Search - Count Basie :: Swingin at the Chatterbox 1937

Buy This While They Last an importnat historic recording

Tony Thomas | SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA | 03/24/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These are air checks of the Count Basie Orchestra at the Chatterbox Cafe at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh in 1937. These are the earliest recordings of the Count Basie Orchestra as it arrived on the East Coast from Kansas City, BEFORE THE "improvements" John Hammond foisted on the band which preceded the initial Decca recording sessions.



The band here is a lot blusier, a lot loser, a little wilder, and perhaps not as formally correct with intonation problems and inferior instruments to the ones that were subsequently obtained for them. Yet, this is the real sound that made the band a sensation out in Kansas City unvarnished by New York polish or Hammond's interference. It's worth navigating the scratchy recording for the feel of the band. Moreover, as always with live Basie dance sets, Basie's band rises to the occaision of inspiring dancers, even though it is said that the dancers in the rather staid high society Chatterbox weren't ready for the latest in Black swing during this date.



This was before the replacement of Claude Fiddler Williams who was Downbeat Guitarist of that year by Freddy Green who stayed in the Orchestra until his death in the 1980s.



Williams's guitar is more evident even on these poor recordings than Green's. He beats a funkier contrast to the band and the rest of the rhythm session unlike "Quiet Fire" Green who would blend in and shape the smoothest rhythm on the planet.



Williams was called "Fiddler" because he played a great swinging bluesy fiddle. These are the only recordings of Claude Williams playing fiddle with Basie although Fiddler does play guitar on the first session or two the Basie Orchestra had with Decca. There is some really hot music when he picks up his fiddle. He sounds like a funkier version of what Johnnie Gimble would do with Bob Wills a decade later.



Williams, who always said he was fired by John Hammond as opposed to Basie's story that there was a friendly parting of the ways, concluded in his later years that this was better for him. He launched a great new career as a solo jazz violinist. In later years Williams said this was better than if he had stayed with Basie and spent 40 years playing the same rhythm pattern over and over."