Vol. VI - 1946, 1950, 1951 "The Orchestra and The Octet"
Studio album by Count Basie
Released 1986
Recorded 1946, 1950, 1951
Genre Jazz
Length 1:24:39
Label CBS
Producer Henri Renaud
The Count Basie band that came bursting out of Kansas City in 1936 was a definition-in-action of swing. Originally it was a group of nine that played for floor shows and dancing in Kansas City's Reno Club, built around a rhythm section that has never been equaled and the contrast between two very dissimilar tenor saxophonists, Lester Young and Herschel Evans. The musicians were all experienced in the art of setting up spontaneous horn riffs behind a blues singer or a soloist, and during its Kansas City days the band's entire ''book'' of arrangements was said to fit inside one small suitcase.
The nine-piece Basie band broadcast live over the radio from the Reno Club, but no transcriptions are known to survive. The band's recorded history began when Count Basie took four of his musicians, plus his singer, Jimmy Rushing, into a Chicago studio on Oct. 8, 1936. The performances that resulted, which include the incomparable ''Shoe Shine Swing'' and ''Oh! Lady Be Good,'' are the first tracks on a new series of Count Basie reissues from French CBS.
Six double-album sets have been issued so far, in a series that will include eight sets in all. The intention is to collect all the originally issued performances Count Basie's orchestra and small groups recorded for CBS between 1936 and 1951. These albums fill a real gap, for many of the classic Basie recordings are not available at present on American reissues, and those that are have been scattered over several rather haphazard anthologies, some issued under the name of the Basie orchestra's star soloist, the tenor saxophonist Lester Young.
The French ''Count Basie'' series does not include any of the originally unissued recordings (often called ''alternate takes''), which some later reissues have documented. Only the originally issued takes are used. This makes the albums both a valuable chronology of one of the great American vernacular orchestras in its prime and a series that is compulsively listenable.
The six ''Count Basie'' double-albums issued so far are: ''Volume I: The Count and the President (1936 and 1939)''; ''Volume II: Lester Leaps In (1939/1940)''; ''Volume III: Don for Prez (1940/1941)''; ''Volume IV: One O'Clock Jump (1941/1942)''; ''Volume V: Avenue C (1942, 1944/ 1946)''; and ''Volume VI: The Orchestra and the Octet (1946, 1950/ 1951).'' The French CBS catalogue numbers are 88667, 88668, 88672, 88673, 88674 and 88675, respectively; the albums are available on LP only.(The series is available by mail order for $16.50 per double-album from Down Home Music Inc., 10341 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito, Calif. 94530. Shipping is $2.50 for the first double-album and 50 cents for each additional set.) The nine-piece Count Basie band that performed at Kansas City's Reno Club expanded to 13 pieces before opening in New York, and later grew to 15. But the early group's informal working methods were never entirely abandoned. These methods involved making up instant or ''head'' arrangements on blues patterns; the leaders of the trumpet, trombone and saxophone sections usually came up with the particular riff figures their section would play. Working together, the band would build a performance from an opening whisper up to a shouting conclusion.
This practice of composing new material on top of conventional blues or pop-song chord sequences became a favorite working method of the boppers, the movement of first-generation jazz modernists who took their cues primarily from Kansas City's Charlie Parker. And there can be little doubt that the Basie band of the late 30's and early 40's was one of bop's principal inspirations. For one thing, there was ''The All-American Rhythm Section,'' as they were billed on a series of 1942 small-group performances. Count Basie's piano, the steady rhythm-guitar strokes of Freddie Green, Walter Page's immense sound and deliberate phrasing on the bass, and the linear, propulsive, smoothly flowing drumming of Jo Jones meshed together into a mighty engine of swing.
The even flow and ferocious momentum of this rhythm section encouraged the sort of loping, across-the-beat phrases and unexpected accents at which Lester Young in particular excelled. And Mr. Young would have to be considered one of bop's primary progenitors for other reasons as well, not the least of which was the decisive impact his style had on virtually every important tenor saxophonist of the bop years.
The Young-Basie partnership was one of those fortuitous collaborations that have periodically enriched American music. There are plenty of examples on the first three volumes of the new reissues, including the 1936 and 1939 small-group sides and the orchestra's ''Taxi War Dance,'' ''Pound Cake'' and ''Twelfth Street Rag'' on Volume I; ''Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie,'' ''Lester Leaps In'' and ''Tickle-Toe'' on Volume II; and ''The World Is Mad'' and ''Broadway'' on Volume III, which is titled ''Don for Prez'' because the tenor saxophonist Don Byas replaced Lester Young, ''the President,'' or ''Prez,'' early in 1941.
Jazz histories have concentrated heavily on the individual improviser as innovator and culture hero. The result in the case of the Count Basie recordings is that subsequent generations of listeners have tended to concentrate more and more myopically on Lester Young's (admittedly brilliant) solos, and to give the rest of the band short shrift. To listen in this way is to wholly misunderstand the music's intent, and to ignore its idiomatic integrity. The early Basie band was not a backup group for a single soloist. The relationship between Mr. Young's pliable, evanescent sound and the huskier chest-tones of his fellow tenor saxophonist Herschel Evans was crucial to the Basie band's strategies. When Mr. Evans died in 1939, Mr. Basie immediately replaced him with another big-toned, paradigmatically ''masculine'' tenor saxophonist, Buddy Tate, who is heard on the CBS reissues.
