Austin Lindy Hop
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Austin Lindy Hop
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Milt Jackson + Count Basie (Pablo)
On this album, recorded in 1978 and released in 1979, Milt Jackson joins the Basie Big Band on vibes. Now, vibes are a tricky instrument from Lindy Hoppers' perspective. Lionel Hampton played them in his own Big Band and with Benny Goodman during the Swing Era and beyond. He also authored and popularized the Swing Era standard, "Flying Home." However, most "swing" songs with vibes are utterly undanceable. The vibes as an instrument tend to encourage jazz musicians to wander up and down scales aimlessly and arhythmically, which is a shame because they sound so sweet as an instrument. Lionel Hampton (among others) often played the vibes as a rhythmic instrument, but the vast majority of vibes recordings are undanceable and even a bit lame.
The Allmusic guide and other music-rating guides do not rate this album too highly because it merely provides alternative versions of many Basie standards, of which--from a musician's standpoint--better, more original versions exist. However, from a dancer's perspective--which focuses more upon the rhythm and how the musicians feed off that rhythm--it rarely gets any better than this, especially due to the phenomenal recording production quality. It also is refreshing to hear this version of "Corner Pocket," where Milt's vibes surprisingly pop up in place of the ubiquitous trumpet solo that, in the original version, was so great that it became just about as integral part of "Corner Pocket" as the melody.
Two different cover designs exist for this album, as depicted above. |
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As stated in Count Basie's biography on this website, "for Lindy Hop music,
The prejudgment problem only gets worse when Milt Jackson gets into the
mix. Although a well-respected musician in his own right, Milt Jackson was
not known for his ability to Swing. However, perhaps because he is plugged
into the Basie Big Band, his vibe playing on this album accomplishes the ideal
of playing the vibes as a rhythmic instrument.