1938 LESTER YOUNG Kansas City Six PAGIN THE DEVIL/ Way down yonder COMMODORE 512

$

30

A series of great  JAZZ Records from early Ragtime to Beb-Bop on 78 rpm Victrola Records

Great Jam Session by the Lester Young Kansas City Six

The Kansas City Six* ?– Pagin' The Devil / Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
Label:
Commodore ?– 512
Series:
Classics In Swing –


A Pagin' The Devil
Written-By – Walter Paige*
B Way Down Yonder In New Orleans
Written-By – Creamer*, Layton*
Companies, etc.
Record Company – Commodore Record Co., Inc.

Credits
Bass – Walter Paige*
Drums – Joe Jones*
Guitar – Freddie Green
Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet – Lester Young
Trombone, Electric Guitar – Eddie Durham
Trumpet – Buck Clayton
Notes
Original pressing with 52nd Street address on labels.

A & B: recorded New York, NY, September 27, 1938.

10" 78 rpm records

Condition:

EXCELLENT MINUS/ VG++ scuffs, some old sticker residue, plays E EXCEPTIONALLY quiet rare ticks

A SUPERB COPY

They were a perfect match, and never played again as well as they did together. One of the best of their later recordings is Lester Leaps Again, recorded in 1944 for Keynote, notable for a series of blues choruses where the two trade phrases as though they could read each other's minds. As this tune demonstrates, Young loved breaks, and here he gets several. A comparison between the issued and the alternate take reveal that he had a basic pattern in mind but could express it in any number of ways. The breaks are cleaner on the alternate, but Young seems to have a slight problem with his horn and some of his ideas are undeveloped in a fashion to which we are unaccustomed. On both tunes, Young plays the melody with Wells on a harmony part below and with Clayton above him.

William "Count" Basie (August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Commonly regarded as one of the most important jazz bandleaders of his time, Basie led his popular Count Basie Orchestra for almost fifty years. Many notable musicians came to prominence under his direction, including tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison and singers Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams. Basie's theme songs were "One O'Clock Jump" and "April In Paris." "Every Day I Have The Blues" (1955), sung by the deep-voiced Williams, was also a hit. Basie was a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.
Biography

[edit] Early life
William James Basie was born on August 21, 1904 in Red Bank, New Jersey to Harvey Lee Basie and Lillian Ann Childs, who lived on Mechanic Street. His father worked as coachman for a wealthy family. After automobiles replaced horses, his father became a groundskeeper and handyman for several families in the area. His mother took in laundry, and was Bill Basie's first piano teacher when he was a child. He started out to be a drummer, but the obvious talents of another young Red Bank drummer, Sonny Greer (who was Duke Ellington's drummer from 1919 to 1951), discouraged young Basie and he switched to piano. While he was in his late teens, he gravitated to Harlem, where he met Fats Waller who taught him how to play organ.[1]

Basie toured the Keith circuit before the age of 20 and later the Columbia Burlesque and the Theater Owners Bookers Association (T.O.B.A.) vaudeville circuits starting in 1924 as a soloist, accompanist to blues singers Katie Krippen and Gonzelle White and music director for various acts.[2][3] His touring took him to Kansas City, Missouri, where he met many jazz musicians in the area. In 1928 he joined Walter Page's Blue Devils, and the following year became the pianist with the Bennie Moten band based in Kansas City. It was at this time that he began to be known as "Count" Basie (see Jazz royalty). He started his own band in 1934, but eventually returned to Moten's band. After Moten died in 1935, the band unsuccessfully attempted to stay together. Basie formed a new band, which included many Moten alumni.

[edit] New York City and later years
 
Basie and band, with vocalist Ethel Waters, from the film Stage Door Canteen (1943)At the end of 1936, Bill Basie moved his band from Kansas City; they honed their repertoire at a long engagement at the Grand Terrace Ballroom in Chicago. In that city in October 1936, members of the band participated in a recording session which producer John Hammond later described as "the only perfect, completely perfect recording session I've ever had anything to do with".[4] Those four sides were released under the name Jones-Smith Incorporated because Basie had already signed with Decca but had not started recording for them (his first Decca session was January, 1937). By the end of 1936 the Count Basie Orchestra began playing in New York City, where they remained until 1950.

Basie's music was characterized by his trademark "jumping" beat and the contrapuntal accents of his own piano. Basie also showcased some of the most notable blues singers of the era: Billie Holiday, Jimmy Rushing, Big Joe Turner, Helen Humes, and Joe Williams. More importantly, Count Basie was a highly successful bandleader who was able to hold onto some of the most notable jazz musicians of the 1930s and early 1940s: Buck Clayton, Reunald Jones, Herschel Evans, Lester Young, and the band's rhythm section, including Walter Page, Freddie Green, and Jo Jones. He was also able to hire arrangers who knew how to accentuate the band's abilities, such as Eddie Durham and Jimmy Mundy. The big band era appeared to be at an end, but Basie reformed his as a 16-piece orchestra in 1952 and led it until his death. Basie remained faithful to the Kansas City Jazz style and helped keep big bands alive with his distinctive style of piano playing.