SAID Count Basie: “So many jazzmen were being called King that I decided it was time I had a nickname”

We had just entered the Granada studio for a rehearsal of his hour-long Personal Appearance, which viewers will see on Wednesday.

The Basie group will be the first American big band to be starred in a British television show.

As the Count eased himself on to the piano stool, he told me his first name is really William.

He got it 58 years ago when he was born in Red Bank, New Jersey.

The Count rippled some fast single notes, stabbed the air with an index finger — and the entire 16 piece band swung into climactic sound.

The impact is as solid as the Rockies.

It has been that way for a quarter of a century. No matter how many musicians come and go within the orchestra — and many of the greatest names in jazz have worked under him at one time or another — the stirring Basie beat never wavers.

What kind of man is this thick-set maestro soon to be seen by ITV’s millions?

In a business which is often tough and always demanding, the Count moves around with a smiling affability and a built-in calm which few things, if any, seem able to disrupt.

Dave Lambert, the red-bearded leader of the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singing team — you’ll see them, too, in the Basie show — told me:

“The Count is marvellous to work with. Mind you. he’s the boss all right, but he never becomes excited. If anybody gets out of line he just jerks his head sideways … and glares. I guess that’s always enough!”

There’s a story among musicians who have known him for years. Once a saxophonist, tickled by a hurriedly whispered private joke, laughed out loud during a performance, instantly, the Count slammed out a weird chord on the piano — and the saxman shot bolt upright as if his chair had suddenly become red hot.

For his television show the Count brings in a new singer whom he recently discovered in an obscure New York club.

She is Irene Reid, from Savannah, Georgia, a vivacious 31-year-old and the mother of four sons and a daughter.

Irene, who started singing at high school, is enthusiastic about working with the Basie band.

“It’s all so wonderful I can hardly believe it,” she said. “Hearing that tremendous rhythm section behind is just about the biggest thrill of my life.”

The Count learned piano from his mother. When he grew up he went on tour with a vaudeville group, finally landing in Kansas City.

“I was just a kind of honky-tonk piano player with the show and we didn’t have any big names in the cast and we didn’t do much business,” he recalled.

“When, inevitably, the show folded, I knew I couldn’t do any good sitting around feeling sorry for myself and wishing I’d never left home, so I started making the rounds to see if there might be a spot in town for a piano player.”

He found one — playing accompaniments to silent films. “I played for everything and anything, from horse operas to passionate romance films — great experience.” he said.

Then he joined the almost legendary Benny Moten band. When Moten died in 1935 the Count formed his own group — and a radio broadcast from a small Kansas City station shot him to the stardom which has never left him down all the changing years.

Unlike some musicians, he doesn’t look down on all contemporary trends. The Twist, for instance.

“I like it,” declared the Count. “It’s good, swinging music for dancing — and basically, jazz is music for dancing. Yeah, you can tell everybody I’m for it.”

British bandleader Ray Ellington had dropped in to listen to the television rehearsal. Peering down like a friendly cliff, he said suddenly: “This is gilt-edged jazz.”

It was almost time for the show to go into another full rehearsal. Cameras were re-positioned, microphones regrouped. The subdued chatter of technicians and visiting musicians faded.

There was a tense hush. Then once again the rippled single-note introduction. A split second in which time seemed to hang suspended in the hot, still air.

Then the whole band was surging, like a vast, throbbing powerhouse, into One O’Clock Jump — the number most closely linked with Basie’s name.

I predict that in addition to the band, the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross singers will make a sensational impact on viewers. Perhaps the more appropriate word is unique!

The fetching Annie Ross who appeared several years back in the London West End revue, Cranks, has lived in America on and off for many years.

The Count, by the way, is happily married and has an 18-year-old daughter. She isn’t a musician.

I suggested that perhaps one in the family was enough.

The Count chuckled.

“Sometimes,” he said amiably, “sometimes it gets to be almost too much!”

The post Count down for Basie appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

ROUND the door of the dressing-room peered a face with toothbrush moustache and dark, slicked-down hair.

“I was about to have a nap, but welcome in,” said top trumpeter Eddie Calvert, who, with singer Marion Ryan, is among the stars of Personal Appearance on Wednesday.

“Sleep?” I said.

“You can sleep after,” said Marion, my companion and guide through the studios. “We won’t keep you long.”

“O.K. then,” said Eddie, who flopped into an easy chair and prepared to be interviewed.

“I started playing a musical instrument when I was seven,” he said. “I taught myself.

“No one even knew I was learning to play a musical instrument. I used to play my dad’s cornet when he was out. He caught me one night.”

Eddie grimaced at a painful memory.

“I never learned to play a musical instrument,” said Marion. “Couldn’t even tinkle on a piano. I never had any lessons — we were too poor.”

