Basie, William (“Count”)

Basie, William (“Count”) (1904–1984), jazz pianist, arranger, band leader.Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, where he received early musical training, including inspiration from the stride pianist “Fats” Waller. Basie developed a distinctive piano style that pared down the cascading notes of his predecessors. His sound—rooted in polyrhythmic intensity and blues changes—eventually came to epitomize Kansas City jazz.

Basie performed in vaudeville and accompanied the blues singers Clara Smith and Maggie Jones. In Kansas City, he played for silent movies (1927) and joined Walter Page's Blue Devils (1928) and Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra (1929). After Moten's death in 1935, Basie and Buster Smith reorganized Moten's band, which became Count Basie's Orchestra. A leading swing‐era ensemble, it produced such hits as “Jumpin' at the Woodside” (1938) and “Taxi War Dance” (1939), which perfectly suited the athletic new dances of the day. Basie's music attracted radio and ballroom audiences and featured such jazz greats as Lester Young and Jo Jones.

Basie's band first recorded on the Decca label in 1937, thanks in part to the promoter John Hammond. Basie's bands remained the standard‐bearer of swing music, even after the World War II craze for the music abated. His ensembles toured Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States. Basie performed at President John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Ball in 1961, and twenty years later received a Kennedy Center Achievement Award. Basie and his wife Catherine had two children, Aaron Woodward (adopted) and Diane Basie. He died in Hollydale, New York.

Bibliography

Raymond Horricks , Count Basie and His Orchestra: Its Music and Musicians, 1957.
Ross Russell , Jazz Style in Kansas City and the Southwest, 1971.
Chris Sheridan , Count Basie: A Bio‐Discography, 1986.

Kathy J. Ogren