The World Of Count Basie (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback] Review

Dance's "World of" books are incredibly essential to understanding the SWing Era, particularly this one and the "The World of Swing." What these are are rather educated, open interviews with major musicians in or around the Basie Band which center on THE MUSIC and the way it was played, rather than incidental personal anecdotes, tell all scandals or anything else.In particluar, Dance's interview done from the mid 1950s until the late 1960s catch these musicians at a point where the change from Swing to Bop to "Modern Jazz," changes in recording practices and other changes in the period between the twenties and thirties when some began until the time of the interviews.
My favorite interviews here are with Lester Young and with Jimmie Rushing. Lester's rap here is reprinted in many other Lester collections, but Jimmie and Basie's which talk a bit of the 20s and Moten and also about their own professionalism have not.
I have not read this book entirely for about 18 years, but its pages remain vivid today and it is a necessity in my musical library as is his World of Swing.

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Product Description:
The late Count Basie is one of the jazz immortals. The master of swing, whose beat was the subtlest and supplest of all the bandleaders, Basie featured some of the great soloists in jazz history while he sat unobtrusively at the piano, keeping time with his unmatched rhythm section, showing off the surging power of his brass players, and commenting wittily with a single chord or phrase. A man and musician of reserve and modesty, Basie nonetheless will always be a landmark for his won achievements and for the jazz musicians who passed through his band. In this sociable and pioneering oral history of Basie and his band, Stanley Dance talks with the Count himself, Jimmy Rushing, Buddy Tate, Buck Clayton, Joe Williams, Jay McShann, Jo Jones, Dicky Wells, Lester Young, and a dozen others, who reminisce about each other, Kansas City jazz, and their legendary peers Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker. With a rich flow of anecdote, opinion, and biographical information-and with striking photographs-this history both documents and assesses the legacy of Basie for American music.

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