– Count Basie with Joe Williams – The Tonight Show With Steve Allen – September 28, 1955 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
Further evidence the early days of TV were days of eclectic wonderment, this excerpt from an episode of the original Tonight Show, starring Steve Allen (before Jack Paar took over and long before Johnny Carson) and featuring a set by Count Basie and His Orchestra, with vocals by Joe Williams.
The big band era appeared to have ended after the war, and Basie disbanded the group. For a while, he performed in combos, sometimes stretched to an orchestra. In 1950, he headlined the Universal-International short film “Sugar Chile” Robinson, Billie Holiday, Count Basie and His Sextet. He reformed his group as a 16-piece orchestra in 1952. This group was eventually called the New Testament band. Basie credited Billy Eckstine, a top male vocalist of the time, for prompting his return to Big Band. He said that Norman Granz got them into the Birdland club and promoted the new band through recordings on the Mercury, Clef, and Verve labels.[60] The jukebox era had begun, and Basie shared the exposure along with early rock’n’roll and rhythm and blues artists. Basie’s new band was more of an ensemble group, with fewer solo turns, and relying less on “head” and more on written arrangements.
Basie added touches of bebop “so long as it made sense”, and he required that “it all had to have feeling”. Basie’s band was sharing Birdland with such bebop musicians as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles Davis. Behind the occasional bebop solos, he always kept his strict rhythmic pulse, “so it doesn’t matter what they do up front; the audience gets the beat”. Basie also added flute to some numbers, a novelty at the time that became widely copied. Soon, his band was touring and recording again. The new band included: Paul Campbell, Tommy Turrentine, Johnny Letman, Idrees Sulieman, and Joe Newman (trumpet); Jimmy Wilkins, Benny Powell, Matthew Gee (trombone); Paul Quinichette and Floyd “Candy” Johnson (tenor sax); Marshal Royal and Ernie Wilkins (alto sax); and Charlie Fowlkes (baritone sax). DownBeat magazine reported: “(Basie) has managed to assemble an ensemble that can thrill both the listener who remembers 1938 and the youngster who has never before heard a big band like this.”
A little over 17 minutes, but a wonderful example of just how diverse programs like The Tonight Show were at the time – aside from the fact that it was 1 hour an 45 minutes, it also ran the gamut of artists and personalities of the time. And since Steve Allen was an avowed Jazz aficionado, many legendary names got guest spots during his tenure.
I don’t think this performance has shown up anywhere via collectors circles or private labels – since the early days of TV were also notoriously not preserved, it’s not entirely likely a kinescope (or early videotape) of this exists. I may be wrong, but that’s no excuse not to enjoy this small slice of Jazz on Network Television in the 1950s.
Enjoy.
