Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie as Told to Albert Murray [Paperback]

Count Basie (Author), Albert Murray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1986

Count Basie (1904–1984) was one of America's pre-eminent jazz pianists, bandleaders, and composers. With the charm, dry humor, and inexorable logic of phrasing that were his alone, Good Morning Blues stands as both testimony and tribute to a remarkably rich life.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Long before he thought about becoming a musician, William Basie, son of a Red Bank, N.J., coachman and caretaker, longed to "go on the road touring everywhere in the world of show business with a troupe." In these long, rambling memoirs, skillfully put together from tape recordings, the Count recollects his experiences as a traveling pianist in Missouri and Oklahoma, as a member (with Hot Lips Page and Jimmie Rushing) of the Blue Devils, as organist in a silent-movie house, with Bennie Moten's orchestra in Kansas City, and as leader of one of the greatest jazz bands of all time. Basie pays tribute to his colleagues and managers (and to John Hammond for "discovering" him), but does not hesitate to discuss their weaknesses and shortcomings; his language is direct and earthy. Although some of the book reads more like a catalogue or itinerary than an autobiography, it will have strong appeal for jazz buffs and fans of the late bandleader. Photos not seen by PW. January 1
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Murray compiled this biography from conversations with Basie, who died in 1984. Basie is the narrator looking back at his first jobs playing piano in Red Bank, New Jersey; his performances with Bennie Moten's Orchestra in Kansas City; and his fame as a big band leader from the Thirties to the Eighties. Basie's entertaining memories of his early days of performing in movie theaters and sleeping in pool halls give a more colorful picture of life as a musician in the Thirties than would a conventional history or biography. His chronicle of later years of successful worldwide performances seems commonplace in comparison. Basie laughs at his own motives and foibles and reasonably and modestly assesses his talent in a colloquial style that makes this appealing portrait a valuable record of a personality and an age. William Brockman, Drew Univ. Lib., Madison, N.J.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Plume (November 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0917657896
• ISBN-13: 978-0917657894
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,733,616 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For Basie aficionados only, August 5, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Good Morning Blues (Paperback)

If you expect some spectacular insight how Basie and his music came into being, you're in for a slight letdown. The book has a somewhat sedate pace, doesn't feature to many anecdotes or details about Basie and his musicians. There are certainly some interesting facts but on the whole it's rather dry. The book covers Basie's career from its beginnings. I found the chapters on his early life the most interesting ones. From about 1940 onwards Basie structures his memories along his recording sessions; and this gets a bit tedious. I can only recommend this for true Basie aficionados who want to pick up the odd piece of new information.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Basie the cool professional, Murray the former general, April 18, 2005

By 

Tony Thomas (SUNNY ISLES BEACH, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography Of Count Basie (Paperback)

This is a particularly useful book if you know basie, Basieism and what is happening already. Count Basie never was the kind of person you would expect to write a tell all, or note how much reefer was being smoked like Buck Clayton did in his memoir, or spill the inside dope on John Hammond as a number of Basieites have in their books and interviews.

Basie has always been a cool professional, concerned with handling the business side, keeping everybody happy, and keeping the ship above the water. He goes by the old watchword from the 50s we used to have "Maintain your cool at all times."

Thus we get a memoir that has a lot of places and names in it, a lot about working in the band, but very little that is going to surprise or wow anyone who isn't into the Basie story. He stays pretty close to the vest, and presents a very easy going story.

One example of how this book smoothes over conflict and controversy and makes everything seem smoother than the truth is how it treats the departure of Claude Fiddler Williams from the Basie Band in 1937. While the ignorant think Freddie Green was Basie's only guitarist, Williams was the band's first guitarist--and he was Downbeat guitarist of the year that year--and also played hot jazz fiddle solos with the band. Only the Live at the Chatterbox recording lets you hear his brilliant fiddling.

When the band arrived in New York, John Hammond who acted like manager, director, and overlord over the band for years, decided the Fiddler's violin was too "country" and replaced him with Freddie Green who was playing in a New York Club when Basie arrived in the Apple.

Williams who lived until last year (2004) always said John Hammond fired him, although he says he felt grateful in the end because his career as an independent fiddle soloist would have never taken off had he stayed with Basie. In this book, Basie says that he and Williams came to a friendly parting of the ways that let Williams become independent. There is lots of smoothed over stuff like this.

To be fair, this was more or less of an interview with an aging Basie with little attempt to research things. Many things get hazy or are remember conveniently as the years pass on, as I am coming to realize myself as I enter my late 50s.

The book also suffers from Albert Murray's interviewing. Murray never presents his credentials in his appearances as an "expert" on Jazz. In fact he is a retired Air Force General and has never been a musician, a musicologist, or anything professionally associated with music. He's imposed his own rather conservative viewpoint on Jazz as the all American capitalist product, rather than an expression of Black culture, oppression, and a struggle to Africanize music. Rather, Murray priviledges a progression to take Jazz closer to the forms of European classical music. So, it is no surprise that Murray isn't going to try to ferret out controversy, difficult truthes, or unconventional behavior, particularly with a man as cool and under control as Bill Basie.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of information here that exists nowhere else. Sadly, no one has written a serious biography of Basie, or a serious study of his music save for the section on him in Gunter Schuller's great book on Swing. Until that takes place, this is the book.

Like most books of this kind, the part about Basie's life before he became famous, growing up, learning his chops on piano in New York, travelling with TOBA shows, hooking up with Rushing, then with the Blue Devils, then with Moten, are the most interesting and readable parts of this book. Similarly, the book speeds up and summarizes too quickly the closer it gets to the time the interviews took place.

One thing is nice is the list of who took what solo on some of the Old Testament sides.

Still, Basie is important enough for every true Jazz lover, or at least every true swing lover, to own this book, particularly as a cheap used edition can be obtained for little!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The book of lists, March 10, 2006

By 

rick from Boston - See all my reviews

This review is from: Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography Of Count Basie (Paperback)

I'll admit to being a bit dissappointed by this book about Basie.As mentioned in some of the other reviews, you get list after list of recording dates and tour dates, interesting, but not enlightening. Where are the road stories? I feel I've learned more about Basie from other peoples books about jazz and Kansas City than I did in this book. It's too bad, I'm sure he could have filled a few books with what he saw in 60 plus years of jazz.