The World of Count Basie

Dance's "World of" books are incredibly essential to understanding the SWing Era, particularly this one and the "The World of Swing." What these are are rather educated, open interviews with major musicians in or around the Basie Band which center on THE MUSIC and the way it was played, rather than incidental personal anecdotes, tell all scandals or anything else. In particluar, Dance's interview done from the mid 1950s until the late 1960s catch these musicians at a point where the change from Swing to Bop to "Modern Jazz," changes in recording practices and other changes in the period between the twenties and thirties when some began until the time of the interviews. My favorite interviews here are with Lester Young and with Jimmie Rushing. Lester's rap here is reprinted in many other Lester collections, but Jimmie and Basie's which talk a bit of the 20s and Moten and also about their own professionalism have not. I have not read this book entirely for about 18 years, but its pages remain vivid today and it is a necessity in my musical library as is his World of Swing.