[Trombone-l] Count Basie Orchestra - Zurich 1959

[Bill Dinwiddie]

Rich,

I stand corrected. The following profile of Al Grey says that "The Deacon " 
was written for him, not for Benny Powell.
Thanks for the help on this one.

Reference:    http://www.trombone.org/articles/library/algrey-prof.asp

Bill Dinwiddie

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Grey soon left Hampton and took his distinctive trombone sound into the New 
York studios. Then, from 1956 to 1957, he worked in Dizzy Gillespie's big 
band. Bookings were scarce, transportation costs were high, and Gillespie's 
men had more than their share of nights off. During one of these idle 
periods, on a late October night in 1957, Grey, who was in living 
Philadelphia, got the break of a lifetime.

"Count Basie came to Philadelphia, to the Pep's Show Bar, and I went to see 
the band. That night Tom McIntosh was sick, so they only had two trombone 
players, and the guys pointed at me and said, `Hey, Basie, there's Al Grey 
down there, tell him to come play.' Basie looked down and he saw me and he 
just did like that," Grey explains, making the universal trombone slide 
motion with his right arm, "meaning, `Get your trombone.' This was in South 
Philadelphia. I went all the way to North Philadelphia, man, and got my horn 
and came back."

"When I finished that night, Basie said, `You have a passport?' and I said, 
`No.' He said, `We're going to Europe in four days and you could have the 
job if you want it.' I went to Washington, D.C., and they got me a passport 
into New York two days later. The next day we went into the recording 
studio. So I went to Europe--played a royal command performance in England 
right off." And poor Tom McIntosh, who had just joined the band a short time 
earlier, was out of a gig. (McIntosh later built a successful career as an 
arranger-composer for the Hollywood studios.)

But, Grey learned, it's not easy being the newcomer in an established band, 
especially when you're an experienced and self-confident improvisor. When he 
joined Basie, all the trombone solos belonged to the two incumbents, Henry 
Coker and Benny Powell. Naturally, Grey felt frustrated.

"With Dizzy," he observes, "I had been playing a lot of solos. You really 
stretch out in Diz' band. But here, I'm just joining the band and there's no 
charts for me. After three weeks where you have no opportunity to at least 
play eight bars, you can climb the walls--and I did! Eventually they knew 
that I should play something, 'til one night [trumpeter] Joe Newman said 
`Hey, man, just play my solo for the eight bars in Jumpin' at the Woodside.' 
And I must have played a thousand notes right in those eight bars! 
Aah-haa-haa-haa."

"It came to a climax and I asked Basie, `Why did you bring me over here and 
I don't get a chance? And he said, `Wait one minute, you just got here. When 
we get back to the United States we'll have charts written up for you.'"

True to his word, Basie soon began featuring Grey--sometimes open, sometimes 
with the plunger--on now-classic numbers like Half Moon Street and Segue in 
C by Frank Wess, Thad Jones'H.R.H. ("that's the highest I ever played in my 
life!" Grey muses) and The Deacon, Neal Hefti's A Little Tempo Please, and I 
Needs to Be Bee'd With by Quincy Jones. "I eventually ended up with so many 
solos," he claims, "until I had to divide them up, 'cause the other guys 
began to feel the same way. Ah-haa-haa-haa." You mean, the Boss Man was 
giving away his solos? (Sometimes its better not to ask that follow-up 
question.)

Basie, Grey recalls with gratitude, helped him refine his plunger style, 
particularly in he way he accompanied the band's singer, Joe Williams. 
"Count Basie would say, `Simplicity. Make it like a human voice and don't 
get in Joe Williams' way. Whatever you can do in between there, fine. Paint 
a picture.' So then I became imaginative about playing."

"Count Basie told me when I first moved over from Dizzy's band, he said, 
`Don't try to play all you know in one night,' meaning, `You're playing too 
much. Try to play for the layman that's out there, for the people that came 
to see you. Don't play everything for yourself.'"

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "zemry1" <zemry1 at bellsouth.net>
To: "Bill Dinwiddie" <billdin at comcast.net>; "List Trombone" 
<TROMBONE-L at server5.samford.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 6:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] Count Basie Orchestra - Zurich 1959


> It says Benny Powell but I really think that it is Al Grey. He looks like 
> a young Al Grey and definitely souds like him.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bill Dinwiddie" <billdin at comcast.net>
> To: "List Trombone" <TROMBONE-L at server5.samford.edu>
> Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 10:57 PM
> Subject: [Trombone-l] Count Basie Orchestra - Zurich 1959
>
>
>> Really nice Benny Powell plunger solo. Great Band and Basie always
>> fascinates.
>>
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBr9FiyKjdY
>>
>> Bill Dinwiddie
>> billdin at comcast.net
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>