Count Basie's Pop Music

When I play a big band gig on piano, eventually and inevitably the director will ask me to play like Count Basie. Each time it happens I cringe a little bit, because I forget that playing piano in a big band has very little to do with jazz music. Although Count Basie is considered to be a jazz pianist, his big band was a dance ensemble. I did not know this when I was playing his music in college. We just enjoyed playing swing-oriented music in an ensemble that offered more freedom of expression than the traditional wind ensemble or orchestra. The jazz ensemble was appealing to us because you got to “cook” a little bit. You also got to “solo.” It seemed hip, hipper than the square classical music the other music students were studying to perform. In my undergraduate days I was ignorant of jazz music history. A good historical jazz education was difficult to come by in the early l980’s, especially at the undergraduate level. There were only about ten universities then that offered a D.M.A. or Phd. in jazz studies. It was said because the music was so young a significant enough amount had not passed to amass the relevant pedagogy. Jazz also was shunned because of the interconnected drug culture. The “Ivory Tower” didn’t understand that drug use did not necessarily thwart art. Jazz musicians I found out later used alcohol and drugs to help facilitate the euphoric personal expression necessary for the realization of quality jazz music. Although Miles Davis, one of jazz music’s iconic creators, created his voice from a mainly melancholic type of expression, swing music should be considered “happy” music. Miles changed this, and with his new direction he changed jazz music for good. If you need a diversion from the “happy” swing music Miles should be your choice. While it would be wrong and stereotypical to call all jazz happy music, swinging could and should be considered a happy musical style. Upon examination most music scholars probably would agree that to “jazz it up” is to bring a kind of happy personal feeling to the music. The perfect example of this dynamic is the piece “The St. Louis Blues March” performed by the Glen Miller Orchestra. Miller, after enlisting in the United States army, created the first successful military, commercial music reliant, propaganda music force in American history. While “nationalism” had been in place as a music tenet in many European countries, an American Tchaikovsky or Wagner hadn’t necessarily been discovered. Miller, in an ingenious conception, actualized a plan that satisfied many high profile demands. First he offered his services to the war effort like many young Americans were forced to do resulting from military conscription. Second he created a U.S.O.-type of internal troop moral building music machine. Third he advanced the art form of swing-oriented music. Fourth he cleverly advanced his own personal music career. All of this was accomplished utilizing swing-oriented music. Miller’s accomplishment alone proves the value of swing music, but also pigeonholes its own musical potential to “happy” music. Miles resulting musical commentary could be seen as a reaction to the preceding dance-oriented big band music. The outlawing of dance floors in clubs during the war did not help. A new type of music had to be created that of itself possessed the capability to keep listeners tuned in. That music was Bebop. Bebop was seminal in the development of jazz music, because by its own definition it was music solely for its artists and proponents. Bebop musicians relished the concept their music was not “for the man” and not for dancing. It was a strong individual reaction and evolution of civil liberties spurred by the slavery experience in America. The feeling of the blues developed in the fields of the American by slaves could be considered what brings soul to swing music. Similarly the early jazz musicians of Louisiana were familiar with the street funeral dirges inherent in New Orleans culture. The feeling of sadness was a crucial part of human expression and thus deserved to be preserved in jazz music. The funeral parade with their “Second Line” would sing the lament of death, and upon burial of the individual would celebrate their resurrection to heaven. How does Count Basie relate to this history? The definition of a jazz ensemble as a dance entity effects the freedom of rhythm. Because dancers demand a steady uncompromising “beat,” this requirement takes precedence over the individual musician’s personal expression. Count Basie’s orchestra with Freddie Greene as guitarist is the most obvious example of this limitation. While Basie’s arrangment are musically interesting in melody and harmony, the rhythmic concept that came to define them is historical “pop” music. A constant strum of quarter notes on the guitar of itself is not musically interesting. What it does do is satisfy the apparent need of the pop music patron, a simple, continual, rhythmic pulse providing a base for a melody. Consequently is it academically correct to call Basie’s music derivative? While they were doing all that they could to continue working, and resultantly were advancing big band music it should be noted that The Count Basie Orchestra was not the highest achievable example of swing-oriented big band music. It is the most popular because it was the most well-known.