COUNT BASIE master of scat singing, incorporating the fresh harmonies and

rhythms of bebop into astonishing wordless acrobatic perfor-

Born August 21, 1904, in Red Bank, NJ | Died April 26, 1984, in Hollywood, FL
mances. Then, in the 1950s, she recorded definitive versions of
“I’ve always played happy music,” William “Count” Basie once standards by America’s greatest songwriters, from Cole Porter
said. “That’s what I intend to keep on playing.” He kept that to Duke Ellington. Through it all, she never lost the girlish joy
pledge for nearly 50 years. There were two great Basie bands. evident on her earliest records, never seemed to sing out of tune,
The first was loose, loping, and suffused with a buoyant opti- and never failed to swing. Fellow musicians were awed. For her,
mism. “There is nothing like the pure swing this outfit has,” said “music is everything,” her sometime accompanist Jimmy Row-
Benny Goodman. The new band that emerged in the 1950s was les said. “When she walks down the street, she trails notes.”
tight and brassy and built around arrangements that highlighted NEA Jazz Master
the great dynamic range of Basie’s musicians. But both bands
were rooted in the blues, and in the unmistakable piano style of
their leader. A native of Red Bank, New Jersey, Basie found his
musical home in Kansas City, Missouri, where, he remembered,
BENNY GOODMAN
Born May 30, 1909, in Chicago, IL | Died June 13, 1986, in New York City
“you could hear the blues from every window.” Never playing
five notes when one would do, his playing embodied the jazz “Nothing less than perfection would do,” Benny Goodman said of
definition of “less is more.” “The band,” a Basie sideman once his long band-leading career. His exacting standards paid off. A
explained, “doesn’t feel as good until he’s up there.” virtuoso on the clarinet and a taskmaster on the bandstand, he
NEA Jazz Master was also a student of music who never let a day go by without
practicing. “I’ve always wanted to know what made music,” he
said. “How you do it and why it sounds good.” In 1934, Good-
DUKE ELLINGTON man established an orchestra that introduced big band jazz to
the larger American public, helped to usher in the Swing Era,
Born April 29, 1899, in Washington, D.C. | Died May 24, 1974, in New York City
and succeeded in establishing jazz in America’s concert halls.
“If jazz means anything,” Edward Kennedy Ellington once said, “Benny built himself a band playing musician’s music,” ex-
“it is freedom of expression.” No one in the history of jazz ex- plained his drummer, Gene Krupa. And at a time when even the
pressed himself more freely—or with more variety or swing or stage was racially segregated, his ongoing desire to perfect that
sophistication. Ellington was a masterful pianist, but his real in- music led him to bring to it great African-American musicians.
strument was the orchestra he led for half a century. More con- “If a guy’s got it, let him give it,” Goodman said. “I’m selling mu-
sistently than anyone else in jazz history, Ellington showed how sic, not prejudice.”
great music could simultaneously be shaped by the composer
and created on the spot by the players. Each of his almost 2,000
compositions—from dance tunes to orchestral suites—was craft-
ed to bring out the best in the extraordinary individuals who
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Born April 7, 1915, in Philadelphia, PA | Died July 17, 1959, in New York City
traveled the road with him. Ellington hated what he called “cat-
egories,” and he managed to encompass in his music not only “Me and my old voice,” Billie Holiday once told an accompanist,
what he once called “Negro feeling put to rhythm and tune” but “[i]t just goes up a little and comes down a little. It’s not legit. …”
also the rhythm and feeling of his whole country and much of It may not have been legit, but it was unforgettable and helped
the wider world, as well. make her the most influential female singer in jazz history. Her
friend and frequent collaborator Lester Young gave her the
nickname “Lady Day,” and she shared with him a great jazz in-
ELLA FITZGERALD strumentalist’s ability to shift the rhythm, alter the melody, and
uncover new meanings in any song she chose to perform. The
Born April 25, 1917, in Newport News, VA | Died June 15, 1996, in Beverly Hills, CA
personal turmoil that shortened her life has sometimes been al-
MAJOR ARTISTS

“If the musicians like what I do,” Ella Fitzgerald said, “then I feel lowed to obscure the power of her singing. Her greatness lies
I’m really singing.” She was really singing all her life. Discovered not in the pain she endured but in her ability to transcend her
at 16 after winning an amateur night contest at the Apollo The- suffering and transform it into art. “It’s not nice to think that
ater in Harlem, she first won fame in the late 1930s, performing each time she goes into the lights she’s crying her heart out,” the
novelty tunes and romantic ballads with the hard-swinging Chick singer Bobby Short said after her death. “It’s nice to remember
Webb Orchestra. During the 1940s, she established herself as a that she had a good time when she was singing.”

JAZZ: AN AMERICAN STORY 19