The big question for musicians who made their name in the Swing and Bebop era was “how do we keep and make fans who are now weaned on the Beatles and Elvis?”. There were essentially two attitudes, change with the times, or ignore them. Here are how both ideas succeeded.
Count Basie’s 1963 band still had the Atomic feel to it, with the saxes of Frank Foster/Frank Wess, the drums of Sonny Payne, and of course the guitar pulse of Freddie Greene. Yes, he put out some pop and Beatles material at this time, but this concert has Basie getting back to his Kansas City roots, reuniting with his original blues shouter Jimmy Rushing for a thrilling “I Want A Little Girl” and “I’m Coming Virginia”. The band is as smooth as silk on pieces like “Corner Pocket” and the reeds are gorgeous on “Lil’ Darlin’” and “The Midnight Sun Never Sets”, Basie plays like he’s paying per note, leaving lot’s of room for the hard hitting “Count “em” and a wild tenor solo that sears on “Jumpin’ At The Woodside”. As tasty as KC BBQ.
Ella acts like the diplomat for jazz vocals, still swinging, but willing to change with the times. She’s backed by her core team of Tommy Flanagan/p, Joe Pass/g, Keter Betts/b and Bobby Durham/dr, giving a musical history lesson on “Different Kinds Of Music” before ripping into “Different Kinds of Music”. She goes uncommonly dark on “Good Morning Heartache” and bops well on “Lemon Drop”. She’s deep and intimate on her intro to “The Man I Love” and does a couple of thrilling duets with Pass, baring her soul on “These Foolish Things”. She then antecedes Al Jarreau with some fantastic vocal percussion improvisation on the exciting samba’d “The Boy From Ipanema” before old buds Roy Eldridge/tp and Eddie Lockjaw Davis/ts jump in for a wild, bluesy and wooly “Just A Lucky So and So” and bopping “Now’s The Time”. Better than Memorex.