Recordings, 1929-1999

Series 7 contains audio and moving image recordings that encompass Count Basie’s roles as a musician, band leader, and trusted ear, as well as personal recordings from his family and friends. It includes unreleased live recordings, broadcasts by the Basie Orchestra and others, personal audio and moving image recordings from the Basie family, recordings that document the creation and development of commercially issued albums by Basie and his associates, and recordings by other artists, including song and performance demos from both well-known and obscure musicians. Among the recordings are multi-reel sets documenting unreleased live performances of the Basie Orchestra at the Holiday Ballroom, Chicago, IL, in 1958, Liederhalle, in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1963, Disneyland, Anaheim, CA in 1975, and Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1981, along with multiple standalone tapes of single-evening performances in Milwaukee, Memphis, New Orleans, Lausanne, and elsewhere. There are recordings of broadcasts made for the Armed Forces Radio Service from the 1940s, live performances aired on WNEW in 1963, interviews on WXXI in the 1970s, and other radio (and television) transmissions at all points in between; personal recordings made by or for the Basie family, including tapes from Louis Armstrong, George Spink, and others; and recordings from labels and studios documenting Basie’s work with Frank Sinatra, Milt Jackson, Oscar Peterson, and others. Other artists are also represented with demo recordings by Erroll Garner, Gerry Mulligan, Cy Coleman, broadcasts from Teddy Wilson, advertisements featuring Lena Horne and Billy Eckstine, live recordings from Sarah Vaughan and Grover Mitchell, and studio and label reference recordings from Joe Pass, Benny Carter, and others. The series also includes commercial releases with inscriptions to Basie from Red Callendar, Eubie Blake, and others. The Basie family is additionally represented in a sequence of home movies recorded without sound in the 1960s and 1970s that offer an intimate experience of the personal lives of Basie, his family, and their friends, as well as limited footage of the Count Basie Orchestra.