# Photos: Kay Starr and Count Basie’s band wraps around bluesy: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/10/08/photos-kay-starr-count-basies-band-wraps-around-bluesy-video/
- Published: 2017-10-08T14:02:16+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Count Basie fans tend to focus on his hard-driving “Super Chief” bands of the 
1940s and his stylistic “New Testament” bands of the 1950s. And rightly so. But 
often overlooked is Basie’s output during the 1960s, when he recorded more than 
30 albums, many of them slam-bang swingers. **

Coming off his Roulette Records contract in the summer of 1962, Basie began to record
for Reprise, starting with his first of several albums with Frank Sinatra, in October’
62. Then he alternated between Reprise and Verve until 1966, when he recorded one-
offs for ABC-Paramount, Command, Columbia, Brunswick, Dot and MPS.

⌊Count_basie_hollywood⌉⌊Count_basie_hollywood⌉
 Over the past few days, I’ve been
listening to virtually all of Basie’s output during this underappreciated decade,
rediscovering forgotten gems. Worthy albums include _String Along With Basie_ (with
string arrangements by George Williams); _Easin’ It_ (Frank Foster); _This Time 
By Basie_ (Quincy Jones); _More Hits of the ’50s and ’60s_ (Billy Byers); _Straight
Ahead_ (Sammy Nestico); _Basic Basie_ (Chico O’Farrill); and _Basie on the Beatles_(
Bob Florence). And these are just a start. _Pop Goes the Basie, Basie Meets Bond,
Hollywood Basie’s Way, Back With Basie, Standing Ovation_ and so many others are
impossibly great as well.

⌊R-3353318-1327008610.jpeg⌉⌊R-3353318-1327008610.jpeg⌉
 One album that came as a
big surprise was _How About This_, featuring vocalist Kay Starr with the Basie band,
with arrangements by Dick Hyman. The album was recorded in December 1968 for Paramount
and featured Al Aarons (tp, flhrn) Oscar Brashear, Gene Goen and Sonny Cohn (tp);
Richard Boone, Steve Galloway and Grover Mitchell (tb); Bill Hughes (b-tb); Bobby
Plater (fl,as); Eric Dixon (fl,ts,p); Charlie Fowlkes (fl,bar); Marshal Royal (cl,
as); Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (ts); Dick Hyman (org,arr,cond); Count Basie (p,celeste);
Freddie Green (g); Norman Keenan (b) and Harold Jones (d).

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 The album is a
surprise because many of Basie’s albums backing singers in the 1960s came up short.
The flops that come to mind are those with Sammy Davis Jr., Arthur Prysock, Jackie
Wilson, Irene Reid, the Alan Copeland Singers and the Mills Brothers. Of course,
albums with Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Williams remain solid,
albeit tired, since you’ve probably listened to them endlessly over the years.

_⌊Kay-Starr⌉⌊Kay-Starr⌉
 How About This
 is superb because the song choices were
smart and pop giant Starr (above) was really a closet jazz singer, as evidenced 
on Capitol’s Jazz Singer (1960) and I Cry By Night (1961). Like Patti Page, Starr
was a tremendous singing talent who wound up entangled in pop’s netting and, for
personal economic reasons, worked for bland producers charged with making treacly
easy-listening hit singles and albums for suburbia. When she occasionally escaped
pop’s cage, Starr proved herself to be as good as any jazz belter.

On this album, Basie’s band wraps around Starr’s bluesy, after-hours phrasing like
a stole. In addition, Starr is firmly in charge; Dick’s band arrangements wisely
just tag along. What I love most is that Starr and Basie speak the same bluesy language.
Starr had a voice that sounded similar to Dinah Washington’s but it was a little
more pleading in tone than brashly demanding. Starr, like Washington, also could
swing without thinking about it.

The songs are _I Get the Blues When It Rains, God Bless the Child, Baby Won’t You
Please Come Home?, Ain’t No Use, Keep Smiling at Trouble, If I Could Be With You,
My Man, Hallelujah I Love Him So, I Can’t Stop Loving You_ and _Good Time Girl_.

⌊500x500⌉⌊500x500⌉
 If I could go back to be at one Basie vocal recording session
in the 1960s, this would be it. As good as the Basie-Sinatra albums are, there’s
something very down-home going on here between Basie and Starr that only a gal singer
from Oklahoma and a piano player who made his bones in Kansas City could understand.
You can hear it between the lines. I just wish I had interviewed Starr years ago.

Kay Starr died in 2016; Count Basie died in 1984.

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