The timeless sounds produced by the band overseen by William Basie in the 1930s might be the most immediately enjoyable music ever produced in the New World. Take "Miss Thing". Everything about the brash 1939 recording is intelligent, sexy and yes, incredibly swinging.
Published a year after Basie’s 1984 death, Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie, contains the backstory of “Miss Thing”: “it was named for Rubberlegs (Williams) himself, who was… a female impersonator as well as a dancer and a very raunchy blues singer.”
Almost every page of the out-of-print book contains at least one similarly scintillating anecdote. The conversational tone of the “as told to” volume assembled by the notable jazz writer Albert Murray enhances the wildly entertaining if not entirely complete portrait of the essential American artist. As Basie liked to say, it’s a real killer-diller.
While Basie assiduously avoids revealing details about his personal predilections- “I just don’t see the point of going into things like that” he asserts in Good Morning Blues- Basie was admirably candid about musical and business matters.
For instance, he’s more than willing to confess his limitations as a keyboardist. One of the running bits of Good Morning Blues involves Basie’s fear of being shown up by technically superior pianists including Art Tatum and Mary Lou Williams.
Basie’s reverence for his peers can make Good Morning Blues slow going. A reader is obligated to put the book down in order to queue up not just the dozens of recording sessions Basie dutifully describes, but also music by a cast of characters ranging from the titanic Duke Ellington to the earthy comedian Pigmeat Markham.
Details about Basie’s interactions with other legendary figures such as John Hammond, Jimmy Rushing, Fats Waller, Lester Young are dazzling. Basie was a lifelong music obsessive. Although his sound evolved through the vaudeville, big band, bop and rock and roll eras, his enthusiasm never waned.
Kansas City’s civic boosters will cringe at some of Basie’s perspectives, beginning with his characterization of the town as “the sticks.” Yet locally based readers will lap up Basie’s descriptions of boarding houses and clubs in the Jazz District, the “lily-white” Fairyland Park and area landmarks such as Jenkins Music and Municipal Auditorium.
Basie recalls “(t)hey always did like farewells and homecomings in Kansas City.” The ongoing vibrancy of his music and the genial tone of Good Morning Blues makes the prospect of closing the door on Basie’s legacy in his one-time stomping grounds absolutely unthinkable.
