Polygram Records
1956
Basie In London
About This Album
First off, this album is inaccurately titled. Though the cover photo shows Count Basie with two lavishly dressed Brits, the recording was done in its entirety from a 1956 concert in Gothenburg, Sweden. Why it was titled thusly is anyone's guess. As far as the music, it represents the Basie band in a classic time period, playing many well-known, long-lasting, and beloved tunes that everybody will recognize. It's also a band loaded with legendary Basie sidemen like Freddie Green, Sonny Payne, Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Frank Wess, Joe Newman, Marshall Royal, Charlie Fowlkes, and on three tracks, Joe Williams. The warm, effusive, happy jazz of Count Basie is well recorded with distinction, presence, good stereo separation, and the restrained yet punchy sound Basie always presented with dignified class. Whether it's the trombones taking over on "Jumpin' at the Woodside," the low-key sonance of "Shiny Stockings," the roaring horns during "A Foggy Day," or the under two-minute, hard-charging "One O'Clock Jump," this music is all immediately identifiable and unmistakably Basie. Buster Harding's "Nails" is a blues jam with Green's strumming more audible amidst the echoes of the repeat traditional instrumental line of "my mama done told me" paraphrased from "Blues in the Night," while the Ernie Wilkins feature for Frank Foster, "Flute Juice," is a nimble excursion based on the changes of "I Got Rhythm.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,4,5,12,13,14 and 15)

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