“My father bought me my first cornet,” continued Eddie. “It was either that or putting a padlock on his own. And when I was 11 I joined Preston Town Silver Band.”

“As a mascot?” asked Marion.

“Certainly not,” said Eddie. “Lots of lads of that age play in prize bands.”

Eddie told us how he got into the Forces. “My father decided that the Army was the only place for me to complete my musical education. I joined the Territorials when I was 12. I had to lie like a trooper to convince them I was 14,” he said.

“But my military career came to a sticky end. I found myself called up and given a job as a despatch rider. In the middle of the blackout in 1941 my bike went slap into the back of a three ton truck. I was in hospital for four and a half months. When I was in hospital I did some thinking. I decided I wanted to go into show business.”

Eddie worked with many top bands — Oscar Rabin, Billy Ternent, Geraldo — eventually became musical director of a leading London restaurant.

“I booked lots of top artists,” he said. “I turned down some too. I once turned down a young fellow named Dickie Valentine who was trying to get started in show business.” Eddie blossomed out as a solo artist about that time. His first big break came in 1953.

“Sheer coincidence, the whole thing,” he said. “I was driving home in my car, arguing with my wife about a new German tune sweeping the Continent.

“Norrie Paramor, who has his own orchestra, was driving home in his car, arguing with his wife about the same song.

“Both car radios were on — and during the course of the arguments the tune was played. It was too strong a coincidence to ignore. So we decided to record the tune. Remember it?”

We remembered.

It was called O Mein Papa and sold 5,000,000 records.

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PAUL ANKA, star of Granada’s Personal Appearance on Wednesday, is an agreeable youngster who seems remarkably composed by the fact that, at 20, he earns a million-and-a-half dollars a year.

Even more remarkable, he has reached this palmy income bracket in just four years. Only the tax man is likely to halt the flow of Anka dollars to any appreciable extent.

For Paul is something of a one-man band. He doesn’t have to pay a lyric writer, music writer, or even a song publisher. He does the lot himself.

Two American artists make their first appearance on British television with Paul in this hour of music and comedy — 16-year-old vocalist Linda Scott and comedian Johnny Carson.

Linda, who will sing Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off with Anka, soared to success a year ago with her first recording of the song I’ve Told Every Little Star, which sold 1,000,000 copies.

She won a Golden Disc. At 16, Paul did the same thing with his first recording, Diana.

Johnny Carson, who has had his own television show in America for the past four years, has been described by newspaper critics as “a logical successor to Bob Hope and Jack Benny.”

“In this programme,” said Irvin Feld, Paul’s personal manager, “you are going to see the new Paul Anka.

“When he was in Britain nearly four years ago. he sang his current hits which were aimed specifically at the teenagers. Songs like Diana.

“But since then, Paul has been undergoing a vast change. He has been bridging the gap between teenagers and an adult audience.

“The result is that he now appeals to audiences of all ages. We have even given him a facial change. We had a plastic surgery job done on his nose which makes him better looking than ever,” said Mr. Feld.

“His voice, too, has a fullness and a range it never had in the beginning. Even his song writing has changed. He is writing mature lyrics now.

“In Wednesday’s show he will include a 15-minute spot in which he will sing only established ballads and some of his own songs written in the same vein.

“It will be like telling the story of his life in song, a sort of potted biography.”

The story of his life is really his four-year-old career. Before Diana put him on the map, Paul was just another school kid who had dabbled at singing from the age of ten.

His family are Syrians, although Paul was born in Ottawa, where his career began to open up after a New York record company heard him singing on the radio.

He talks assuredly and frankly: “I’m not a brash kid,” he says. “You have to try and stay reasonably humble about success.

“I started out as a Rock ‘n’ Roll singer and, let’s face it, I owed my success to the teenagers. But I knew in my mind that I had to bridge the gap and get the adults to accept me, too.”

He drummed his fingers assertively on the table. “I don’t kid myself. I’m just out of the kindergarten stage. I’ve got a long way to go.

“But I figure it this way. The all-time greats, fellows like Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby … well, they have to retire some time. Younger people have got to take over.

“The freakish thing about this business is that you can make a lot of money. I’ve done just that, and it’s nice to have the money.

“But, honestly, the accomplishment of becoming a great entertainer means a whole lot more to me right now.”

In America. Paul has been described as a “sort of sophisticated Rock ’n’ Roller.”

“In a way,” says Paul, “that’s a compliment, I guess. It shows my development is being noticed. But really people say this about me because they don’t know yet how to describe me.

“It’s true I was the youngest among the kids like Fabian, Tommy Sands and Frankie Avalon to appear in night clubs in the States.

“This is why they call me sophisticated. Playing the plush night clubs in America is a measure of success. So in that sense I’m a pioneer.”

Paul summed up: “This is quite something, but it doesn’t scare me. At my age I suppose I should be scared by success. But I have never got into anything that I didn’t like.

