Presents the life and times of the great jazz musician and band leader as told by the man himself, from his early days playing pickup at local social events, through his arrival--and eventual triumph--in New York
William James “Count” Basie (1904-84) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer.
Albert Murray (1916-2013), author of thirteen books including Stomping the Blues, was a renowned jazz historian, novelist, and social and cultural theorist. He cofounded Jazz at Lincoln Center in 1987.
Dan Morgenstern is a jazz critic and Director Emeritus of the Institute for Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. He is the author of Jazz People (1976); and Living with Jazz (2004), a reader edited by Sheldon Meyer, both winners of ASCAP’s Deems Taylor Award. In 2007, he received the A.B. Spellman Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy from the National Endowment for the Arts.