Count Basie

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William James "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984)  was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother taught him to play the piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and to improvise accompaniment for silent films at a local movie theater in his home town of Red Bank, New Jersey.

By 16 years old, he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his performing career expanded; he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1929 he joined Bennie Moten's band in Kansas City, and played with them until Moten's death in 1935.

In 1935, Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others.

Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams.
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admin

#1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Mtgo9WOL0

Li'l Darlin' is a 1957 jazz standard, composed by trumpeter Neal Hefti for the Count Basie Orchestra. After lyrics were added by Jon Hendricks, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross recorded it with Basie in 1958. When Basie's orchestra performed it live on the Judy Garland Show in 1959, Mel Torme sang, and Ella Fitzgerald also recorded the song with the orchestra for her 1971 album.

It became a favourite of numerous instrumentalists, particularly guitarists such as Joe Pass, Charlie Byrd, George Benson, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, Howard Alden, George Van Eps and Howard Roberts.  Pass performed it live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1979.

Vocalist Mark Murphy recorded it in 1961, as did the Hendricks & Company in 1982, and vocalist Kurt Elling in 2001.  Martin Taylor published his arrangement of the piece in a 2000 issue of Guitar Techniques.

The Basie arrangement without lyrics was often used as the closing theme for The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

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admin

#3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCmcoZktZG4


April in Paris is an album by pianist/bandleader Count Basie and His Orchestra, his first released on the Verve label, recorded in 1955 and 1956.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3JyQnYPkZk

One O'Clock Jump" is a jazz standard, a 12-bar blues instrumental, written by Count Basie in 1937. The melody derived from band members' riffs--Basie rarely wrote down musical ideas, so Eddie Durham and Buster Smith helped him crystallize his ideas. The original 1937 recording of the tune by Basie and his band is noted for the saxophone work of Herschel Evans and Lester Young, trumpet by Buck Clayton, Walter Page on bass and Basie himself on piano.

"One O'Clock Jump" became the theme song of the Count Basie Orchestra. They used it to close each of their concerts for the next half century. It was reportedly titled "Blue Ball" at first but a radio announcer feared that title was too risqué.
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