MOSAIC RECORDS BOOKLET

The saga of the New Testament band and the 22 sessions included here are the subject of a fascinating essay by reissue producer/journalist/critic Chirs Albertson, author of “Bessie – A Biography Of Bessie Smith.” Filling out this 20-page booklet is the discography by set producer Scott Wenzel, which corrects many existing errors.

In the age of microsizing, every Mosaic Records Box Set booklet is still 11 x 11 inches to allow our customers to appreciate all the extras we put into printing them (and for easier reading).

SOUND QUALITY

The sources came from the original master tapes over at Universal Music. However, research at the Institute of Jazz Studies led us to find alternate takes on titles that existed only on 78 and 45.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photo Copyright © Protected
Count Basie
Photographs of the band in performance by Popsie Randolph are captured at the Rustic Cabin (NJ), the Savoy Ballroom (NY) and The Fox Theater (Brooklyn) and Chuck Stewart’s marvelous shots were taken at the New York Jazz Festival at Randall’s Island.

SAMPLE RECORDING SESSION

July 26, 1955

As successful as the Joe Williams date would prove to be, the band had yet to make a true hit record, but that happened at the next session, in July of 1955. The tune was April In Paris, written by Vernon Duke for Walk a Little Faster, an obscure Broadway show directed by Monty Woolley and starring Beatrice Lillie. Brooks Atkinson called the show “totally uninspired” and only one reviewer bothered to mention the song, finding it “superfluous.” Organist Wild Bill Davis wrote this arrangement, giving it a decided organ feel and making other departures that its composer surely welcomed. The injection of Pop Goes The Weasel kicks off Thad Jones’s solo and is almost etched into the song now, but the touch that makes this arrangement such a hit with live audiences is the repetitive “one-more-time” ending, which came about during a joint Birdland appearance by the band and Davis’ organ trio. When the band ended the tune, Davis turned to Basie and shouted “One more time,” the band complied, and the audiences loved it. The routine became embedded in the chart, often going on for several “one more once” requests.

The original intent was to have the band record the tune with Wild Bill’s trio, recreating the interaction that grew out of the Birdland gig, but when something came up to prevent Wild Bill from making date, Basie decided to go it alone. He would later refer to that as a lucky break, for April In Paris became the band’s biggest selling instrumental. With the silky smoothness of a Dorsey slide, trombonist Benny Powell helps the slightly ruffled velvety reeds establish the theme and Thad Jones does the solo honors. The alternate take has Jones—in unabashed Gillespie admirer—in more of a Dizzy bag and is no less appealing, you will still want to hear it one more time, one more once, and…

Ernie Wilkins arranged Corner Pocket, a tune written by Freddie Green. Lyrics by Donald Wolf were later added, and the song’s title changed to Until I Met You. It’s a catchy, well-patterned melody that rides effortlessly atop a downy rhythm, skillfully nudged by Sonny Payne. Wilkins left ample room for solos, which here are by Thad Jones, Newman, and Frank Foster, in that order. Notice the small glitch in Jones’ solo on the earlier take, it may have been a cause for recording further versions. Notice, too, how Jones on the earlier take foreshadows the whimsy he interjects on the final one: a nod to one of that year’s top singles, Perez Prado’s Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White.

The reeds are slammin’ and the brass means business on both takes of Frank Foster’s Didn’t You?, which feature crispy trombone solos by Henry Coker and well-constructed tenor statements by the composer. There is little difference between the two versions—takes 2 and 5—but the recording sheet indicates that Granz favored the latter.

Like Jimmy Rushing, Joe Williams did not like to be boxed into a specific idiom, blues formed an important part of his repertoire, but only a part. It was also important to include in the band’s library at least a sprinkling of pop chart fare, such as Teach Me Tonight, which was a jukebox favorite in late 1954. It had been a hit for the De Castro Sisters, leading to versions by numerous top artists, including Sinatra, Jo Stafford, and Dinah Washington. This Wilkins arrangement is pretty straightforward and solely focused on Williams’s delivery of Sammy Cahn’s well-crafted but otherwise unremarkable lyrics.

Percy Mayfield’s Please Send Me Someone To Love is a far more interesting song. An intriguing blend of love ballad and plea for world peace, it is a favorite among socially conscious lonely-hearts. Except for Thad Jones’s blues-soaked trumpet opening, this is another number that keeps the spotlight on Williams, whose approach to the tune is, at times, unorthodox. Frank Foster wrote the arrangement for this one as well as for Williams’s own My Baby Upsets Me, a traditional blues with virtual echo built into the lyrics. Williams is at his best with this kind of unpretentious material, and he shines here with some muted help from Joe Newman after the ensemble interlude. Contrast that with Ev’ry Day I Fall In Love, a song that gives new meaning to the term, banal, but which Williams does well in his best ballroom manner. Here, again, the chart is by Frank Foster and aimed directly at the dance floor.

You will feel a brisk breeze blowing in from old Kansas City the minute Basie gives the comp-down to Roll 'Em Pete and Henry Coker’s of-the-soil trombone makes commentary behind the Williams vocal. First recorded in 1938 by singer Joe Turner and pianist Pete Johnson, it perfectly illustrates where the riff-based style of the early Basie orchestra came from. The tenor solos are by Frank Wess. With Ernie Wilkins Sweetie Cakes we are reminded who is boss around here. This is Basie from start to finish, gently and sparingly hitting all the right notes as the band binds it all together. It was a good way to end a multifarious session.

Joe Williams’ name now began to figure prominently in ads for the band, and it appeared more frequently in music columns. The band spent the rest of the year touring domestically. It was now one of the most popular attractions in ballrooms and theaters around the country, a fact that did not escape the powers in Washington. In November, 1955, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell announced that jazz was now being recognized as a cold war weapon by the U.S. State Department, and that the government would be sending fewer ballet dancers and more jazz musicians abroad. The Basie band would be among the first to represent American culture behind the Iron Curtain, he said, but that trip never came into being.