Customer Reviews

America's #1 Band

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've just got this and played the first two discs, so I can't comment on it all, but what I've heard so far is AMAZING! The sound--so shoddy on the '80s "Essential Count Basie" series--is superb, and the music is just beyone belief. The playing is light and forceful at the same time--just great, great stuff. A perfect complement to the 3-CD Decca set. And I can't wait to hear the previously unreleased live stuff on disc 4. The packaging is very attractive and the booklet--make that book--is very detailed and informative. Another classic Orrin Keepnews reissue.

This is the perfect gift for any jazz fan--and you should get one for yourself while you're at it!

This is a swell 4-CD box set that covers all of Basie's studio work for the Columbia label, from 1936-51, working in a variety of configurations, from small combos to the full-on Basie Orchestra, including several songs with Basie backing up Billie Holiday, and plenty of other vocal tunes featuring Basie regulars Helen Humes and Jimmy Rushing. This collection also marks the first time Columbia has officially delved into the wealth of live transcription performances and radio broadcasts featuring the Basie band... This material was previously the sole province of various European collector labels; Sony shows it's able to do this material up right, with meticulous scholarship and great sound quality. Doubtless, many of the sniffier jazz scholars will find some reason or another to pooh-pooh this collection, but for us regular folks, it's mighty tasty. Recommended!

This is the best these sides have sounded ever, period. It is really a treat to hear the early Basie band with Lester Young in all its glory. The sound restoration on some of these tracks is just unbelievable, I had to check the linear notes to make sure these were the 1940 recordigs, because they sounded so different to the muddy/scratchy sound I grew used to. The linear notes alone are worth the price of this box set. And one full disc of most unreleased live tracks, many with Lester Young and Billie Holiday? You do the math. Many people, i am not included, are waiting for the full Columbia sessions remastered, but for me, this is what I have been waiting many years. The track secuence is annoying, I still cant understand why not doing it chronological, but its just a minor flaw.

I don't have to tell anyone how great these tracks are. How does one guy get all 16 of the greatest swing musicians in the world into one band? This set has some Great surprises: Live sides, and rare alternates, like "It's The Same Old South", (a different take than the version on the vinyl "Superchief")

I have several of these on the ARC/Columbia family of labels (Vocallion, Brunswick, Okey, etc.) both 78s and Lps. and have been trying and failing to replace them with decent CD copies. COLUMBIA FINNALLY GOT IT RIGHT!. This set is a pleasure, and for once, it sounds great! You will NEVER be dissapointed with this purchace.

Now if Columbia would refund everybody's money for the unlistenable versions of these tunes they issued on the "Essential" series, and the "This Is Jazz" series etc., we could use it to replace our copies of the Armstrong Hot Fives that they had previous butchered, or the Bix, ...it goes on .....

This is a truly great package which you will find yourself listening to again and again. As others mentioned, the four discs here cover several of Basie's bands, so what you get is not simply 90 songs from a single band, which would get quite boring no matter how great any individual band was, but rather choice cuts from different bands of different size and composition over a twenty year period. The result is four discs each with their own distinct sound, each providing a different snapshot of the evolution of swing under Basie.

While historians might object, the arrangement of the songs is great too from the standpoint of a pure listening experience, with the first two discs being Basie's smaller groups, and the latter two being the larger Count Basie Orchestra. While the Orchestra is the most famous of these bands, and is outstanding in its own right, the best material here is from the small groups. The sound is less polished than it would become years later, but there's a raw energy to the Basie Octet that can't be matched.

The sound throughout the package is amazing. Full bass, minimal hiss, and not tinny. If only all music from this era could be remastered so well.

This is fun music, not the over-intellectualized jazz that sends people from the room. Well worth the investment if you want an overview of swing at its best.

