Count Basie's Sidemen

Buck Clayton



Trumpet player Buck Clayton hooked up with Count Basie's band in late 1936 after dropping in on them in the Reno Club in Kansas City. However he had enjoyed a lot of success prior to joining the orchestra at this time. A native of Kansas he had toured around the south in the late 1920's getting into various scrapes with the locals before heading out to California in in the early 1930's. It was here that he had a chance encounter with Louis Armstrong. Clayton endeavoured to study Armstrong's technique after seeing him play at Frank Sebastian's Cotton Club.

At this time Clayton was to make a remarkable career move by moving to Shanghai. He ended up staying there for two years playing at the luxurious Canidrome for high society types including Chiang Kai-shek's wife who was a regular at the club.

Success with the Basie band lasted right through to 1943 when he was inducted into the army. During this time Clayton recorded on many of the big hits including One O'Clock Jump. He was also heavily involved in the celebrated recordings in 1937 with Billie Holiday and Lester Young, played at the Benny Goodman show at Carnegie Hall and the From Spirituals To Swing shows in New York.

In the mid 40's he managed to make some recordings with the rising star of jazz at that time, Charlie Parker. Clayton more than held his own. He went on to become a leading figure in the mainstream jazz scene of the 1950´s when he recorded and gigged prolifically.

Check out Clayton jamming with Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker on the track Takin' Off



Jo Jones



Jo Jones' name has cropped up quite recently due to the massive success of the film "Whiplash". In it one of the main protagonists tells the story of how a young Charlie Parker had a cymbal thrown at him during a jam session by Jones for simply not being up to scratch. Parker subsequently began a period of obsessive practicing before appearing on stage again. While this apocryphal tale suited the narrative of the bullying teacher for the film it never quite happened like that. Jones however did "gong" Parker, an act of throwing down the cymbal at someone's feet. Ultimately they were jazz worlds apart. Jones, one of the main proponents of the "All-American Rhythm" that propelled the Count Basie band and Parker, who would steer away from the notes on the page to establish bebop as the driving force of jazz in the 1940s.

Jones was pretty much one of the inventors of swing jazz drumming, up there with Chick Webb and Gene Krupa in establishing the instrument as the backbone of any jazz orchestra. The four-four glide on the ride cymbal that is the pulse of swing jazz was invented by these guys. They were true innovators in that the instrument that they played did not physically exist 10 years before. Jones was to differ from Krupa's bombastic bass notes and would often omit the bass drum in favour of a ride rhythm on the high hat while it was continuously opening and closing.

Jones was to earn his stripes playing with the Walter Page's Blue Devils in the late 1920's. He was present for Basie's very first recordings in 1936 and stayed with the band until 1948. He was an ever present in a plethora of recordings in the 1950's due to his association with Norman Granz's Verve label. A true artist on the drums.



Herschel Evans



Count Basie employed two tenor saxophonists. In one corner was Lester Young whose sound would be emulated by all and sundry in the following decades. In the other corner was Herschel Evans one of the earliest "tough Texas tenors" whose sound and style could not be more different. Yet the two complimented each other superbly and brought a freshness and verve to the early Basie recordings.

Tragically Evans' career was all too brief. He died in 1939 at the young age of 29. As with some of his contemporaries we can only wonder at the direction his musical career would have taken.



Jimmy Rushing



John Hammond introduced him to stage with tongue firmly in cheek as "Little" Jimmy Rushing in Newport in 1957. His actual nickname was Big 'Un

Count Basie needed a blues shouter to augment the big sound emanating from his orchestra. The man who provided that sound was Jimmy Rushing who was in the band from the beginning right through to 1948. As with many others he cut his teeth with The Blue Devils and later with Bennie Moten's band in the late 20's/early 30's. Songs like Pennies From Heaven, Boogie Woogie and Sent For You Yesterday exemplify Rushing's sound on the early Basie records.

