Count Basie was and remains one of the true musical legends, whose importance by large passes the ‘confines’ of a single musical genre that is jazz.
If there is any necessity to present confirmation of this fact, you can only take two we have right at hand – one is this album itself which includes artists usually working not only within jazz but also other genres, like Talib Kweli, Larkin Poe, The Soul Rebels, Nicholas Payton and Count Basie Orchestra itself, among others. The other is that since its release in mid-April, this album has had over 500k streams online.
And yes, the quality of the music and the visions differing artists have of Count Basie’s music on the seven tracks here is that good. Of course, as the title of the album itself indicates the focus here is on the that late (or not so late) night vibe that often dominated Count Basie’s music.
Throughout the album, you could hear and sense not only the admiration, but also the love for Basie’s music all the involved artists have, and all of them were actually able to transform the two into some excellent music that serves as a rightful tribute to such a legend.
