Eddie Jones (b), Frank Wess (ts), Sonny Payne (d)      Sonny Payne takes a solo, the band takes a break

Eddie Jones (b), Frank Wess (ts), Sonny Payne (dr), Bill Graham (as), Freddie Green (g), Joe Wiliams (voc)              Thad Jones (tp)

Rear: Sonny Payne, Freddie Green, Joe Newman
Front row: Bill Graham, Marshall Royal, Henry Coker
Standing: Frank Wess (ts),   Frank Foster (ts)

Count Basie swings,                              Joe Williams sings

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One of those occasions

I was there. So was Rolf. Obviously. At that time we had never met before. In fact we didn’t meet until twelve years later.
This was my first real Jazz Concert. I was sixteen.
Count was coming to town. All of my jazz-conscious life, which equalled to at least for the last ten years, I had been admiring the Count as the God of Jazz. I tried to interest my friends to accompany me to the concert. No one showed any interest in this cultural event. I tried to interest one or two good-looking girls I knew. I thought maybe girls would have a higher interest in culture. Complete misjudgement. Obviously I didn’t know much about girls at that time. Maybe still not. Exactly what girls in the fifteenths were interested in those years I don’t know. But definitely it wasn’t jazz. No luck whatsoever.
So I took my moped downtown. Parked it behind Gothenburg Concert House. Got myself one of the last midsection tickets for one of the concerts.
 

And THEN the music started. Never had I heard such loud music before. Would have thought there must be some initial preludes or something. But it just started. Freddie Green footpathing. Sonny Payne and The Count. Jumpin’ at the Woodside. I felt the rhythm in my body. The floor was vibrating. The air was music all the way. I just felt the pressure of the Basie Band all through myself.
The audience was footstamping, applauding, standing in ovation. It was all there, irresistible.
And there he was, Joe Williams. I had never heard about that guy before. But, the tall guy: just standing there upfront, singing, swinging, driving the  blues.
And the solo of Sonny Payne. Equilibristic must be a word invented for this.
Marshall Royal, standing there like a field marshal. In command of the band.
Some impertinent guy down the 4:th row was taking pictures. It must have been Rolf. I didn’t care. But now it’s nice to see the pictures to remember by.
I rode my moped straight back home. No fooling around. I was fully convinced that I had witnessed the Jazz Concert of the Millennium.
The day after, a sour critic’s review in the newspaper said it had been "a so and so concert".
That was the day I learnt to trust my own musical judgement. Listen and judge for yourself. Sometimes people don’t realize when history is made. It was one of those occasions.

ChrisBee

Recordings from this marvellous concert were released, many years later, under the totally misleading name "Basie in London" by Verve Records. Incomplete.