In 1959, Basie's band recorded a " greatest hits " double album The Count Basie Story ( Frank Foster, arranger ) and " Basie and Eckstine, Inc .": album featuring Billy Eckstine, Quincy Jones ( as arranger ) and the Count Basie Orchestra.

", written and recorded by Buddy Johnson in 1949 ( and covered by Count Basie and his Orchestra that same year ) and in the lyrics to the song " We Didn't Start the Fire " by Billy Joel.

Artists signed to American Decca in the 1930s and 1940s included Louis Armstrong, Charlie Kunz, Count Basie, Jimmie Lunceford, Jane Froman, The Boswell Sisters, Billie Holiday, The Andrews Sisters, Ted Lewis, Judy Garland, The Mills Brothers, Billy Cotton, Guy Lombardo, Chick Webb, Louis Jordan ( the No. 1 R & B artist of the 1940s ), Bob Crosby, Bill Kenny & The Ink Spots, Dorsey Brothers ( and subsequently Jimmy Dorsey after the brothers split ), Connee Boswell and Jack Hylton, Victor Young, Earl Hines, Claude Hopkins, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the original ' soul sister ' of recorded music.

The bands he arranged for included those of Count Basie, Artie Shaw, Jimmie Lunceford, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Eckstine, and Sarah Vaughan.

It became nationally famous for its music scene: major blues singers, big bands, and jazz artists — such as Duke Ellington, Billy Eckstine, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie — regularly performed in the bars and clubs of Paradise Valley entertainment district.

After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine ( alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker ), Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bebop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson.

Engagements with Lionel Hampton, Slim & Slam, T-Bone Walker, Lester Young, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Charlie Barnet, Billy Eckstine, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Billie Holiday, Gerry Mulligan and six years with Lena Horne established him as a jazz drummer, and he struck out on his own as a bandleader in 1955.

He played in the bands of Benny Carter, Earl Bostic, Charles Mingus, Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie.

This series, along with other opportunities, has enabled students to perform in concert with more than 100 esteemed artists, such as Herbie Hancock, the Count Basie Orchestra, Joe Henderson, Pat Metheny, Michael Brecker, Dave Brubeck, Joe Williams, Dianne Reeves, Mike Stern, Dave Weckl, Christian McBride, Louie Bellson, Billy Taylor, Arturo Sandoval, Jimmy Heath, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Green, Russell Malone, and Branford Marsalis, among many others.

*" Piano Man ", a song by Billy Eckstine on the 1959 album Basie and Eckstine, Inc.

While enjoying success in the middle-of-the-road and pop fields, Eckstine occasionally returned to his jazz roots, recording with Vaughan, Count Basie and Quincy Jones for separate LPs, and he regularly topped the Metronome and Down Beat polls in the Top Male Vocalist category: He won Esquire magazine's New Star Award in 1946 ; the Down Beat magazine Readers Polls from 1948 to 1952 ; and the Metronome magazine award as " Top Male Vocalist " from 1949 to 1954.

* 1959 Basie and Eckstine, Inc. ( Roulette )

As he did with Duke Ellington, Willie " the Lion " Smith helped Basie out during the lean times by arranging gigs at " house-rent parties ," introducing him to other top musicians, and teaching him some piano technique.

The Savoy often featured " Battle of the Bands " where Webb's band would compete with other top bands ( such as the Benny Goodman Orchestra or the Count Basie Orchestra ) from opposing bandstands.

They worked on the same bill as names like Miles Davis, Count Basie, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck and the Modern Jazz Quartet ; backed singers Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae ; and played at top venues such as Carnegie Hall and Birdland.

* In the early 1960s, many of the top American stars performed at the Odeon, including Tony Bennett, with Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong & Woody Herman and the Herd.

Always rated at the top of the list ... You would hear more Ted Heath records than ours, Basie or Ellington ...”

He got his big break in 1954, when he was hired as the male vocalist for with Count Basie Orchestra.

Basie and band, with vocalist Ethel Waters, from the film Stage Door Canteen ( 1943 )

Humes was successively a teenage blues singer, band vocalist with Count Basie, saucy R & B diva and a mature interpreter of the classy popular song.

Humes became one of the vocalists with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1938, replacing Billie Holiday as lead female vocalist.

At the time of his death, at the age of 49 in 1974, he was the vocalist for the Count Basie orchestra.

In February 1985, he returned to the U. S. to take the leadership of the Basie Orchestra upon his former leader ’ s death, fronting the Basie band in numerous tours, and writing arrangements for recordings and performances with vocalist Caterina Valente and Manhattan Transfer, but had to step down due to ill health.

