Count Basie Swings & Joe Williams Sings (2 LPs On 1 CD)

Although the musical art of the early-50s Count Basie band had been widely appreciated by jazz fans and musicians even before Joe Williams joined on the Christmas Day, 1954, his arrival as the band's vocalist put the final seal on public approval. It was a marriage made in heaven. From the first day, he won over both jazz fans and r&b audiences with his laconic, deadpan delivery and earthy, beat-rich blues declamatory style. What Joe Williams Down Beat's New Star of the Year brought to the Basie band was a link to the people, a vocal bridge over which they could join themselves to the band. What Basie got in Williams was not the best blues singer of the age, nor the best ballad singer of the year, but a man who was adapted to the peculiarly complex Basie sound. It took that firmness, that strength of Williams and his qualities as a preacher, to give the band the extra excitement needed to complete the package. The blues were wailing and swinging and shouting night after night, and the riffs and figures echoed wordless phrases in response to the singer's full-bodied vocal belting. Williams backed by the Basie band was a magical combination.