This Week in Texas Music History, a saxophone player from North Texas joins up with jazz royalty.
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On March 19, 1939, Count Basie & His Orchestra entered a Chicago recording studio and cut one of their most noted sessions. Making his recording debut on the date was Sherman-born tenor saxophonist Buddy Tate, whose solo on “Rock-A-Bye Basie” signaled the arrival of a towering new Texas tenor in the Basie band.
“Rock-A-Bye Basie” features a loose theme built around what Stanley Dance describes as “light, dancing riffs in a manner few other bands could ever approach.” Tate’s solo showcases both his full-bodied tone and a delicate sense of phrasing. Also on hand for the 1939 session that produced “Rock-A-Bye Basie” was arranger and trombonist Eddie Durham from San Marcos, who arranged “Baby, Don’t Tell on Me” featuring vocalist Jimmy Rushing, and trombonist Dan Minor from Dallas. Durham’s association with Basie is of note, as he had been one of the earliest artists to record on electric guitar and influenced fellow Texan Charlie Christian and, further, arranged signature tunes for both Basie (with “One O’Clock Jump”) and Glenn Miller (with “In the Mood”).
Count Basie’s band was no stranger to Texan musicians, in other words, particularly in the tenor sax chair. Basie also favored enlisting a duo of tenor soloists, and the first of these included Lester Young and Denton-born Herschel Evans. Following Evans’s untimely passing, Buddy Tate took over the tenor partnership with Young. Other Texan tenors who worked with Basie include Houston’s Illinois Jacquet and Dallas’s Budd Johnson.
Buddy Tate’s post-Basie career featured recordings with trumpeter Buck Clayton in the 1950s; 1959’s Very Saxy lp, featuring Tate in a quartet of tenor soloists that included Houston’s Arnett Cobb; and a string of albums on the Prestige-Swingville label in the early 1960s, including the Buck and Buddy LP, featuring Austin native Gene Ramey on bass.
Sources:
Stanley Dance. Liner notes for The Essential Count Basie, Volume 1, Columbia Records, vinyl LP.
David Oliphant. Texan Jazz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Ruth K. Sullivan in Laurie E. Jasinski, Gary Hartman, Casey Monahan, and Ann T. Smith, eds. The Handbook of Texas Music. Second Edition. Denton, TX: Texas State Historical Association, 2012.