During his time in the east he also expanded the Limes Arabicus, building new fortifications in the Arabian Desert from Basie to Dumata.

One day, when the pianist failed to arrive by show time, Basie took his place.

It was at this time that he began to be known as " Count " Basie ( see Jazz royalty ).

Another Basie innovation was the use of two tenor saxophone players ; at the time, most bands had just one.

Basie also added flute to some numbers, a novelty at the time that became widely copied.

Some time around 1964, Basie adopted his trademark yachting cap.

Frank Sinatra recorded for the first time with Basie on 1962's Sinatra-Basie and for a second studio album on 1964's It Might as Well Be Swing, which was arranged by Quincy Jones.

The show included entertainers such as Frankie Lymon, The Supremes, Marian Anderson, Louis Armstrong, Pearl Bailey, LaVern Baker, Harry Belafonte, James Brown, Godfrey Cambridge, Diahann Carroll, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Bill Cosby, Count Basie, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bo Diddley, Rocío Dúrcal, Duke Ellington, Lola Falana, The 5th Dimension, Ella Fitzgerald, The Four Tops, Aretha Franklin, Dick Gregory, W. C. Handy, Lena Horne, The Jackson 5, Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Little Anthony & The Imperials, Moms Mabley, Johnny Mathis, The Miracles ( later known as Smokey Robinson & the Miracles ), Melba Moore, The Platters, Leontyne Price, Richard Pryor, Lou Rawls, Della Reese, Nipsey Russell, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, The Temptations, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Tina Turner ( at the time known as " The Ike & Tina Turner Revue "), Leslie Uggams, William Warfield, Dionne Warwick, Dinah Washington, Ethel Waters, Flip Wilson, Jackie Wilson, Nancy Wilson, and Stevie Wonder.

Springsteen and the E Street Band performed Born to Run in its entirety and in order for the first time at a benefit performance at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey, on May 7, 2008.

Other musicians who rose during this time include Jimmy Dorsey, his brother Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, Goodman's future rival Artie Shaw, and Woody Herman who departed the Isham Jones band in 1936 to start his own band.

He is particularly fond of 1930s jazz music, in particular Count Basie and Duke Ellington, and has named The Remarkable Andrew as his favorite film of all time.

Throughout the 1940s and 50s, Young had sat in on Count Basie Orchestra gigs from time to time.

In general, the larger the ensemble, the greater the need for a formal arrangement, although the early Count Basie big band was famous for its head arrangements, so called because they were worked out by the players themselves, memorized immediately and never written down.

Most arrangements for large ensembles, big bands, in the swing era, were written down, however, and credited to a specific arranger, as were later arrangements for the Count Basie big band by Sammy Nestico and Neal Hefti.

Large scale pieces such as De Staat ( 1972 – 76 ), for example, are influenced by the energy of the big band music of Count Basie and Stan Kenton and the repetitive procedures of Steve Reich, both combined with bright, clashing dissonances.

Fitzgerald's appearance with Sinatra and Count Basie in June 1974 for a series of concerts at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, was seen as an important incentive for Sinatra to return from his self-imposed retirement of the early 1970s.

That year Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording.

His mother, a piano player who gave Basie his first piano lessons, took in laundry and baked cakes for sale.

By then, Basie was playing with pick-up groups for dances, resorts, and amateur shows, including Harry Richardson's " Kings of Syncopation ".

Back in Harlem in 1925, Basie got his first steady job at Leroy's, a place known for its piano players and its " cutting contests.

When the band voted Moten out, Basie took over for several months, calling the group " Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms.

Durham returned to help with arranging and composing, but for the most part, the orchestra worked out its numbers in rehearsal, with Basie guiding the proceedings.

Next, Basie played at the Savoy, which was noted more for jitterbugging, while the Roseland was a place for fox-trots and congas.

Hammond introduced Helen Humes, whom Basie hired ; she stayed with Basie for four years.

Adding to their play book, Basie received arrangements from Jimmy Mundy ( who had also worked with Benny Goodman and Earl Hines ), particularly for " Cherokee ", " Easy Does It ", and " Super Chief ".

The Basie band made two tours in the British Isles and on the second, they put on a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II, along with Judy Garland, Vera Lynn, and Mario Lanza.

That summer, Basie and Duke Ellington combined forces for the recording First Time!

In May 1970, Sinatra performed in London's Royal Festival Hall with the Basie orchestra, in a charity benefit for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.