Video hit Count Basie

Count Basie - Take Me Back, Baby (1940)

William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. His mother first taught him piano and he started performing in his teens. Dropping out of school, he learned to operate lights for vaudeville and improvised to accompany silent films at a local theatre in his town of Red Bank, New Jersey. By 16, he increasingly played jazz piano at parties, resorts and other venues. In 1924, he went to Harlem, where his performing career expanded; he toured with groups to the major jazz cities of Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. In 1929 he joined Bennie Moten's band in Kansas City, and played with them until Moten's death in 1935. That year Basie formed his own jazz orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump," developed in 1935 in the early days of his band, and "April In Paris".

There are some splendid close-up portraits of individual band members, with the damnedest expressions on several of the guys, but especially on Jimmy's round face. He's daydreaming rather than playing his sax, & he goes into a dream where he's calling up with bluesy musicality to his girlfriend's window:

"Take me back baby, you're all I'm craving for/ Take me back baby, please let me have once more/ The keys on my keyring that opens your front door."

I especially like the line, "Take me back baby, I'm kind of plump that's true,' as Jimmy's a big guy. Being good lookin' & talented makes up for the extra weight, though, & the beautiful gal takes him back, in this memory or fantasy at least.

He lets his gal rip away his little black book since he won't need them anymore. When she checks out who he's been dating, the last girl on the list is Min Oco, noted as "real gal." Minoco was the company that made the soundie. Then all of a sudden, Basie is shaking Jimmy awake as he's totally nodded off in the orchestra.

Honors and inductions

On May 23, 1985, William "Count" Basie was presented, posthumously, with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan. The award was received by his son, Aaron Woodward.

On September 11, 1996 the U.S. Post Office issued a Count Basie 32 cents postage stamp. Basie is a part of the Big Band Leaders issue, which, is in turn, part of the Legends of American Music series.

In 2009, Basie was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.