). This stemmed primarily from the presence in the rhythm section, from 1937 to the present, of both Mr. Basie on piano and Freddie Green on guitar. Failed to remove flower. He got used to seeing me, as though I were part of the show. His daughter, Diane Basie, now 71 and living in Florida. [18] He was given a military burial later in 2021. Played for Kennedy and Reagan. He flicked out tightly economical, single-finger passages, directing his musicians with a glance, a lift of an eyebrow or a note hit gently but positively in passing. Holiday broke new ground with Shaw, becoming one of the first female . Fresh out of Kansas City, the Basie band took Manhattan by storm in 1937. She gave Lester the nickname "Prez" after President Franklin Roosevelt, the "greatest man around" in Billie's mind. I thought he was kidding, shrugged my shoulders and repled, 'O.K.' Not loud and fast, understand, but smoothly and with a definite punch. (Count Basie), Of course, there are a lot of ways you can treat the blues, but it will still be the blues. (Count Basie), Im saying: to be continued, until we meet again. Their famously empathetic classic recordings with Teddy Wilson date from this era. Then he joined a touring show headed by one Gonzel White, playing piano in a four-piece band. We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us! His father was a railroad worker. After moving to New York, he was further influenced by James P. Johnson and Fats Waller, with Waller teaching Basie organ-playing techniques. This is a carousel with slides. His father Harvey was a mellophonist and his mother Lillian was a pianist who gave her son his first lessons. The Count Basie Orchestra had a slew of hits that helped to define the big-band sound of the 1930s and '40s. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. When we played pop tunes, and naturally we had to, I wanted those pops to kick! Producer John Hammond heard the band's sound and helped secure further bookings. Charles Mingus dedicated an elegy to Young, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", only a few months after his death. In 2009, Nestico said in an interview "I didn't answer, although I didn't think [Johnson's] concept of music was worth a damn. Though rooted in the riff style of the 1930s swing-era big bands, the Basie orchestra played with the forceful drive and carefree swing of a small combo. Young's solo was brilliant, acclaimed by some observers as an unparalleled marvel of economy, phrasing and extraordinarily moving emotion; Nat Hentoff, one of the show's producers, later commented, "Lester got up, and he played the purest blues I have ever heard in the control room we were all crying. During 1950 and 51, economy forced Basie to front an octet, the only period in his career in which he did not lead a big band. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page. Nestico is best known for his arrangements for the Count Basie orchestra. Along with Duke Ellington, Count Basie is regarded as one of the two most important and influential bandleaders in the history of jazz. Paul Quinichette modeled his style so closely on Young's that he was sometimes referred to as the "Vice Prez" (sic). A brother, James, died when William was a young boy. The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. is military terminology referring to "Government Issue" or "General Issue". In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated . Holiday toured with the Count Basie Orchestra in 1937. During his tenure, a composition by Nestico led President Johnson to remark "You call this music?" Then I sat beside him and he taught me.'' Count Basie, byname of William Basie, (born August 21, 1904, Red Bank, New Jersey, U.S.died April 26, 1984, Hollywood, Florida), American jazz musician noted for his spare, economical piano style and for his leadership of influential and widely heralded big bands. Death Year: 1984, Death date: April 26, 1984, Death State: Florida, Death City: Hollywood, Death Country: United States, Article Title: Count Basie Biography, Author: Biography.com Editors, Website Name: The Biography.com website, Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/count-basie, Publisher: A&E; Television Networks, Last Updated: April 14, 2021, Original Published Date: April 2, 2014. Count Basie Birth Name: William James Basie Occupation: Pianist Place Of Birth: Red Bank Date Of Birth: August21, 1904 Date Of Death: April 26, 1984 Cause Of Death: N/A Ethnicity: Black Nationality: American Count Basie was born on the 21st of August, 1904. Oops, something didn't work. Bookmark this page and come back often for updates. Young is a major character in English writer Geoff Dyer's 1991 fictional book about jazz, But Beautiful. Live. Many of the members, like Lester "Prez" Young, drifted into Basie's orbit around the time of Moten's death in 1935. Young did not fight the charges and was convicted. Count Bill Basie . His group, Count Basie and his Cherry Blossoms, was an outgrowth of Bennie Motens band in Kansas City. Chinese Zodiac: Count Basie was born in the Year of the Rabbit. He began his professional career as an accompanist on the vaudeville circuit. