Basie recalled:

Several times it came near breaking, and there were in fact some lovely peals of thunder from Jerry Mulligan's big band, which is about as fine an aggregation as has come along in the jazz business since John Hammond found Count Basie working in a Kansas City trap.

The precursors of rhythm and blues came from jazz and blues, which overlapped in the Late-1920s, 1930s through the work of musicians such as The Harlem Hamfats, with their 1936 hit " Oh Red ", as well as Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr, Cab Calloway, Count Basie, and T-Bone Walker.

Not much of a student in school, Basie dreamed of a traveling life, inspired by touring carnivals which came to town.

In 1928 Basie was in Tulsa and heard Walter Page and his Famous Blue Devils, one of the first big bands, which featured Jimmy Rushing on vocals.

Basie formed a new band that year, which included many Moten alumni, with the important addition of tenor player Lester Young.

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

Basie hitched his star to some of the most famous vocalists of the 1950s and 1960s, which helped keep the Big Band sound alive and added greatly to his recording catalog.

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.

It contained four plundered tracks: " Don't " by Elvis Presley which included piano accompaniment by Bob Wiseman, " Pocket " by Count Basie, a version of Dolly Parton singing " The Great Pretender " in which " she gets to sing a duet with himself ( sic )", and " Spring ", a version of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

* Count Basie begins recording with his own band, which includes Lester Young.

The title single was a huge hit worldwide which has been covered by dozens of artists, including The Blues Brothers ( featuring guitarist Steve Cropper ), The Ventures, Al Kooper, The Shadows, Mongo Santamaría, Roy Buchanan ( also featuring Steve Cropper and Jan Hammer ), Count Basie and many others.

But he was best known for his writing, especially his arrangements for big bands, which at their best captured the spirit of past masters such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie while remaining thoroughly contemporary.

Her albums, Swing, Swing, Swing ( 2002 ), Keely Sings Sinatra ( 2001 ) for which she was Grammy nominated, and Keely Swings Count Basie Style with Strings ( 2002 ) garnered critical and fan acclaim.

Kansas City at this point was a melting pot from which emerged some of the biggest names in 1930s jazz, and Webster joined Bennie Moten's legendary 1932 band that included Count Basie, Oran " Hot Lips " Page and Walter Page.

He is considered one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists ( such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie ).

The documentary focused on a number of major musicians: Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington are the central figures, " providing the narrative thread around which the stories of other major figures turn ", among them Sidney Bechet, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Sinatra's rendition of the song, recorded with the Count Basie Orchestra, features new lyrics, improvised by Sinatra, which pay tribute to Louis Armstrong.

His playing in the Basie band was characterized by a relaxed style which contrasted sharply with the aggressive approach of Coleman Hawkins, the dominant tenor sax player of the day.

Young also recorded extensively in the late 1940s for Aladdin Records ( 1946-7, where he had made the Cole recordings in 1942 ) and for Savoy ( 1944, ' 49 and ' 50 ), some sessions of which included Basie on piano.

This pattern, which forms the basis of countless ( usually uptempo ) jazz compositions, was popular with swing-era musicians: It is found in " Shoeshine Boy " ( Lester Young's 1936 breakout recording with Count Basie ) and " Cotton Tail " written by Duke Ellington in 1940, as well as Charlie Christian's " Seven Come Eleven ", Charlie Parker's " Salt Peanuts ", and Thelonious Monk's " Rhythm-a-Ning ", for instance.

Basie said, " There is something of his on each one of those first albums of that new band.

In a 1955 interview, Miles Davis said " if it weren't for Neal Hefti, the Basie band wouldn't sound as good as it does.

Basie said,

Although a judge declared Webb's band the official winner in 1938 over Count Basie's, and Basie himself said he was just relieved to come away from the contest without embarrassing himself, surviving musicians continued to dispute the ruling for decades to follow.

Rucker said they " flipped " the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie.

