Search - Count Basie :: Featuring Anita O'Day

More great soloists working for Basie

bukhtan | Chicago, Illinois, USA | 10/14/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"These recordings appear to be drawn from radio broadcasts, running roughly from 1945 to 1948. Two incarnations of the Basie band appear, including Harry Edison, J. J. Johnson and Paul Gonzalves, among others. The CD includes, however, some unrelated Tadd Dameron trio recordings. The link is the presence on the singer Anita O'Day on some numbers from each set. To my ears, O'Day is the the real selling point of this CD. By this stage, O'Day has mutated from the still somewhat sock-hoppish singer we hear on the pop and novelty recordings produced by the mediocre muscleman orchestras of Krupa and Kenton into the great scatting musician you will hear here. Amazing how jazz music works. Give a great musician a chance to work with other great musicians, and you get results.

My only criticism of this recording would be the poor sound quality, which may bother some listeners unaccustomed to jazz recordings before 1950."