COUNT BASIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA – 1952 | The Classics Chronological Series – 1281 (2003) FLAC (tracks), lossless

This solid entry in the Classics Chronological Series contains all of the titles recorded by Count Basie and his orchestra between January 17 and July 25, 1952, a period during which this band was signed to Norman Granz's Clef record label. Basie, who had been forced to scale his group down to septet and octet dimensions for more than a year beginning in 1950, had begun recording with a powerful new 16-piece unit in April of 1951. Nine months on, this ensemble was well on the way to virtually redefining the art of big-band jazz. Input from arranger/composers Sy Oliver, Buster Harding, and Neal Hefti add a luster to the proceedings that cannot be diminished by the passage of time. Key participants include trumpeters Joe Newman and Charlie Shavers, trombonist Jimmy Wilkins, and reedmen Marshall Royal, Ernie Wilkins, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, and Paul Quinichette, whose Lester Young impersonations were positively uncanny. Small wonder that Pres suffered from an identity crisis on hearing his style replicated so deliberately right there in the reed section of an orchestra led by the same man in whose band he, Lester Young, had developed that style 15 years earlier. Quinichette sounds wonderful. He sounds like Lester Young.  arwulf arwulf   Tracklist :