Down Beat magazine reported, "( Basie ) has managed to assemble an ensemble that can thrill both the listener who remembers 1938 and the youngster who has never before heard a big band like this.

Bandleaders like Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, and Count Basie continued to innovate.

Riverside Pavilion was the only venue for black Charlestonians to see musical legends like Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, B.

Although ensembles like the Count Basie Orchestra and the Stan Kenton Orchestra survived into the 1950s by incorporating new musical styles into their repertoire, they were no longer the hallmark of American popular music.

Many great jazz legends were presented, like Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz.

A 1944 Band graduate of New York Military Academy, in Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY, he wrote jazz compositions like " Not Really the Blues " for Woody Herman in 1949, " Hershey Bar " ( 1950 ) and " Pot Luck " ( 1953 ) for Stan Getz, " Straight Life " ( 1953 ) and " Low Life " ( 1956 ) for Count Basie as well as " Tommyhawk " ( 1954 ) for Chet Baker.

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.

The Sound of Jazz brought together 32 leading musicians from the swing era including Count Basie, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Billie Holiday, Jo Jones and Coleman Hawkins ; the Chicago style players of the same era, like Henry " Red " Allen, Vic Dickenson, and Pee Wee Russell ; and younger ' modernist ' musicians such as Gerry Mulligan, Thelonious Monk, and Jimmy Giuffre.

Throughout its run, the show had played a wide variety of songs from jazz performers from Canada, the United States and around the world, ranging from the legends of jazz ( including Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Horace Silver and Canada's own Oscar Peterson and Tommy Banks ) to modern stars ( like Branford Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Pat Metheny and Canadian stars Diana Krall and Ingrid Jensen ).

It celebrates the music of the Swing era of jazz ( 1930s-1946 ), including many well-known tunes by artists like Duke Ellington, William " Count " Basie, Benny Goodman and others.

The Lincoln Theatre hosted performers like Count Basie.

", 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.

The shows were a great success, and September 1975 saw them gross $ 1, 000, 000 in two weeks on Broadway, in a triumvirate with the Count Basie Orchestra.

Throughout his tours, Basie met many great jazz musicians, including Louis Armstrong.

* 1904 – Count Basie, American pianist, bandleader, and composer ( Count Basie Orchestra ) ( d. 1984 )

Big bands such as those of Duke Ellington ( at the very beginning of his career ), Bennie Moten, and Count Basie performed head arrangements ( ibid ).

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.

Bandleader Count Basie has a cameo as himself.

The film is full of deliberate anachronisms, from the Count Basie Orchestra playing " April in Paris " in the Wild West, to Slim Pickens referring to the Wide World of Sports, to the German Heer of WWII.

Notable performers there included among others: Pearl Bailey, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Lena Horne, Burl Ives, Leadbelly, Anita O ' Day, Charlie Parker, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Paul Robeson, Kay Starr, Art Tatum, Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington, Josh White, Teddy Wilson, Lester Young, and The Weavers, who also in Christmas 1949, played at the Village Vanguard.

Some guitarists, such as Freddie Green of Count Basie ’ s band, developed a guitar-specific style of accompaniment.

Freddie Green, guitarist in the Count Basie orchestra, was a noted exponent this style.

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.

The song has become a jazz standard with performances by Count Basie, Sarah Vaughan, the Stan Kenton Orchestra and many others.

** Count Basie, American musician and composer ( b. 1904 )

* Count Basie

* August 21 – Count Basie, American musician and bandleader ( d. 1984 )

Competition was also intensifying, as African-American and white swing bands began to receive popular attention, including those of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Carter, Earl Hines, Chick Webb, and Count Basie.

The Ellington and Count Basie orchestras recorded together.

Fitzgerald's most famous collaborations were with the trumpeter Louis Armstrong, the guitarist Joe Pass, and the bandleaders Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

* Fitzgerald is sometimes referred to as the quintessential swing singer, and her meetings with Count Basie are highly regarded by critics.

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.