This might be just about the perfect gift for any jazz fan you might know. Not as pricey as some other key box sets and yet more beautifully packaged, it also is guaranteed to appeal across a wide spectrum of tastes, presenting music that is foundational to just about every important movement that followed, from bebop to free. Like the baby bear's porridge, it's just right, gathering together all of Basie's Columbia sides prior to the LP era, and thereby presenting a perfect mix of small group and big band recordings, with generous helpings of the astonishing Lester Young at his absolute peak, great features for everyone from Buck Clayton to Sweets Edison, Jimmy Rushing to Helen Humes, to a postively essential appearance by Billie Holiday on three tracks, performing at her most adventuresome. Logically, it leads off with the small group stuff, occupying all of disc one and a chunk of disc two--logical because the earliest recordings here are the famous "Jones-Smith Inc" sides. But also logical because, in the CD era, we're not so much interested in dancing but in hearing the building blocks of modern jazz, and here they are, with sound quality that has presence and detail and real bite. I'll confess an immediate affection for the "Count Basie and His All-American Rhythm Section" sides, originally released as an "album" of 78s dedicated to Basie's interpretations of the blues. Don Byas may not be Pres, but his sound is as tasty in its own right, and all these tracks really look ahead to small-group jazz of the future. The box set hits its only awkward moment as we lurch ahead to 1951 and some octet sessions that are bright and enjoyable but require a shift back in time as discs two and three return to 1939 and move into the big band sides. Still, it's a marvel to hear the house these guys built, not as swanky as Ellington's but funkier. Your feet just wanna move. Disc four is radio transcriptions of live performances, and while the sound quality is more uneven, you won't want to miss hearing the soloists stretch out. Oh yeah, and those Billie Holiday numbers. From sound quality to design, to Loren Schoenberg's detailed annotations, kudos to all these guys for lovingly representing this music. Get it for yourself, or someone else who deserves it.

A welcome addition in a lovely box with all the beauty of great sound,a 90 page book, a great disc of live material/broadcasts makes this a needed addition to any Basie lover..I also have the Columbia's Essential collections spanning 3 discs but this here is a needed bonus and is still not a substitute for those under rated discs put out earlier...Such a prolific man deserves royal treatment and does some justice to the earlier output..but obviously other reviewers will give you more detail as to songs selection and musicians I just wanted to add appreciation..

Where do you start? Almost ninety songs in as good of fidelity as one could hope for? Spanning the most important thirty years of the bluesiest big band ever? A quarter of them live and unreleased, broadcast from such legendary clubs as the Famous Door and the Savoy? Vocals from Billie Holiday, Helen Humes and Jimmy Rushing? The All American Rhythm Section, Basie's Bad Boys, and of course, the Orchestra. Featuring the likes of Lester Young, Sweets Edison, Jo Jones, etc.? Legendary tunes like "One O Clock Jump", "I Want A Little Girl", "Rock A Bye Basie","Clap Hands", "Oh Lady Be Good", and "Harvard Blues?
Whad'da want?

Five stars for the music. It all sounds great, even the radio broadcasts. Plus, I like the variety of the different small groups and the big band. Each disk is wonderful.
Three stars for the package, though.
1 - The title should be "America's #1 BandLEADER". After all, one-and-a-half disks are devoted to small group performances. This is four disks of Basie, not the Basie Band.
2 - This is not the best of Basie, it's the best of the Columbia sessions. Two obvious omissions are the early versions of "One O'Clock Jump" and "Jumpin' at the Woodside". Neither of the later versions here include Lester Young in the band.
3 - Why the cheap shot on the back cover about Benny Goodman? Did the liner note people feel they had to resort to race-baiting in order to praise Count Basie?
4 - Why the cheap shot in the liner notes about the New Testament band? My guess is that if those recordings had been on Columbia, that little quote would have been left out. Again, is it necessary to denigrate Basie's later work in order to praise his earlier material?

Someone did an excellent job of choosing the tracks on this collection. The time period is narrow, 1936-1941, but this is when Basie did some of his best stuff, principally because of Lester Young's presence. I believe the first two (of four) disks are the best, particularly the Kansas City Seven sides from 1939. The sound is great and the price is right.