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. "Sammy Nestico | Biography, Albums, Streaming Links", "How my father pursued the American Dream", "Sammy Nestico, 'the Rolls Royce of composers and arrangers' in big-band jazz, dies at 96", "Pittsburgh Native writer/arranger/bandleader Sammy Nestico has passed, weeks short of his 97th birthday", "Massillon Museum to offer virtual Q&A with filmmaker", "Sammy Nestico, prolific composer and arranger for Count Basie, dies at 96", "Dave's WOW: Beloved American composer and arranger Sammy Nestico dies at 96", "Count Basie arranger Sammy Nestico has died The Syncopated Times", "Sammy Nestico | Album Discography | AllMusic", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sammy_Nestico&oldid=1130442453, United States Army personnel of World War II, Articles with Spanish-language sources (es), Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 December 2022, at 05:30. In 1981, Mr. Basie was honored along with Cary Grant, Helen Hayes and other stars as a recipient of Washington's Kennedy Center honors for achievement in the performing arts. ''I wanted my 13-piece band to work together just like those nine pieces,'' he explained. At age 17, Nestico joined the ABC radio station WCAE in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a trombonist. [34], Peter Straub's short story collection Magic Terror (2000) contains a story called "Pork Pie Hat", a fictionalized account of the life of Lester Young. When the Page band broke up in 1929, Mr. By then a series of records by the Basie band had begun appearing (under a contract with Decca Records by which Mr. Basie was paid a total of $750 for 24 sides with no royalties - ''probably the most expensive blunder in Basie's history,'' said Mr. Hammond) that included hit after hit - ''Swingin' the Blues,'' ''Jumpin' at the Woodside,'' ''One O'Clock Jump'' (his theme) and many others now considered jazz classics. You are only allowed to leave one flower per day for any given memorial. For many of the other participants, the photo shoot was the last time they saw him alive; he was the first musician in the famous photo to pass away. In the early 1990s after Count Basie's death, leader Frank Foster was auditioning a young drummer for the Basie Band. From then on, it was Count Basie.''. Lena Horne, Stevie Wonder, Joe Williams, Oscar Peterson and Quincy Jones were among the stars to pay tribute. A system error has occurred. Live recording of Young and Potts in Washington were issued later. Duffy Jackson, a drummer whose swinging exuberance propelled him from child stardom to a prolific career behind Lionel Hampton, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and many others, died on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn. Your Scrapbook is currently empty. ''I wanted 13 men to think and play the same way. when asking how much a gig was going to pay.[31]. "Ivey-Divey" was one of Lester Young's common eccentric phrases. Discover what happened on this day. On a flight to New York City, he suffered from internal bleeding due to the effects of alcoholism and died in the early morning hours of March 15, 1959, only hours after arriving back in New York, at the age of 49.[26]. The story of Count Basie is very much the story of the great jazz band that he led for close to 50 years (1935-1984), an orchestra with a distinctive . Cholera deaths in Great Britain over the long-term. He directed music programs at Los Angeles Pierce College, Woodland Hills, California, Westinghouse Memorial High School, and Wilmerding, Pennsylvania. Finally, Willard Alexander, a booking agent, in an effort to get the band on 52d Street, then the jazz center of New York, made a deal with the Famous Door, a shoebox of a room, 25 feet wide and about 50 feet long, which was having trouble doing business in the summer because it had no air-conditioning. At the time of his death, a feature-length documentary film titled Shadow Man: The Sammy Nestico Story was in production. Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. One of Kansas City's own, Ronald McFadden, 66, who together with his brother Lonnie, is well known for entertaining audiences in Kansas City and worldwide, died unexpectedly Monday evening. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. Despite the presence of Lester Young and Herschel Evans in the saxophone section, Buck Clayton in the trumpet section, Jo Jones on drums, with Jimmy Rushing and, briefly, Billie Holiday as vocalists, the Basie band struggled for a year after it left Kansas City. [12] The Airmen of Note, the premier jazz ensemble of the USAF, sponsor an annual competition, the "Sammy Nestico Award" for composers and arrangers of big band music, named in his honor. With Mr. Basie's 13 men in full cry at one end of this elongated closet, the sound ricocheting off the walls and rocketing down from the low ceiling, no listener could escape the exhilarating power of the band. Unlike many white musicians, who were placed in band outfits such as the ones led by Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw, Young was assigned to the regular army where he was not allowed to play his saxophone. Count Basie. People born under this sign are energetic and excitable. Please enter your email address and we will send you an email with a reset password code. Weve updated the security on the site. After some challenges, the Count Basie Orchestra had a slew of hits that helped to define the big-band sound of the 1930s and '40s. He served one traumatic year in a detention barracks[15] and was dishonorably discharged in late 1945. He also received a distinguished alumni award from Duquesne, and in 1994 was inducted into Duquesne's "Century Club". When is Count Basies birthday? Are you sure that you want to delete this memorial? To help it through the Grand Terrace engagement, Fletcher Henderson, who had provided Benny Goodman with the arrangements