William James "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 - April 26, 1984) was a jazz musician who, through his orchestra, helped shaped the Big Band sound, particularly with his work innovating swing rhythms such as using two saxophone players when many bands often used just one.
Born in New Jersey, he later moved to New York where he was taught to play the organ by the influential jazz pianist Fats Waller. He played on the Vaudeville circuit in 1920s and became involved with some of the early big band jazz groups which. He found himself stranded in Kansas City in the late 20s and played there for the next few years as a member of other jazz bands until forming his own 9 piece band in 1935 called the Barons of Rhythm. He played in clubs and performed on radio, one of the broadcasts resulting in one of the announcers giving him the “Count Basie”, similar to the noble titles of other prominent jazz bandleaders like Duke Ellington and Earl Hines.
His band moved to Chicago in 1936 and New York City in 1937 where he got the attention of record labels and made a number of influential and successful recordings in the 30s and 40s. The post-world war two era saw the decline of the big bands and the Count disbanded the group, spending much of the remainder of the decade playing in smaller combos. He reformed the group in 1952 as a 16 piece group. They did their first European tour in 1958 to great success. His band continued to have a number of high profile engagements and the Count collaborated with a number of other big names in music including Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Bing Crosby. He remained active until his death of pancreatic cancer in 1984. His Orchestra has continued to tour and sometimes record long after his passing.
He received numerous honours during and after his lifetime. In 1958, he was the first African-American to win a grammy and he won a total of 9 plus the lifetime achievement award.
Tropes:
- 12-Bar Blues: “One O’Clock Jump” uses this structure.
- As Himself: Count Basie made appearances as himself, sometimes with his orchestra, in several films such as Top Hat and Blazing Saddles.
- The Band Minus the Face: His band continues to tour long after his passing.
- Big Band: Count Basie was amongst the most influential bandleaders of the genre and, following a breakup in the second half of the 40s, remained in the genre until his passing despite the decline of genre’s popularity.
- Character Action Title: First Time! The Count Meets The Duke, the title of his collaboration album with Duke Ellington.
- Cover Album: He released two albums consisting of The Beatles covers as well as an album covering the music of the James Bond films.
- Crossover: He liked playing with blues singers like Billie Holiday (though they did not record together) and also worked with Traditional Pop Musicians later in his career. Amongst Jazz musicians, he recorded a;albums with Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson.
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: His arrangement of the standard "April in Paris" uses it twice: after what seems to be the big ending, Basie instructs the band to play the last few bars "one more time". After the "ending" is played again, he asks for it "one more once". The third time, the song ends for real.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Downplayed with ‘’The Atomic Mr. Basie’’ where ‘the final song in the original release, ’Li’l Darlin’’, is the longest but is only about 25 seconds longer than the next longest track
- Something Blues: “Good Morning Blues”, “Goin to Chicago Blues”