For me his influence lay in the fact that he was unique. Taking his jazz queue from the vocals of Louis Armstrong he brought a powerful subtlety to the songs that he sang. You couldn't label him as a blues shouter (indeed he considered himself a ballad singer.) He could probably sing anything such were his vocal talents.



Freddie Greene



The guitar as a solo instrument really began to blossom in the mid 1930's with the advent of amplification and the Gibson ES-150 model becoming popular among jazz musicians post 1936. It was the era of Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian who tried to emulate the saxophone and trumpet solos that dominated jazz music up to that time. So it is perhaps all the more remarkable that one of the most popular guitarists of the era was Freddie Greene. He never opted for a solo. His raison d'etre was to augment the rhythm of the band, hence his place firmly among the All-American rhythm section of the Basie orchestra was established from the time he joined in 1937. He was even to say that "You should never hear the guitar by itself. It should be part of the drums so it sounds like the drummer is playing chords—like the snare is in A or the hi-hat in D minor".

He remained with the Basie band for over 50 years.

Here's a 1962 called The Elder. It has all the ingredients; Basie piano, walking bass, riffs, bombastic drums and wailing trumpet. But check out a beautifully rare Green rhythm solo halfway through.



Walter Page



The final piece of the All-American Rhythm jigsaw. Page had established himself well enough in the 1920's that he was the boss of one of the most innovate bands of the time, The Blue Devils. The band consisted of at one time or another Jimmy Rushing, Count Basie, Hot Lips Page and later Lester Young. After Bennie Moten lured Count Basie to his band the writing was on the wall for Page as a band leader. He eventually joined Moten's Kansas City Orchestra which went on to become Basie's big band after Moten passed away in the mid 30's.

Page will forever be associated with the incredible chemistry that he developed with Jo Jones and Freddie Greene, especially on those early Basie tunes. He is also credited with inventing or at least innovating the "walking" bass style that would become synonymous with swing jazz in the late 30's. Along with Wellman Braud and later Jimmy Blanton he was one of the key figures in establishing the bass as harmonic as well as a rhythmic instrument.

Check him out on Pagin' The Devil a song that he recorded with the Kansas City Six in 1938. The musicians on this track include Lester Young, Eddie Durham, Freddie Greene, Jo Jones and Buck Clayton.

Billie Holiday

Behind me, Billie was on her last song. I picked up the refrain, humming a few bars. Her voice sounded different to me now. Beneath the layers of hurt, beneath the ragged laughter, I heard a willingness to endure. Endure- and make music that wasn't there before. Barack Obama

Perhaps the greatest jazz vocalist of all time.(Note that I didn't even use the word "female".) Such is Billie Holiday's stature in the world of jazz. Her voice was unmistakeable and her life was remarkably sad and event-filled. In today's world of here-today-gone-later-today talent, it's unlikely that we'll see her like again. She was a pioneer, a one-off.

My first exposure to Billie Holiday's music was probably through a quite memorable car advertisement than ran back in the early 90s. So distinctive was her voice that I can still conjure up the advertisement in question. (Some kudos then to the ad men but unfortunately for them I couldn't remember the brand!) One can only imagine the impact her voice had on ears of the listeners who first heard her back in the 1930s.. 

Her early life was, to say the least, chaotic and full of serious adversity. After a few years trying her luck in various clubs in New York in the late 20s and early 30s she was picked up by John Hammond and began her recording career with Benny Goodman. Her first recordings were fairly unremarkable but she eventually began to find her own distinct style and phrasing, the like of which had not been heard before. Goodman himself was to remark, "she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius". Her first real hit was the song What A Little Moonlight Can Do recorded with Teddy Wilson's Orchestra. With accompaniment by Ben Webster, Roy Eldridge, Cozy Cole and Goodman it is real gem. 

It was at this time that she began her musical association with Lester Young who was to give her her lasting moniker "Lady Day". (Not to be outdone she called him "Prez".). This Year's Kisses is a fantastic example of the type of recordings the two were to make together at the end of the 30s. 

