1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 14. Count Basie and His Orchestra – The Atomic Mr. Basie (1958)

It’s quite a testament, I think, that The Count Basie Orchestra continued, under a series of new leaders, even after Basie’s death in 1984, and he was performing right up until then. I don’t know why this particular album was included, but when it’s neither the first, not the biggest selling album by an artist my guess is that it somehow represents a quintessential version of that artist’s sound, or perhaps is a key point where a particular genre emerges. 

Basie’s Orchestra is evidently big band in nature (with around 18 members give-or-take at any one time), and by a look at his career he also takes in elements of other jazz styles (and maybe a bit of non-jazz), with some be-bop evident in the solo horn work on these tracks, and some nice percussion work in the occasional break as well. 

Did I think it was a great album? Not really my thing as I’ve said before, but I didn’t hate it. By turns kicking up a great groove or sliding into mellow chill, very much what I’d expect from jazz. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. 3. Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley (1956)

Image
Dr Simon Reads... Listens... to the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.   Here’s a new concept. Inspired by the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (compiled by Robert Dimery) I intend to do just that. Since an album is usually around about an hour at most , and I can listen to them while doing something else, and I suspect the majority of them wi ll be on Spotify, hopefully I will be able to do them before I die. Even at the rate of 1 a day, that’s three years.   3. Elvis Presley – Elvis Presley (1956)   A tiny album of just 28 minute s (but then those 50s rock ‘n roll tracks usually top 2 minutes at most, short and sweet). Released in May 1956, this is a very young King, all fresh-faced and beautiful, performing what I can assume are mostly covers of existing rock and roll, and country- ish , son gs. Blue Suede Shoes is the big one off here; Tutti Frutti is probably better known for the Little Ri chard version. Elvis does a hauntingly soulful versio...
Read more

An Atheist Explores the Bible Part 131: How To Be A Good Wife (Proverbs 26-31)

Proverbs 26-31 How To Be A Good Wife. Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version). In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology. For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP And now: Proverbs 26 “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” This chapter seems to deal mainly with the foolish, with various sayings giving similes for their actions. Most of which, it has to be said, are a little opaque in meaning and I suspect that they have lost something in translation. Aphorisms have a tendency to be quite specific to their country and language of origin – witness Breughel the Elder’s painting of Netherlandish Proverbs, and how strange many of them seem due to distance in time and language. It’s not immediately obvious w...
Read more

1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: 10. Fats Domino – This is Fats (1957)

Image
  Something about this page generates a lot of hits from, I suspect, crawler bots. I wonder why bots like Fats Domino? The only famous one on here is Blueberry Hill (itself a version of a song from 1940 that Domino made his own). But if you like that sound, you’ll like the rest. I don’t have much else to say about the other songs on the album. Fats (real name Antoine) is pretty much doing blues , bringing it into the rock and roll sound, but his distinctive voice really carries it , and the track The Fat Man shows off his piano playing skills as he solos, almost jazz-like, around the song . As with Little Richard’s similarly named album above, it drips exuberence , although Domino was apparently quite a shy and unassuming character. Surprised to learn that he only died in 2017.   Oh, and 10 down, so that makes me 1% of the way through this endeavour . Nearly finished....  
Read more