Other players, especially the trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry Edison and the trombonists Dickie Wells and Vic Dickenson, got as much solo space as either of the tenor saxophonists. For this was decidedly a band, deriving its power and punch from a group dynamic, a unanimity of phrasing and accentuation that melded individual personalities into a collective identity.
The proof of this is to be found in the recordings made after Lester Young's departure. If anything, the orchestra sounds even more confident. Don Byas, with his caressing tone and advanced harmonic ideas, was a worthy replacement for Mr. Young, and another new addition, the alto saxophonist Tab Smith, was also coming into his own as a soloist in the early 40's. On ''Volume III: Don for Prez,'' the post-Prez orchestra simply roars through bristling uptempo arrangements like Jimmy Mundy's ''Music Makers'' and Tab Smith's ''Jitters.'' When the father of jazz tenor, Coleman Hawkins, is added as guest soloist on ''9:20 Special'' and ''Feeding the Bean,'' his work, compared to that of Mr. Byas in particular, sounds just a bit raucous and old-fashioned.
Volumes IV, V and VI of the French CBS series are a special treat; much of the material featuring Lester Young has remained generally available, but the later CBS performances have not. Paul Robeson sings with the Basie band on Volume IV, ''One O'Clock Jump,'' and there are more excellent Jimmy Mundy and Tab Smith flagwavers, such as the former's ''Feather Merchant'' and the latter's ''Platterbrains.''
Volume V, ''Avenue C,'' includes the superb 1942 small-group session credited to the ''All-American Rhythm Section,'' which was joined for four of the eight tunes by Buck Clayton and Don Byas in peak form. Mr. Byas has another exceptional solo on the orchestra performance ''Ride On.''
Volume VI, ''The Orchestra and the Octet,'' chronicles the impact on the Basie orchestra of the emerging bop style. The leading bop trombonist, J. J. Johnson, joined the band early in 1946, and his arrangement of ''Rambo,'' his solos on several other numbers and the magnificent Tadd Dameron arrangement ''Stay On It'' all show how easily and naturally bop fitted into the Basie band's sophisticated blues-swing format.
But the pinnacle of Basie's encounter with bop was the 1950 recordings made with an octet, when the pianist-leader had temporarily disbanded his orchestra for economic reasons. The 12 octet performances on this album feature some of the music's finest soloists, including the trumpeter Clark Terry, the clarinetist Buddy DeFranco and the saxophonists Charlie Rouse, Serge Chaloff and Wardell Gray. Mr. Gray in particular shines, his fluid, melodious lines frequently recalling Lester Young. He is featured heavily on the recordings made when Mr. Basie assembled a new orchestra in 1951. The remainder of the band's 1951 recordings are to be documented on Volumes VII and VIII of the French CBS series.
Professional Ratings:
allmusic 3.5/5 stars
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic:
This is the allmusic review.
Review on No Depression:
This is another review.
LP track listing
Side One
1. "The Mad Boogie" (Count Basie, Buster Harding) - 2:53
2. "Lazy Lady Blues" (Leonard Feather, Phil Moore) - 3:03
3. "Rambo" (Count Basie, J.J. Johnson) - 3:18
4. "Stay Cool" (Dicky Wells, Count Basie) - 3:08
5. "The King" (Count Basie) - 3:06
6. "Hob Nail Boogie" (Buster Harding) - 2:22
7. "Danny Boy" (Frederic Weatherly) - 3:08
Side Two
8. "Mutton Leg" (Count Basie, Harry Edison) - 3:15
9. "Stay On It" (Tadd Dameron) - 3:24
10. "Wild Bill's Boogie" (Count Basie, Buster Harding) - 2:29
11. "Fla-Ga-La-Pa" (Caughey Roberts, Marvin Fisher, Roy Alfred) - 3:03
12. "Don't Ever Let Me Be Yours" (Bob Russell) - 3:00
13. "Goodbye, Baby" (Count Basie, Jimmy Rushing) - 2:14
14. "Neal's Deal" (Count Basie, Neal Hefti) - 2:43
Side Three
15. "Bluebeard Blues" (Count Basie, Neal Hefti) - 3:02
16. "Golden Bullet" (Count Basie, Milton Ebbins) - 2:24
17. "You're My Baby, You" (Robert Astor, George Williams) - 2:53
18. "Song of the Islands" (Charles E. King) - 2:49
19. "These Foolish Things" (Holt Marvell, Jack Strachey, Harry Link) - 2:58
20. "I'm Confessin'" (Al Neiburg, Doc Dougherty, Ellis Reynolds) - 3:09
21. "One O'Clock Jump" (Count Basie) - 2:54
22. "I Ain't Got Nobody" (Roger Graham, Spencer Williams) - 3:07
Side Four
23. "Little White Lies" (Walter Donaldson) - 3:14
24. "I'll Remember April" (Don Raye, Gene DePaul, Patricia Johnston) - 2:34
25. "Tootsie" (Count Basie) - 2:48
26. "Howzit" (Buster Harding) - 2:54
27. "Nails" (Buster Harding) - 3:26
28. "Little Pony" (Neal Hefti) - 2:26
29. "Beaver Junction" (Harry Edison) - 2:55
Personnel:
* see gatefold artwork