Count+Basie+by+Jack+J.

Count Basie by Jack J. I would like to know where you got your information. Part of your assignment was to list your resources. Please do that.

Count Basie studied music with his Mother as a child and played piano in early childhood.

He picked up the basics of early Ragtime from some of the great pianist.He made his professional debut accompanist vaudeville acts and replaced waller in an act called Katie Crippen and her kids. He also worked with June Clark and Sonny Greer who was later to become Duke Elligton's drummer. It was while traveling with the Gonzel white vaudeville show that basie became stranded in Kansas city when the outfit sudenly broke up. He played at a silent movie house for a while then became a member of the walter page Blue Devils from 1928 to 1929. Included in the ranks of the Blue Devils was a bules shouter who was a later to play a key role as a early male vocalist with Basies own big band,Jimy Rushing. It was in fact a rotund rushing who happened to hear Basie playing in Kansas city and invited him to atend in a Blue Devil's performance. basie soon joind the band after sitting with them after night.

After Page's Blue Devils broke up count basie and some of the other band members integrated into the benie moten band. He remained with Moten until his death in 1935. After Moten’s death the band continued under the leadership of Bennie’s brother Buster, but Basie started a group of his own and soon found a steady gig at the Reno Club in Kansas City employing some of the best personnel from the Moten band himself.

The band gradually built up in quantity and quality of personnel and was broadcast live regularly from the club by a small Kansas City radio station. It was during one of these broadcasts that the group was heard by John Hammond, a wealthy jazz aficionado, who had himself worked as an announcer, disc jockey and producer of a live jazz show on radio. Hammond decided that the band must go to New York. Through his efforts and support (at times even financially) the band enlarged its membership further and went to New York in 1936. Hammond installed Willard Alexander as the band’s manager and in January of 1937 the Count Basie band made its first recording with the Decca record label.

By the following year the Basie big band had become internationally famous, anchored by the leader’s simple and sparse piano style and the rhythm section of Freddie Greene guitar, Walter Page bass, and Jo Jones drums. The great soloists of this band included Jimmy Rushing as vocalist, Lester Young and Herschel Evans tenor saxes, Earl Warren on alto, Buck Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison on trumpets, and Benny Morton and Dickie Wells on trombones, among others. Also contributing to the bands success were the arrangements by Eddie Durham and others in the band and the “head” arrangements spontaneously developed by the group.

Despite the occasional losses of key soloists, throughout the 1940’s Basie maintained a big band that possessed an infectious rhythmic beat, an enthusiastic team spirit, and a long list of inspired and talented jazz soloists. Among the long line of budding stars to pass through the Basie aggregation's ranks during these years were tenor men, Lester Young, Herschel Evans, Don Byas, Buddy Tate, Lucky Thompson, Illinois Jacquet, and Paul Gonsalves. On trumpets the list includes Buck Clayton, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Joe Newman, and Emmett Berry. In the trombone section Dickie Wells, Benny Morton, Vic Dickenson, and J.J. Johnson all had stints with Basie in the 40’s.