It was around this time that she was to record the haunting track Strange Fruit. Originally written as a poem by Abel Meeropol, it was a favourite at the integrated nightclub, Cafe Society in New York. A song about southern lynchings it is an ominously dark song that perfectly suited Holiday´s delivery.

Her star continued to ascend in the 1940's with a number of instantly recognisable hits. However her life was taking the opposite turn. She had frequent run-ins with the law and her drug habit was spiralling out of control. As was her voice. Some find her last recordings to be remarkably inferior to her earlier work. Others can find a lot of  soul and heartfelt emotion in her scratchy delivery. Her final album Lady In Satin, released in 1957, divides such opinon and is a controversial work. 

One of her most famous appearances was in the CBS special The Sound Of Jazz from 1957. Here is a simply stunning performance of Fine And Mellow with accompaniment from none other than Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster; Gerry Mulligan, Vic Dickenson, Roy Eldridge and of course Lester Young. (Lester is the one sitting during this performance but he stands to give his solo. The way that Holiday looks at him would melt the the stoniest of hearts. All the more poignant as both were to pass away within two years of the recording.)

Harry "Sweets" Edison

"I don't know why I'm named Sweets. Lester Young gave me that name. I don't know why I deserve the name. No-one knows but him"  Harry "Sweets" Edison.



Whether Lester Young gave Harry Edison his moniker, possibly as a recognition of his disposition or the tone that he produced from his trumpet, the name is perfectly apt. Edison was by all accounts a man with a wry personality and a compendiary wit. The unique and identifiable sound that he got from his trumpet was in many ways a reflection of this personality. His playing was dictated by the maxim of, "It's not how many notes you play, it's how many you leave out."

Edison was an alumnus of the Count Basie Orchestra at its peak. He played with the band from 1938 to 1950 and was a disciple of the sound that was to be known as "Basie Economy". Like the leader of the band, he didn't need to play ten notes when one would suffice. Sweets had a very distinct, bluesy sound that other trumpeters would try and ultimately fail to imitate. His signature was a bluesy submachine gun-esque da dee da da da da da dee da.  Yet being part of the Basie setup he understood the importance of how a jazz record had to swing. A fine example would be the song "Sweets" performed by the Basie Orchestra in 1949. Check out the interplay between Basie and Edison. (The fine tenor solo is provided by George Auld.)



After Basie broke up the orchestra in 1950 Edison relocated to the west coast and pretty much for the rest of his career became one of the most sought after session trumpeters in music. If you've ever heard a classic Frank Sinatra song from the mid 50's then you will have heard Sweets Edison. He worked with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole and the aforementioned Sinatra to name a few. He knew how to accompany a vocalist in a tasteful, restrained manner, yet his muted sound added an unmistakeable signature to the song. Check out Billie Holiday's "What A Little Moonlight Can Do" as case in point.



I think Miles Davis summed it up perfectly when he said, "Music is about style. Like if I were to play with Frank Sinatra, I would play the way he sings., or do something complementary to the way he sings. But I wouldn't go and play with Frank Sinatra at breakneck speed... So, the way you play behind a singer is like the way Harry "Sweets" Edison did with Frank. When Frank stopped singing, then Harry played. A little before and a little afterwards, but not over him; you never play over a singer. You play between"



It has been such a joy in listening to the solo albums that Sweets made in the late 50's to early 60's.  In my view his stripped down, sparse style can be compared in artistic terms with the works of Hemingway or Monet. He collaborated with a lot of big names in jazz and produced some fantastic albums. Whether it was swinging out, playing the blues or laying down a smoky ballad, Sweets could do it with aplomb. Here's Embraceable You from an album that he made with Ben Webster in 1962.

Roy Eldridge

"Every time he's on he does the best he can, no matter what the conditions are. And Roy is so intense about everything, so that it's far more important to him to dare, to try to achieve a particular peak, even if he falls on his ass in the attempt, than it is to play safe. That's what jazz is all about." Norman Granz

While researching the life and music of Lester Young, one of the names that kept popping up was Roy Eldridge. What I knew of him was the (perhaps somewhat cliched) line that he was the musical link between Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. Such simplifications seem to be rife in jazz history as historians try to create links between the different genres. This is certainly true in my opinion of Roy Eldridge.

