Then one night in South Philly, Al Grey slid into the trombone slot "temporarily" vacated by an ailing Tom McIntosh. Simon, "The band has always been built from the rhythm section to the tenors and then to the rest of the band" - and he didn't want to lose either of his "Two Franks." So, with the re-arrival of Davis, the versatile Frank Wess moved into the vacated second alto chair, but still held on to his tenor (and flute) solos. "He fit the band so well 'til I felt intimidated every time Jaws played."īut Basie loved all his tenors - as he once told journalist George T. "Jaws was Basie's sweetheart when it came to the tenor," Frank Foster has mused. Basie favored Davis' gruff, grumbling style, which, acquaintances testify, mirrored his personality, and Jaws immediately became one of the band's most audible soloists. Next, tough tenor Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, who had been in the band from 1952 to 1953, rejoined the fold. First, Snooky Young, who had worked with Basie in the 1940s, returned to lead the trumpet section - and handle the occasional solo - with his patented blend of drive and taste.
It was during the Roulette period that this outstanding band became an unequalled one, "the best Basie ever had," as the late Thad Jones would declare, thanks largely to three key personnel moves in the fall of 1957. The magnificent boxed set, The Complete Roulette Studio Recordings of Count Basie and His Orchestra (Mosaic MD10 149, ten CDs, total playing time: 10:46:04), documents the band's immense five-year output for that label, encompassing fourteen-and-a-half previously released - and for the most part, long unavailable - LPs (including one two-record set), seven singles, and twenty-one unissued tracks. In 1957 Basie jumped to the fledgling Roulette label founded by Morris Levy, the shady, mob-connected shill who "owned" the original Birdland, the band's unofficial New York headquarters. This new Basie band first recorded for Norman Granz' Clef and Verve labels, creating two monster hits, the immortal "April in Paris" and "Every Day I Have the Blues" (featuring Joe Williams' hip, contemporary take on the twelve-bar form). One by one the Count brought in trombonists Benny Powell and Henry Coker, trumpeters Joe Newman and Thad Jones, and the tenor saxophone tandem of Frank Foster and Frank Wess, modern, bop-inspired players who also were completely at home in the Basie idiom. But make no mistake, this reborn unit was packed with accomplished soloists. It quickly evolved into an ensemble of amazing strength and precision, but also one of many moods and colors, as strong at pianissimo as it was at fortissimo, as swinging at slow tempos as it was at fast ones. Where the original band was built largely around its corps of unique solo voices, Basie founded his new edition on an ever-growing book of strong charts by top-rung arrangers. But Basie missed the power and glory of sixteen men swinging, so in the fall of 1951, with the encouragement of his good friend, Billy Eckstine, he began to reassemble his orchestra - with a difference. Weary of the road and discouraged by a drop in bookings, Basie broke up the band in 1950 and formed a first-rate septet that, for a time, sported a frontline of trumpeter Clark Terry, saxophonist Wardell Gray, and clarinetist Buddy DeFranco. For the next decade and a half this stellar cast - which at various times included trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, trombonists Benny Morton, Dickie Wells, and Vic Dickenson, tenor saxophonists Lester Young, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, Don Byas, Illinois Jacquet, and Lucky Thompson, singers Jimmy Rushing and (briefly) Billie Holiday, and the renowned "All-American Rhythm Section" of Basie on piano, guitarist Freddie Green, bassist Walter Page, and drummer Jo Jones - would sit atop the very pinnacle of swing. In 1936 Count Basie and his free-wheeling band from Kansas City came east and took New York by storm with their rocking, blues-based take on big band jazz. "THE DEFINITION OF JAZZ": THE BASIE BAND AT ITS BEST
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