that enabled his band to break through a year earlier, lent Mr. Basie some of his arrangements. Straub was inspired by Young's appearance on the 1957 CBS-TV show The Sound of Jazz, which he watched repeatedly, wondering how such a genius could have ended up "this present shambles, this human wreckage, hardly able to play at all". As orchestrator, he worked on nearly seventy television programs, including Mission: Impossible,[11] Mannix, M*A*S*H,[13] Charlie's Angels,[14] and The Mod Squad. In fact, the only reason I enlarged the brass was to get a richer harmonic structure. It was a loose and swinging band, built around distinctively individualistic solos by Lester Young, Herschel Evans, Buddy Tate, Buck Clayton, Harry Edison, Dickie Wells, Vic Dickenson and, primarily, Mr. Basie himself. Lester Willis Young (August 27, 1909 - March 15, 1959), nicknamed "Pres" or "Prez", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and occasional clarinetist.. Coming to prominence while a member of Count Basie's orchestra, Young was one of the most influential players on his instrument. Through Mr. Waller, Mr. Basie got a job as accompanist with a vaudeville act called Katie Crippen and Her Kids. There are no volunteers for this cemetery. This second-generation big band differed from the early one in that it depended on arrangers for its basic style, a smooth, rolling, highly polished swing style for which Neal Hefti (''Li'l Darlin' ''), Ernie Wilkins and Frank Foster (''Shiny Stockings'') were among the most notable orchestrators. It was on one of these broadcasts that Bill Basie became Count Basie. Flowers added to the memorial appear on the bottom of the memorial or here on the Flowers tab. Zodiac Sign: Count Basie was a Leo. [12], Nestico wrote hundreds of arrangements for school band and jazz band programs. This account has been disabled. Best Known For: One of jazz music's all-time greats, bandleader-pianist Count Basie was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music. While he never abandoned the cane reed, he used the plastic reed a significant share of the time from 1943 until the end of his life. The best-known of these appearances is the July 1957 performance at the Newport Jazz Festival, with a line-up including many of his 1940s colleagues: Jo Jones, Roy Eldridge, Illinois Jacquet and Jimmy Rushing. In the 1986 film Round Midnight, the fictional main character Dale Turner, played by Dexter Gordon, was partly based on Young incorporating flashback references to his army experiences, and loosely depicting his time in Paris and his return to New York just before his death. standing for detention barracks).[16]. To go on the road, Mr. Basie expanded his nine- piece band to 13 pieces. The family always owned a piano, and Lilly Ann paid twenty-five cents per lesson to . These performances were generally well attended by other drummers such as Max Roach and Roy Haynes. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate, or jump to a slide with the slide dots. One of the band's most popular arrangements, ''April in Paris,'' was written in 1955 by Wild Bill Davis, a jazz organist who had originally developed it for his own small group. One of jazz music's all-time greats, he won many other Grammys throughout his career and worked with a plethora of artists, including Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald. Outstanding soloists such as tenor saxophonists Lucky Thompson, Paul Quinichette, and Eddie Lockjaw Davis and trumpeters Clark Terry and Charlie Shavers, figured prominently. The key factor in popularizing it was a series of repetitions of the final few bars when, as the orchestra seemingly came to the end of the piece, Mr. Basie held up a finger and called out, ''One mo' time! Please complete the captcha to let us know you are a real person. An email has been sent to the person who requested the photo informing them that you have fulfilled their request, There is an open photo request for this memorial. In 1950, when big bands were falling apart, Mr. Basie cut down to an eight-piece group but by 1952 he was leading a big band once again. He eventually relocated the Cherry Blossoms to Chicago, then to New York City. His first marriage was to Beatrice Tolliver, in Albuquerque, on 23 February 1930. [19][20][4], Nestico received honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Duquesne University and in 2005 from Shenandoah University. [11] He soon left Henderson to play in the Andy Kirk band (for six months) before returning to Basie. In 1958, Count Basie became the first African-American male recipient of a Grammy Award. Drummer of the Count Basie Orchestra Passed Away, Obituary - YouTube 0:00 / 0:36 Butch Miles Cause of Death? While he recuperated his band continued to fulfill engagements, frequently with Nat Pierce taking Mr. Basie's place at the piano and sometimes with guest conductors such as the trumpeter Clark Terry, who was a member of the Basie band in the 1940's. In August 1944, Young appeared alongside drummer Jo Jones, trumpeter Harry "Sweets" Edison, and fellow tenor saxophonist Illinois Jacquet in Gjon Mili's short film Jammin' the Blues. [21], This list is incomplete. He started out to be a drummer. His studio recordings are relatively sparse during the 1942 to 1943 period, largely due to the recording ban by the American Federation of Musicians. William James Basie is part of G.I. [2][3] Nestico joined the Oliver High School beginner orchestra in 1937 as a trombonist. All photos appear on this tab and here you can update the sort order of photos on memorials you manage. I decided that I would be one of the biggest new names; and I actually had some little fancy business cards printed up to announce it, Count Basie. William Basie was born at 229 Mechanic Street on August 21, 1904. 