Known to his peers as "Little Jazz" due to his short stature, Eldridge was to be one of the most important trumpet players in jazz in a career that spanned five decades. I first heard him on the aforementioned Lester Young recordings that were made for the Verve label in the mid-late1950's. His range was spectacular and his tone was a little raspy - yet his riffs were never tasteless. He was steeped in the swing tradition, as was Young, but his style continued to evolve so that he was never outdated by the sweeping changes that occurred in the music with the advent of bebop and beyond. 

Eldridge's trumpet playing is odd in that he was a musician who was not directly influenced by Louis Armstrong. This probably set him apart as he gained popularity playing with various swing outfits in the 1930's. Stylistically Eldridge himself stated that he was far more influenced by sax players than by trumpet players. It is argued that as Armstrong's playing became more predictable and less players were adapting to the decline of swing, Eldridge was probably the top trumpet player to come out of the 30's into the bebop 40s. His big breakthrough came with his association with Benny Goodman alumnus, drummer Gene Krupa, with whom he was to make many remarkable recordings in the early 40s. 

One such recording was "Rocking Chair", a fantastic example of Eldridge's chops, recorded in July 1941. Stylistically the song really is a connect the dots in terms of jazz lineage - a "sweet" horn section makes the song flow while the swing beat is held up by Krupa on the brushes (a sound which I personally have evolved a real like for since hearing Buddy Rich on "The Lester Young Trio" album). Eldridge goes through the entire register of the trumpet and hits some dizzying high notes - all without losing an ounce of soul that the song calls for. Apparently Eldridge was "blind drunk" during this recording. After sobering up he begged Krupa never to release it. Two months later his pal Ben Webster played the song back to him. Eldridge remarked, "Who's that? It's not Louis, it's not Diz." It blew his mind after he discovered it was actually him on the record. Check it out:

There is probably something in the theory that he was the musical link between Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. His style was innovative - he could play extremely fast - and Gillespie stated that "he was the messiah of our time." The song "Heckler's Hop" for example was to prove influential in directing Gillespie's style. Recorded in the late 30's with a small combo the song is fast and edgy. It's not hard to see how a song like this would have influenced many of the bebop players searching for a new musical direction in the early 40s. 

He toured with many big names throughout the 40's, including a stint leading his own band. He emerged from a crisis of confidence after a successful stop in Paris in the early 1950's and it was around this time that he teamed up with Granz and the Verve label. He was prolific for the remainder of the decade. Health issues slowed him down later in his career. He became the leader of a house band in Manhattan during the 1970s and recorded sporadically. His final recording was the majestic "Montreaux 1977", a fitting album to close a long illustrious career. 

Lester Young. Part 2

"Anyone who doesn't play by Lester is just wrong!" (Brew Moore)

If you listen to the first track Lester Young ever recorded, "Shoe Shine Boy" (1936), and contrast this with the final track twenty some years later, "Tea For Two" (1959), the differences are stark. The former demonstrates Young's innovative, airy tone. The latter seems a little disjointed and breathy. Unsurprising, as he was a very sick man at this time and, even though he was only 49, he had lived a life twice over. Many think the turning point in his life was due to the hard times he suffered when he was drafted into the military. The regular army was no place for a creative soul like Lester Young. He was court-martialed for possession of marijuana and alcohol. His one year army career was spent in the detention barracks in Alabama followed by a dishonourable discharge. It's an easy tack to take - genius before the army, burnt out after the army. I don't believe such a simplistic view deserves any credit. True artists evolve and Lester Young was a true artist. His experiences only added another colour to his palette.

Here is a great recording of an NPR interview with Lester's biographer Douglas Daniels. He gives an extremely eloquent critique of his time in the army and the effect on his playing.

