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Count Basie Orchestra: "Swinging Singing Playing"

  Tobias

The Count Basie Orchestra is the Harlem Globetrotters of big-band swing, still moving onward and upward 25 years after the passing of its revered namesake, the pianist/leader who competed with the Dorseys and Duke Ellington, among others, for top-dog club rights back when men were men.

With guests like these – highwire scat diva Nneena Freelon helping to represent established royalty, 29-year-old crossover kid Jamie Cullum inflicting a tattered Bobby Darin on a most apropos “Blame It On My Youth” – who needs regulars, but they’re here, conducted by Dennis Wilson, a trombonist hand-picked by Basie in 1977. Paired with Mack Avenue A&R VP Al Pryor as co-producer, Wilson brings a newness to the sound that doesn’t just come from new jack mixing boards but from the knowledge that there will always be needs within the general culture that only this stuff, done just so, can meet.

And blah-de-blah, this guy and that girl, but it’s only the needless-to-say that needs to be said: if it’s impeccably rendered, timeless classicism you need for your second-chance-at-prom party, this is all half-court behind-the-back nothing-but-net.

By Eric Saeger

Homepage: Count Basie Orchestra
Homepage: Mack Avenue Records