Freddie Green

Eddie Jones held the bottom of the band on Count Basie At Newport (1957) and on Basie (1955). He left Count Basie's orchestra in the early 1960s and spent the years that followed employed at IBM, playing only occasionally — the anchor of that rhythm section changed day jobs.

Body Talk

George Benson · 1973

Mobius

Cedar Walton · 1975

Count Basie And His Band That Swings The Blues

Count Basie · 1956

Count Basie At Newport

Count Basie · 1957

Frank Foster joined Count Basie's saxophone section in 1953, and he also wrote for the band; his 1955 chart "Shiny Stockings" stayed in the book for decades. The tenor player sitting in the section on April In Paris (1957) and Count Basie At Newport (1957) ended up leading the orchestra himself in 1986, two years after Basie died.

Frank Wess joined Count Basie's saxophone section in 1953 as a tenor player, but the thing he actually changed was the flute — an instrument big bands had written off as too quiet to carry. From inside the reed section on Basie (1955), and under his own name on Flutes & Reeds the same year, he made it a standard big-band voice and became a fixture in the DownBeat flute poll.

Count Basie is known as the face of his own big band, but on the 1956 session 'Port of Rico,' he turns up simply as the piano player inside someone else's orchestra. For one date, the bandleader becomes the sideman.