Listening to Prestige 284: Basie Reunion

You could say that Weinstock and co. are still marking time, but that would be wrong. Bringing a collection of some of Count Basie's greatest sidemen together, along with pianist Nat Pierce, who did Basie better than anyone except Basie, in a group led by Paul Quinichette, who did Lester better than anyone except Lester, and what you've got is a recipe for nothing less than a soufflé of great music.

And this is one soufflé that doesn't collapse as you're taking it out of the oven.

But...if you're offered a recording of Basie musicians paying Basie's tunes, why not just pass it up and buy a Basie record?

Well, for one thing, you can never have enough good music. And if the musicians are this good, it's always going to be different. Nat Pierce can be Basie the piano player, but he can't be Basie the bandleader, so that role seems to fall to Paul Quinichette, who may not have seniority as a Basie-ite, but who has Prestige seniority as an on-and-off regular. And it's all worth having, and it's all worth listening to, and I am a better, more fulfilled person for having listened to it.

And besides, while this may be a Basie dream band (or dream small group), it isn't the current Basie band, or even precisely any one Basie aggregation.

Jo Jones goes back the farthest. He was already with the band when Basie took it over on the death of Bennie Moten, and remained behind the drums until 1948. Jack Washington, not so well known as the others but with the reputation of a jazzman's jazzman on baritone sax, was with Basie from the beginning, and stayed till 1950. Freddie Green came along just a little later, in 1937, and never left. He anchored the Basie rhythm section for five decades.

Buck Clayton spent some great years with Basie, from 1936 until he was drafted into the army in 1943. Earlier in the 1930s, he had a rather remarkable expatriate career, not in France or Sweden, but in China, where he led a group called the Harlem Gentlemen, and mentored the Chinese composer Li Jinhui, who revolutionized Chinese music before the revolution. After the revolution, Li's music was banned in China as decadent and western, and he became an enemy of the people.

So none of these guys played with Eddie Jones, who joined in 1953 and was the only active Basie-ite when this session was cut, remaining with the band until 1962, after which he went to work for IBM, which means he probably overlapped with me at IBM, though not in the same city. As a Basie-ite, he overlapped with Quinichette (1952-56).

When they get together, latecomers, early-leavers and lifers alike, they all know what to do. As ex-Marines are fond of saying, you're never an ex-Marine, and it seems you're never really an ex-Basie man either. The tunes are Basie classics. With a smaller group, there's more room for soloists, especially compared to the late 1950s version of Basie's group, where the emphasis was more on arrangements and ensemble play. It's hardly necessary to say how good Buck Clayton and Paul Quinichette are. Nat Pierce has some very nice solo moments, where he does more than just play the Count note for note. He has a musical persona of his own. There's just a great drum solo by Papa Jo Jones on "John's Idea."

I'm not exactly sure what qualifies this is a Prestige All Stars session. More like a Prestige Guest Stars session. But they are all stars, and I'm glad to have them.

The album was released on Prestige as Basie Reunion, and was later rereleased on Swingville when Weinstock started branching out into those subsidiary labels that appealed to diverse specialized tastes.


Order Listening to Prestige Vol 2

Listening to Prestige Vol. 2, 1954-1956 is here! You can order your signed copy or copies through the link above.

Tad Richards will strike a nerve with all of us who were privileged to have lived thru the beginnings of bebop, and with those who have since fallen under the spell of this American phenomenon…a one-of-a-kind reference book, that will surely take its place in the history of this music.

                                                                                                                                                --Dave Grusin

An important reference book of all the Prestige recordings during the time period. Furthermore, Each song chosen is a brilliant representation of the artist which leaves the listener free to explore further. The stories behind the making of each track are incredibly informative and give a glimpse deeper into the artists at work.

                                                                                                                --Murali Coryell

Listening to Prestige 256: Paul Quinichette

Some jazz labels are linked with a particular style. Blue Note, though it had a long life starting in the swing era and extending to the present day, is very much identified with hard bop. Pacific Jazz lived up to its name and became identified with the West Coast sound, or the birth of white cool. Windham Hill is so closely associated with New Age jazz that "Windham Hill" is virtually a synonym for New Age.

Prestige also recorded a lot of hard bop and bebop, but because it was so much a one-man operation, Bob Weinstock was able to indulge his enthusiasms across a wide spectrum. Paul Quinichette had come under the Prestige umbrella in 1957, recording bop albums with John Coltrane, with Webster Young (perhaps he misunderstood, and thought Weinstock was saying "Come in for a session with Webster and Young"), and even one under his own name with a group of boppers. That came out as Paul Quinichette's New Stars, and they were all newer than him, for sure. Like his mentor Lester Young, Quinichette was open to new sounds and new ideas, but he was a Basie-ite at heart, so why not record him in a Basie context? Prestige was a big tent.

The album is For Basie, the tunes are all from the Basie playbook, and the musicians are Basie veterans.

Shad Collins' ties to Basie go back to the 30s, and the Lester Young days. He also played with Cab Calloway (he replaced Dizzy Gillespie), Benny Carter, Don Redman, Jimmy Rushing, and Sam "The Man" Taylor, another jazz-to-rhythm and blues cat. He had an important reputation as an arranger and considerable success as a composer, including "Rock-a-Bye Basie." He also wrote Cozy Cole's Top Forty hit, "Topsy."

No musicians are more closely identified with Basie than Walter Page and Freddie Green, In fact, Basie was a member of Page's band, the Blue Devils, in Kansas City. Page is credited with being one of the first to shift the primary rhythmic responsibility in a band to the bass, thus freeing up the drummer and piano player to improvise more. When you hear a singer, like Lonette McKee in Round Midnight, talk about the importance of listening to the bass, she has Walter Page to thank for it. This may have been Page's last recording, as he died suddenly and unexpectedly in the winter of 1957.

Freddie Green joined Basie in 1937, and stayed with him for the next 50 years. Jo Jones joined Green and Page as integral figures in the creation of the Basie sound. He played with Basie until 1948, then freelanced with others, including Duke Ellington.

Nat Pierce is best known for his work with Woody Herman, but also for having an uncanny ability to recreate Basie's piano style, so during the late 50s he led a number of groups of Basie veterans.

No one can resist the sounds of Count Basie, and it's pretty damn hard to resist these guys, either.

So...a step backward? No. There's really no backward in jazz. Some may have still been talking about hipsters and moldy figs, but this was an era when Louis Armstrong and Kid Ory were still making music, when Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton were still making music, Machito and Tito Puente, the Count and the Duke, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy. Probably no other art form has ever been so inclusive.

 



 Order Listening to Prestige, Vol. 1 here.