a week in Joe Thomas’ band. Also in the band was Charlie Fowlkes, who had been with Basie. Basie was on a hiatus and he was about to form another band. So Charlie Fowlkes told me where the rehearsal was going to be, and invited me to the rehearsal. So I went, and it was nice. Pretty uneventful. I can’t remember — at this particular time there were a couple of jobs I wanted. The job with Charlie Ventura. Benny Green had been there and he was about to leave, so I really wanted a small situation to play in. Then I was waiting to hear from Illinois Jacquet also. In the meantime, the Basie thing comes up, I make the rehearsal and that’s fine. Charlie Fowlkes tells me when the next rehearsal is. And I come back and I make that also. I don’t know how many rehearsals we did, but pretty soon we started working, and the first date I played with Basie was October 31 I think, 1951. So I think at this time we would go out of town for maybe one night or two nights a weekend, and come back in town. Well this went on for just a little while, a couple of weeks. In the meantime, from Basie I’m trying to find out if I’m hired, if I have a job or shall I tell Illinois Jacquet that, you know, no. But there was a strange quirk about Basie. If he had something that you wanted, he would sort of play a cat and mouse with you, you know, dangle it in front of you. Anyway, he knew I wanted him to say yes, Benny, you’re hired. So the first time, well you know I was sort of in awe of him anyway. I think I was all of 21 and he was the world famous Count Basie, so I would sort of find myself next to him by my own design, and I would say “Mr. Basie, how do you like the trombone section?” He’d say “it sounds all right.” And that’s all I got out of that conversation. So maybe the next weekend I got brave enough to say “Mr. Basie, are you satisfied with the trombones?” He said “yeah, it sounds pretty good.” That’s all I got out of that one. Next time I went to him, I can’t remember, each time I would disguise it. But finally I said “Mr. Basie, what I’m trying to find out is, you know, am I hired? Am I with the band?” He said “you’re here aren’t you kid?” And every time after that for about four or five times, that’s what I’d get. “You’re here aren’t you, kid?” So finally I stopped asking him. And during the twelve years, I don’t think he ever said “yes, Benny, you’ve got a job. You’re hired.” But he was a wonderful man. I loved him. I was always in awe of older musicians.

The “old” Count Basie would have been 47 when Benny joined the band in 1951.

Benny’s best known Basie moment is his eight-bar bridge on the classic April in Paris recording, at the :50 spot.

The Basie mode of leadership should be a chapter in a book about how to be a boss. Butch Miles talked about his way of silent but positive reinforcement, and it reminds us that although the Count was a man of few words, he was not someone to be disrespected:

BM: Oh, [Basie] was wonderful. He was a wonderful boss because he never told you what to do or what to play. I asked our band manager at that time — it was Sonny Cohn — and Cup [Cohn] sat right in front of me on the band bus, and after I’d been with the band about maybe two weeks, you know I said “Sonny, you know, Basie hasn’t said anything to me about whether he wants it this way, or he doesn’t want it that way,” I said, because I’d worked with a number of other people who’d made it quite clear what they wanted and the way that they wanted it. And Basie didn’t say a word. And so Cup just looked at me, he says, “well if it’s wrong, he’ll tell you, and if it’s not, he’ll just let you go.” And that was why he had great professionals in the band who took care of the business so well, because they were professionals. Basie didn’t hire somebody that just turned 16 with an incredible reputation but couldn’t play. So one time — I can’t remember if Al [Grey] was still on the band at that point or not, but we had a trumpet problem and somebody recommended a young trumpet player from Chicago. He flew in to New York, and since we made it pretty much a point to not rehearse, there was no rehearsal again or audition, it was kind of like a closed shop. You got in on a recommendation or if Basie had heard you play himself and wanted you to come in with the band. And I can’t remember the young man’s name but he came in and he was all full of fire and brimstone. He was ready to show the world that he was like the greatest trumpet player in the world, probably like in his early twenties or something, although that doesn’t have anything to do with it. And the night of his first gig with the band he made the absolute mistake of thinking that Basie was a real cream puff and he lipped off to him. He said something sassy or nasty, right before the job. I never saw this happen before. Basie fired him, right then.

MR: The guy didn’t play a note yet?

BM: Not with the band. Basie fired him, right then, gave him his ticket home and told him good-bye. He never did play a note, not with the band. He came in all hot, you know had his hat over to the side. It didn’t work like that. The band was a very well oiled machine and it was a band, it was a big band, it was a full ensemble. Basie played the band like he played the piano. And it had to work like that. You couldn’t have eighteen or nineteen superstars up there ‘cause it never works. So the band was as a unit. And it had to be that way. Oh we had stars. We had Jimmy Forrest, we had Al Grey, we had Curtis Fuller at one point, we had Bobby Plater, Charlie Fowlkes, a great baritone saxophonist, you know, various people that passed through the band from time to time over the years. But you didn’t have anybody that ran roughshod through the band. Basie wouldn’t stand for that. He just would not. And I never saw him get mad at anybody in the band except that one time. He was a very affable, easy going, wonderful man and just marvelous to work for, but you did not sass him.