I personally have found the recordings he made since December 1945 to be some of the finest I have listened to since embarking on this project. Some of my personal favourites have included the recordings he made with Nat King Cole and Buddy Rich (known as the Lester Young Trio). Check out the superb interaction between the three on "I've Found A New Baby". The song demonstrates the swing tradition that they came from but is at the same time extremely innovative.

Lester continued to make superb recordings throughout the rest of the 40's and 50's for the Verve label under the watchful eye of producer Norman Granz. These recordings produced superb collaborations with the likes of Oscar Peterson, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Wilson to name but a few. His lifestyle would ultimately restrict his technique but I refute any charge that he didn't play anything but from the heart.

Lester was interviewed on tape towards the end of his life by a young French jazz enthusiast named Francois Postif. These rare recordings show Young reminiscing on his career and offer insight into his opinions on the world of jazz up to that time. One quote remains telling: "I don't like a lot of noise - trumpets and trombones. I'm looking for something soft. It's got to be sweetness man, you dig?"

To finish up here is one of the few videos of Lester playing "Mean To Me" (with Willie "The Lion" Smith on piano). The song begins in quite a pedestrian manner until Lester instructs the drummer to add "a little tinky boom, ya dig"! Great stuff.

Lester Young. Part 1

The other night Benny Goodman, Basie, Lester Young, Jo Jones, Buck Clayton and Harry James got together in a small Harlem joint and jammed from two-fifteen to six in the morning. The music was something tremendous, for everyone distinguished himself. But one conclusion was inescapable: that Lester Young was not only the star of the evening but without doubt the greatest tenor player in the country. In fact I’ll stick my neck out even further: he is the most original and inventive saxophonist I have ever heard. (John Hammond)

If you think of the quintessential jazz photograph from the late 1930's - 40's, it's likely that you'll picture a small night club, curling cigarette smoke and a saxophone. Lester Young, who along with Coleman Hawkins was the most influential swing tenor sax player of his time, would probably be in that picture. He was the first jazz hipster - he wore a pork pie hat, held his sax at a 45 degree angle and coined the phrase, "cool". He was known as the President of Jazz, or simply "Pres". Yet he had the substance to back up the style.

Coleman Hawkins wrote the book on how to play the tenor sax. He was renowned for his gruff, aggressive tone and for his unorthodox approach to manipulating the harmony of a song. Most of the tenor sax players of the time attempted in some way to emulate him. Yet Lester Young did not. Young began playing on a c-note sax, a popular instrument in the 1920's made popular by Frankie Trumbauer. The register is somewhere in between the tenor and the alto. When Lester changed over to the tenor he tended to play the instrument a little higher than normal. His sound is deceptively simple for that but his playing was extremely profound. His style was more relaxed as he tended to float around the notes with a great sense of rhythm.

He was born in 1909 in Mississippi but spend most of his youth in and around New Orleans. He cut his teeth playing with the territory bands in Oklahoma before ending up in jazz scene of Kansas City in the early 1930's. He ultimately ended up in the original Count Basie Orchestra and was making his first recordings in 1936.

Shoe Shine Boy

His first recording with a small group and right from the off he demonstrates a completely different tone from his contemporaries, Hawkins Webster and Chu Berry Light and airy played with adventure and abandon. Lester always preferred the small ensemble setting. This tune also perfectly showcases the innovative rhythm displayed by Jo Jones and Walter Page.

Roseland Shuffle

A superb high tempo showcase for Lester Young and Count Basie on the piano. The back and forth between the two is awesome. This is also a perfect example of riff style swing popularised by the Count Basie Orchestra. This was recorded in 1937

Young would continue to make some great small group recordings in the late 30's and early 40's. (His work with Billie Holiday was a particular highlight and something I will tackle in a separate post.)

Lester Leaps In

An uptempo number from 1939 that would prove to be a big inspiration to those who emulated Lester Young's technique.

He left the Basie band in 1940 and was to spend the next few years recording in Los Angeles and New York before being drafted into the army in 1944. This was to prove to be a pivotal moment in his career and his life...