Count Basie
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Lee Bernard captured this classic view of bandleader-pianist
Count Basie as he performed at a 1980 concert at
Huntington’s Veterans Memorial Fieldhouse.
File Photo | The Herald-Dispatch
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One of jazz music’s
all-time greats, bandleader-pianist Count Basie
was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized
mid-20th Century popular music. In 1958, he became the
first African-American man to receive a Grammy.
Clippings in The
Herald-Dispatch archives reveal Basie
and his Orchestra performed in Huntington at least
four times over his long career.
In December of 1938, a
small newspaper advertisement promoted a
concert by Basie and his Orchestra at Vanity Fair. Built in 1915,
Vanity Fair was for many years the only arena in town.
Decades later, the former arena at 627 4th Ave.
became the first studio for television’s Channel
13. Today it houses Harmony House,
a public housing facility.
The 1938 ad said tickets
for the Basie concert were
priced at $1. It noted that “the Entire Balcony
(was) reserved for White Spectators.”
The balcony tickets were
65 cents, plus tax.
A year later, in December
1939, Basie was back
at Vanity Fair. Again the balcony was “reserved
for White Spectators.” The pianist and his
band, the ad said, would play
from 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Decades later, on Dec. 4,
1967, Basie and his Orchestra
performed at the Keith-Albee Theater as an “extra
attraction” added to that year’s lineup
of Marshall Artists Series events.
On April 30, 1980, Basie
made a final visit to Huntington.
This time he and his band played at Veterans Memorial
Field House. In a rave review of the concert, Bill
Belanger, the H-D’s retired fine arts editor,
wrote that “The Grand Old Man of the
Big Bands of the 1930s has lost
none of his youthful musical
punch and vigor.”
Basie was scheduled to
appear here yet again, at a 1984
Keith-Albee concert planned as part of that year’s
Marshall University Jazz Festival. But he was
hospitalized just prior to the scheduled
concert. The 79-year-old jazz
great died April 26, 1984.
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Note: This Article and picture appeared in the Herald-Dispatch Newspaper on Nov. 27, 2024.
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