Trombonist Al Grey was nicknamed “Fab” and was thrilled to become a Basie member, but quickly became frustrated when, as the new guy, he could not get in the queue for solo space. Al spoke to my colleague Michael Woods and related a story of one of the few times that Basie stepped out of his silent mode with a fatherly gesture:

AG: [Y]ou must also remember that when I joined the band, Count Basie’s personnel had been the same for like twelve, fourteen years, same personnel. So when I joined the band, I didn’t have no name at all. I was called the “new boy” and I didn’t used to like that. And that was on me for a whole year, until the next person came into the band, and this is when I got my name. But then, when I did get my name, I had become so prominent with that band until Basie said, “oh, this is the fabulous one — Fab.” And that is my name today, they call me “Fab” but that comes from Count Basie who started calling me fabulous because I could go out and get standing ovations every night, every night. Standing ovations, until this became a big part of Count Basie’s band, until when we’d go out where we’d have Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, that meant that Count Basie’s band didn’t have no chance to play, but opening number, a middle number, and like the featured drum number, and then they would bring Ella on and then Frank. This is where it was always sad moments, too, because here you have all these great musicians sitting there playing the music for the singers, you see? And they never got that good, and had no opportunity to express themselves. And I know many won’t even take a day or two to talk about this but I’ve gone far enough in life that I feel as though I do have that privilege to speak about that because in a sense in music that would be a no-no, all these different things that come on with bands. I myself, after joining, we recorded that day and then a few days later we go to England, and here this is still the days where they didn’t have that many baths in the hotels, but we still stayed like in the clean hotels and things. And we could really completely tell the difference of the treatment.

MW: In other words, you were treated differently in Europe?

AG: Completely different. You was treated like an artist. Like artists are supposed to be treated. And they would roll out the royal carpet to you and you was treated that way. And you was accepted that way. Well, I myself, leaving the United States, it was a long time in my belief, gee, how is it this much of a difference, you see? And again, a lot of this that I am speaking about, wasn’t permissible a few years ago to even make statements. But here this is to the Hamilton College, and I would want the students and everything to know what you have come here to talk about, okay? But for myself, when I first got over there, there was no music written out for me. And that just drove me crazy after playing solos night after night and a lot of them with Dizzy Gillespie. Now I come in to Count Basie’s band, and there’s no music written for me.

MW: So he had to do much of the music by memory?

AG: Well on that particular tour, the musicians had been in the band so long they only took three books with them. And that was Snooky’s book, Lockjaw’s book, and my book. And they saved all this money for not taking all the rest of these books. It used to run into big costs, you know. And here I am buried in the music, now I want to solo so bad, ‘cause Joe Newman just went out there and he just performed like ever. And here’s Sonny Payne and Frank Wess and me, and Henry Coker who was a trombone player, and Benny Powell. Now I get no chance to play, nothing, nothing.

MW: Was there any etiquette by which you could kind of go to Basie and say, hey, you know, I want you to throw me a solo here?

AG: Well, it boiled down to where I felt as though that coming from Dizzy I should get a few bars. So one day we were in line, this is when you had to jump off the bus and run in and get in line because you know that the bath is going to run out. So that means that you’re going to have to go down the hall to get a bath. So this particular day I jumped off and run in and I get in line and here I am, the new boy and everything, and everybody was always jumping in front of me because I was the new boy. So you’re the new boy and you’d better recognize it and accept it if you’re going to stay in that band. And so this day I was getting ready to sign in for this band, and Marshall Royal ran in and said “Royal” and, he was the Straw Boss, and they gave him this last bath. And I just went off in the lobby of this hotel. I just went to hollering and screaming and cussing and going on. And of course you know this is a no-no, you know you’re not supposed to do like that in the Queen Hotel, and because I was completely so uptight from not playing any solos. And you’d pick up the paper the next day and they’re talking about Marshall and Snooky and all these guys that did all this last night, and you don’t see your name or anything like that because you hadn’t did anything, see? And so he got this last bath and I just went off because I was so upset from not playing. But Count Basie was sitting in the corner over there. He would always wait until last because you know he had his suite coming and everything like that. And he finally got my attention and he beckoned me and he says “come over here.” And I says, well I said “I was in line and I was correct to get my bath and he just stepped in front of me.” And Basie said “well he’s Straw Boss, you know how they are.” And he tried to calm me down. But I went in to saying “well look, I don’t know why you hired me because I come over here and you won’t let me play anything.” And this is when he came up and I had never heard him cuss or anything like that but he came up with a cuss word, and said “one minute — you just got here. Now when we get back to New York, we’re going to fix up music and everything for you, but you just got here and so we can’t do nothing about it and this is not an old jam band and so we’re not going to have no jam session,” and he says “but you know I like you, and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to let you come down and have a bath in my room and there’s an extra room over here, the suite, and you can stay there tonight.” And this is like he became like my father. Because then I would listen to everything he had to say.

Basie’s promise to Al would soon be realized. Check out this rare Count Basie piece for a marvelous track featuring them both.

Our three-part series on Basie will wrap up in the next installment with stories and reminiscing about the great Joe Williams, Basie’s number one son.

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.