1956 was a relatively good year for Lester Young, including a tour of Europe with Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Quartet and a successful residency at Olivia Davis' Patio Lounge in Washington, DC, with the Bill Potts Trio. In 1979, Jones was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame for his contribution to the Birmingham, Alabama musical heritage. Young was the subject and inspiration of Prez. During the 1960s and '70s, Basie recorded with luminaries like Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Wilson, Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson. Please check back soon for updates. There was a memorable concert at Town Hall several years ago when a number of musicians, including Mr. Basie, were scheduled to perform in a variety of combinations. From that time on, I was a daily customer, hanging onto every note, sitting behind him all the time. Verify and try again. Mr. Basie's band, more than any other, was the epitome of swing, of jazz that moved with a built-in flowing intensity. Whereas other pianists were noted for technical flash and dazzling dexterity, Basie was known for his use of silence and for reducing his solo passages to the minimum amount of notes required for maximum emotional and rhythmic effect. When the band left for Chicago it had only 12 written arrangements in its book. There will be a viewing at Benta's Funeral Home, 630 St. Nicholas Avenue at 141st Street, on Sunday from 1 to 7 P.M. This page was last edited on 1 March 2023, at 19:11. The broadcast was picked up one night by John Hammond, the jazz enthusiast who had discovered Billie Holiday and helped Benny Goodman start his band. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. Search above to list available cemeteries. While growing up in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, he worked from the age of five to make money for the family. Suffering from diabetes and chronic arthritis during his later years, Basie continued to front his big band until a month before his death in 1984. Is that all right with you?' There was a problem getting your location. You can't have a Count Basie collection without going back to the beginning. In 2021, Nestico died in Carlsbad, California, at the age of 96. Death rate from Alzheimer's. Death rate from cancer. From the Grand Terrace, it moved on to New York and Roseland Ballroom (playing opposite Woody Herman's new, young band) where listeners complained that it was out of tune (not a surprising reaction since many of Mr. Basie's musicians were blowing patched-up horns and saxophones held together by rubber bands). I said the minute the brass got out of hand and blared and screeched instead of making every note mean something, there'd be some changes made. Once more details are available, we will update this section. In contrast to many of his hard-driving peers, Young played with a relaxed, cool tone and used sophisticated harmonies, using what one critic called "a free-floating style, wheeling and diving like a gull, banking with low, funky riffs that pleased dancers and listeners alike". People of this zodiac sign like to be admired, expensive things, bright colors, and dislike being ignored, facing difficulties, not being treated specially. Occupation (s) Musician. Nestico continued to provide arrangements for Basie until Basie's death in 1984, and four of Nestico's collaborations with Basie earned Grammy Awards. [21][22] Both hold a PhD in Education, according to drummer Roy Haynes, who was interviewed as part of an attempt to create a film biography of Young. The strengths of this sign are being creative, passionate, generous, warm-hearted, cheerful, humorous, while weaknesses can be arrogant, stubborn, self-centered, lazy and inflexible. A band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948. "[4][9], After leaving the military, Nestico became a freelance arranger. One night, while the band was broadcasting on a shortwave radio station in Kansas City, he was dubbed Count Basie by a radio announcer who wanted to indicate his standing in a class with aristocrats of jazz such as Duke Ellington. The legendary Billie Holiday was a vocalist with Basie for a short stint (193738), although she was unable to record with the band because of her contract with another record label; mostly, vocals were handled by Jimmy Rushing, one of the most renowned blues bawlers. The rhythm unit for the bandpianist Basie, guitarist Freddie Green (who joined the Basie band in 1937 and stayed for 50 years), bassist Walter Page, and drummer Jo Joneswas unique in its lightness, precision, and relaxation, becoming the precursor for modern jazz accompanying styles. GREAT NEWS! Due to changing fortunes and an altered musical landscape, Basie was forced to scale down the size of his orchestra at the start of the 1950s, but he soon made a comeback and returned to his big-band structure in 1952, recording new hits with vocalist Joe Williams and becoming an international figure. Young joined Norman Granz's Jazz at the Philharmonic troupe in 1946, touring regularly with JATP over the next 12 years. Try again later. After leaving the military, Nestico became a freelance arranger. Basie decided to form a medium-sized band in 1950, juggling combinations of all-star .