b. William Basie was born on August 21 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey USA and died on April 26 1984. As a bandleader and pianist, Count Basie grew up in Red Bank, just across the Hudson River from New York City. His mother gave him his first lessons at the piano, and he used every opportunity to hear the celebrated kings of New York keyboard - James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith and especially Fats Waller. Ragtime was all the rage, and these keyword professors ransacked the European tradition to achieve ever more spectacular improvisations.

Young Basie listening to Fats Waller…

The young Basie listened to Fats Waller playing the organ in Harlem’s Lincoln Theater and received tuition from him. Owing to the “laisser-faire” administration of Democrat leader Tom Pendergast, musicians could easily find work, and jazz blossomed alongside gambling and prostitution.

Basie played to silent movies for a while, then in 1928 joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils, starting a 20-year-long association with the bassist. When the Blue Devils broke up, Basie joined Bennie Moten, then, in 1935 started his own band at the Reno Club and quickly lured Moten’s best musicians into its ranks. Basie’s feel for swing honed the band into quite simply the most classy and propulsive unit in the history of music. Duke Ellington’s band may have been more ambitious, but for sheer unstoppable swing Basie could not be beaten.

Big band with Count Basie!

Throughout the 40’s the Count Basie band provided dancers with conductive rhythms and jazz fans with astonishing solos. On vocals Basie used Jimmy Rushing for the blues material and Helen Humes for pop and novelty numbers. Economic necessity pared down the Basie band to seven members at the start of the 50’s, but otherwise Basie maintained a big band right through to his death in 1984.

A nice example of true Big Band is the record of Count Basie and The Mills Brothers.

Count Basie and the Mills Brothers tracklist:

FACE A

1. Lazy river
2. I may be wrong
3. Release me
4. I want to be happy
5. Down down down
6. The whiffenpoof song

FACE B

1. I dig rock and roll music
2. Tiny bubbles
3. December
4. Let me dream
5. April in Paris

Oscar Peterson has displayed through his eclecticism, an acute awareness of the history of jazz piano, ranging from stride to bop, from James P. Johnson to Bill Evans, but always with Art Tatum as an abiding influence.

Nicknamed “The Elf“, Erroll Garner was the first jazz pianist since Fats Waller to appeal to the non-jazz audience and the first jazzman ever to achieve popular acclaim by this audience without recourse to singing or clowning.

Art Tatum appears to stand to one side of the developing thrust of jazz, yet his creativity and the manner in which he explored harmonic complexities and unusual chord sequences influenced many musicians, including Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, Herbie Hancock and especially non-pianist, amongst whom can be listed Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.

The greatest jazz pianists tracklist:

FACE A

1. I can’t escape from you (Erroll Garner)
2. I surrender dear (Oscar Peterson)
3. Smoke gets in your eyes (Art Tatum)
4. Erroll’s blues (Erroll Garner)
5. Flying home (Oscar Peterson)

FACE B

1. Stairway to the stars (Erroll Garner)
2. Cherokee (Art Tatum)
3. Back home in Indiana (Oscar Peterson)
4. Erroll’s bounce (Erroll Garner)
5. Out of nowhere (Art Tatum)

Who was Oscar Peterson?

Oscar Peterson was born on August 15th in Montreal, Canada. Blessed with an attractive stage personality, this behemoth of mainstream jazz’s fluid technique was influenced by Art Tatum, Erroll Garner and, later, George Shearing. After studying trumpet, illness redirected him to the piano. His enthusiasm resulted in endless hours of practise which helped mould his remarkable technique.

In his mid-teens, after winning a local talent contest in 1940, Peterson was heard regularly on radio in Canada and beyond. By 1944, he was the featured pianist with the nationally famous Johnny Holmes Orchestra before leaving his own trio. Oscar Peterson was unusual in not serving an apprenticeship as an older player’s sideman. Although early recordings were dissapointing, he received lucrative offers to appear in the USA but these were resisted until a debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall with Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic in September 1949.

Oscar Peterson played with the greatest jazz anthems!

Louis Armstrong, Billy Holiday, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Zoot Sims, Ella Fitzgerald and Stan Getz have been among Peterson’s collaborators during a career that has encompassed hundreds of studio and concert recording.

With 1963’s Affinity as his biggest seller, Peterson’s output has ranged from albums drawn from the songbooks of Cole Porter and Duke Ellington.

Since 1970, he has worked with no fixed group, often performing alone, although at the end of the 70’s Peterson had a long stint with bass player Neils-Henning Orsted Pedersen which continued well into the 80’s.

Dazzling techniques and unflagging swing

Peterson’s dazzling techniques and unflagging swing have helped make him one of the most highly regarded and instantly identifiable pianists in jazz. The high standard of his work over the years is testimony to his dedication and to the care which he and his mentor, Granz, have exercised over the pianist’s career.

Erroll Garner, born in Pittburgh in 1921, makes his debut in New York in 1944, played with the Slam STEWART Trio, then forms his own band and has ever since been very successful. He tours the world several times and his last performance in Europe took place in 1968.

Featured album: “The king of jazz piano”

Garner’s play is complete: a very musical piano technique, very rich harmonic improvisations, an extreme mobility in the right hand touch and a powerful left hand. The delay of tempo between the two hands creates a very extraordinary balance of rhythm which makes his play easy to recognize since the very first notes. Actually, Erroll Garner is considered, by fans and jazz musicians, the best, if not the greatest pianist in jazz.

The record “The king of jazz piano” contains the most famous and the most beautiful american melodies: some of them slow, where Garner rhapsodies with rapture, others of medium tempo, where Garner shows his art at its best.

A selection of the best jazz records in the famous American magazine “Play-Boy”, gave these recordings as the best Erroll Garner made since the beginning of his career.

King of jazz piano tracklist:

FACE A

1. Body and soul
2. Laura
3. Red sails in the sunset
4. I can’t believe that you’re in love with me
5. Stardust
6. More than you know
7. All of me
8. All the things you are

FACE B:

1. On the sunny side of the street
2. Penthouse serenade
3. I only have eyes for you
4. I surrender dear
5. Confessin’
6. September song
7. I’m in the mood for love
8. Rosalie

• Louis Armstrong
• Nina Simone
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Toots Tielemans
• Stan Getz

and many more…! I’ve currently made up the following playlist (see right sidebar), however expect more to come in the coming months.

Current jazz music featured at Jazz Vinyl Jewels:

• Toots Tielemans - Theme from summer of ‘42
• Walter Wanderley - Summer samba
• Elza Soares - Mas que nada
• Dave Brubeck - Take five
• Stan Getz & Joao Gilberto - Desafinado
• Nina Simone - Feeling good
• Walter Wanderley - Samba de una nota so
• Wes Montgomery - Round midnight

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