Possibly inspired by
Count Basie's renewed activity at Verve Records in the mid-'50s, Columbia raided its vaults to assemble this thematic album, consisting of a dozen blues cuts dating between 1939 and 1950. The mix of late-'30s/early-'40s big-band swing and 1950-era small group sides makes this a fascinating document of two phases of
Basie's career. The album opens with a bang, with "Tootie," a fast and lean small group track that offers hot solo spots by
Basie at the piano,
Buddy De Franco on clarinet, tenor man
Charlie Rouse, and drummer
Gus Johnson. The album then jumps back 11 years to the band's cover of
Leroy Carr's "How Long Blues," featuring a great vocal by
Jimmy Rushing and a nice trade-off of riffs between the trumpets (featuring
Harry "Sweets" Edison and
Buck Clayton) and the trombones. "Way Back Blues," "Bugle Blues," and "Royal Garden Blues" are cuts originally credited to the "All-American Rhythm Section" in 1942, prominently featuring
Basie in a smaller group setting.
Rushing reappears on the rollicking "Blues (I Still Think of Her)," from 1941, which owes a little bit of its structure to "One O'Clock Jump"; "Harvard Blues," a slow, swinging blues that offers a beautiful extended opening baritone sax solo by
Jack Washington; the group's swing rendition of
Casey Bill Weldon's "I'm Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town"; "Take Me Back Baby," which offers the trumpets and tenor saxes a chance to shine; and the mournful "Nobody Knows," the latter dating from 1939 and featuring
Basie on the organ. The producers save the most interesting cut, "Bluebeard Blues," for last -- recorded in 1950, it shows
Basie in some of the most involved playing of this period, and the group (including
Buddy Rich at the drums) pushing their considerable inventiveness. ~ Bruce Eder