“Jumpin’ at the Woodside” (1938) Count Basie and Lester Young

“Jumpin’ at the Woodside”

Composed by Count Basie; “Head” arrangement worked out by members of the Basie band.

Recorded by Count Basie and His Orchestra for Decca on August 22, 1938 in New York.

William J. “Count” Basie, piano, directing: Ed Lewis, first trumpet; Wilbur “Buck” Clayton and Harry “Sweets” Edison, trumpets; Benny Morton, Dan Minor and Dickie Wells, trombones; Earle Warren first alto saxophone; Ronald “Jack” Washington, alto saxophone; Herschel Evans and Lester Young, tenor saxophones; Freddie Green, guitar; Walter Page, bass; Jonathan “Jo” Jones, drums.

The story: Count Basie and His Orchestra opened at the Famous Door, a small jazz club located at ???? West 52nd Street in Manhattan on July 11, 1938. This would become a momentous engagement for Basie. Before it, he and his band were known to cognoscenti in the world of swing, after it they were on their way to becoming known to a much wider public, largely as a result of the many live CBS radio network broadcasts that were heard across the US that emanated from that location. What was initially to be a six weeks long engagement eventually stretched to three and a half months. The Basie band closed at the Famous Door on approximately November 10, 1938.

While the Basie band was at the Famous Door, especially during the summer months, many musicians visited the club to see and hear what was going on. Basically, musicians were very curious about how the Basie band was advancing the are to swing, or I should say swinging. Some, like the young trumpeter Harry James, and the slightly less young trumpeter Roy Eldridge were asked to sit-in. The presentations of the Basie Band at the Famous Door were informal. It is not known if trumpet giant Bunny Berigan visited the Basie band at the Famous Door. But he was very well aware of what was going on there. The following story was told to me by the legendary Buddy Rich, who was the drummer in the Berigan band in the summer of 1938. Here is the background:

I had a chance encounter personal experience involving Buddy Rich that occurred in the late 1970s while I was in New York attending various events of what was then called the Newport–New York Jazz Festival. A friend and I had traveled from Ohio to New York to spend a week listening to as much music as possible. We both had enormous respect for Buddy Rich, who at that time had been leading his own big band with considerable success for over a decade. We had bought tickets to see Buddy and his band, who that night were on the bill with a few other jazz stars at Carnegie Hall for a concert that was to start at 8:00 p.m. I am habitually early for everything, so my friend and I found ourselves outside of Carnegie Hall at about 7:15. Since it was too early to enter, we decided to walk around near Carnegie Hall until about 7:45, then go in.

As we began to stroll south on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk next to Carne­gie Hall, we encountered Buddy Rich walking toward us, smoking something. I knew that Mr. Rich could be nasty, but I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to at­tempt to speak with the great Buddy Rich. As we met on the sidewalk I said, “Excuse me, Mr. Rich, I want to tell you that I have always enjoyed your play­ing.” He glared at me and exhaled smoke through his nostrils like a bull in a bull ring. “Yeaaaaah,” he said. Sensing that I was getting nowhere fast, I decided to try an abrupt change of direction. Knowing that Rich dearly loved Count Basie, I then asked him: “When did you first hear Count Basie?” The expression on his face suddenly changed to a toothy smile. “How did you know about me and Ba­sie?” he asked. I mumbled something stupid, and he cut me off: “I was with Bunny Berigan. We were in New York for a few days, and Bunny had a rehear­sal and wasn’t too happy with the way we were playing. So he stopped the re­hearsal and said, ‘You guys need to go see Count Basie’s band. He’s playing over on Fifty-second Street at the Famous Door. That will do you more good than rehearsing!’ So I went with Georgie Auld, Joe Dixon, Ray Conniff, and Joey Bushkin. We were all overwhelmed by the way the Basie band played. They swung so hard; it was so light, but powerful. Everyone was blown away by Lester Young. Everyone but Georgie, that is. He dug Herschel Evans.”

Rich then took another puff, and said, “Hey, I gotta go in and do the show.” He then turned and walked south on the Seventh Avenue sidewalk to the rear of Carne­gie Hall and disappeared into the stage door. We entered Carnegie Hall, and watched Buddy play the devil out of his drums that night. (Note: Soon after the incident described by Buddy Rich, an arrangement of “One O’Clock Jump,” probably written by Ray Conniff, entered the Berigan band’s repertoire. Other Basie-inspired changes in the music of the Berigan band also started to take place at this time.)