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Nowhere else have blues
musicians ever been more firmly dedicated to the proposition that
"it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing" than
in Kansas City in the early 1930s. What they were playing was, above
all else, good-time, honky-tonk, dance-hall music for people to
stomp away their troubles, etc. This is the source of the Basie
sound.
After work, nightly jam sessions sometimes turned into battles or
"cutting contests." Sometimes they showcased new talent,
but mostly the musicians played for sheer enjoyment, for trying
new ideas, and to keep current with the latest innovations. But
the Kansas City jam session was no less dance-beat oriented for
being an experimental laboratory, for it is the drive with which
they swing the blues and anything else that these musicians are
most widely celebrated. Many of the most enduring examples of Kansas
City composition, such as "Moten Swing," were jam session
renditions that became memorized "head arrangements."
The Southwestern stomp style of which Basie was associated featured
4/4 time in all tempos, riff ensembles and shout-style choruses
as well as vocal and instrumental solos. All that Basie had to do
was recognize it, and refine it, and bring it out to the rest of
the world.
Indeed, Basie's status as
a great musician was not a matter of extension and elaboration of
blues idiom basics as was the case of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
Basie's claim to fame and prestige was based on his refinement of
the fundamentals that make jazz music swing.
The Basie hallmark was always simplicity, but it is a simplicity
that is the result of a distillation that produced music that was
as refined, subtle and elegant as it was earthy and robust. There
is no better example of the ungaudy in the work of any other American
artist in any medium.
Count Basie's music is not
about protest. It is about celebration, and celebration is about
achievement, whether material or better still existential (intrinsically
personal) and what it generates is a sense of well-being that even
becomes exhilaration!
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