“I love what I’m doing too much to be worried about it.”

The post Now for the new Paul Anka appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.

IN those wilderness days without television just after the war – that would be about the year 10 B.C. (Before Commercial TV) – I used to listen each week to The Alan Young Show, crackling happily over the short waves direct from New York or relayed by the American Forces Network in Germany.

A lot of other people in Britain did the same, including, as one afterwards realised on hearing their acts, some of our own comics!

Curiously, I can still recall odd fragments of dialogue from the show. One remembered sketch concerned a storm at sea. Ship’s captain’s orders concerning the mizzen mast could not be carried out.

Why not?

“It’s mizzen!” came a shout. Next a command: “Get the helm over will you,” and a swift reply: “Watch your language!” The second voice in that sketch, by the way, belonged to Bernard Braden who was then taking part in Alan Young’s programmes.

I recollect too, a fabulous character called Hubert Updyke who was “the richest man in the world.” So rich that he threw away his Cadillacs whenever the ashtrays were full!

The actor who played that part is now the voice of Mr. Magoo in the famous cartoon films.

With such memories, it was pleasant to find myself sharing a dish of kebab with British-born Alan Young, now, at the age of 36, one of America’s most popular comedians, in a Soho restaurant the other day.

On Monday he starts a 13-week series for Granada TV under the title Personal Appearance, which will be seen on all channels. He has written all his own sketches and will also introduce a glamorous guest singing star each week-among them Eve Boswell, Shirley Bassey, Petula Clark and Guylaine Guy from France.

Alan Young was born in North Shields. His family emigrated to Canada when he was five. At 13, he was already in show business, reciting monologues like “Albert and the Lion” while impersonating Stanley Holloway.

His father wanted Alan to be articled as a bookkeeper, and was opposed to his becoming an entertainer.

“He never told me that he had himself ran away from his home in Scotland to join a children’s show run by a man named Jefferson, who was the father of Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy fame,” Alan told me. “I only discovered that from an aunt in Surrey I met on my first brief visit home to England three years ago.”

Alan took a secretarial job at a Vancouver radio station. It was a step in the right direction. By the time he was 18, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation offered him his own show and father dropped his objections.

Soon a top favourite, he was invited to New York to replace Eddie Cantor for a three-week season.

An invitation to Hollywood soon followed. Then, in 1949, The Alan Young Show opened there on TV. It ran for three years and won three Academy awards – the television equivalent of the cinema world’s “Oscars.”

Young left the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1952 to freelance and has since appeared in such successful films as Androcles and the Lion with Jean Simmons and Victor Mature, Margie with Jeanne Crain, Mr. Belvedere Goes to College and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes with Jane Russell.

Youthful-looking and happily married with four children – his wife and two of the kids Cammy (7) and Wendy (4½) have come to Britain with him – Alan Young has a home with a swimming-pool in California’s San Fernando Valley.

He is modest and likeable; quiet-mannered for a comic. But that is in keeping with his style of humour, mostly the characterisation of a shy, slightly baffled type who is always being put upon by others, and to whom the most surprising things happen. But he can be put upon so much – and then suddenly… wham!

On his arrival in London, Alan lost no time in contacting Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly “I went to their wedding. Barbara was a shy little thing then” – conductor Robert Farnon, who used to play for The Alan Young Show in Canada, and film actor Guy Middleton – “a wonderful guy.” Middleton was one of the cast of Gentlemen Marry Brunettes.

What does Bernard Braden say of Alan Young? “He is not only a fine comedian and actor but also an outstanding writer of comedy. He was the first comedian in Canada to have any real effect upon the public despite his youthfulness. He is at his best as the little man who suddenly turns angry.”

How did Alan’s ITV assignment come about?

Eddie Pola, now Granada’s Director of Light Entertainment, was producer, both in New York and Hollywood, of Alan Young’s first radio show for several years and also produced some of his TV shows. He says: “Alan puts on a disciplined and not a helter-skelter show.”

Despite his pleasant looks, the really romantic roles are not for Alan Young. He explains: “In films I always seem to be the asthmatical lover. In Gentlemen Marry Brunettes I never got to kissing the heroine because I was supposed to have asthma. I always sneezed at the wrong moment.”

Alan’s hobbies include judo (he is a brown belt), “switching some of the jokes of that greatest of gag writers – William Shakespeare,” and reading Sir Winston Churchill, “who strings words together like a woman bakes a cake – with lovely ingredients.”

He is a soccer enthusiast and acts as “trainer, manager and lemon carrier” for the Los Angeles Scots.

While in Britain for his ITV series, he plans to visit the house where he was born in North Shields, to look up relatives on Tyneside and in Scotland and to play golf at Gleneagles.

I know you will like Alan Young.

The post Alan Young makes a ‘Personal Appearance’ appeared first on THIS IS GRANADA from Transdiffusion.