Jazz icon Count Basie was born William james Basie August 21 1904 in red bank New Jersey. Count Basie is considered one of the greatest bandleaders. He married katherine Morgan in 1942. he made famous by Quincy Jons. In 1942 he moved to Harlem both of Basie’s parents were hard workers. His Father was a coachman and a groundskeeper. His mother was a laundriss. His mother paid 25 cents per piano lesson. Around 1924 Basie moved to Harlem, a hotbed for jazz, where his career started to quickly take off. Shortly after he got there, he got a gig replacing Fats Waller with a touring vaudeville act. When he came back to Harlem, Fats Waller showed him how to play the organ, and Willie “the Lion” Smith took him under his wing.
He went out on tour with on the vaudeville and TOBA circuits again until his performance group disbanded in the mid-1920s, leaving him stuck in Kansas City. It was here that he was introduced to the big-band sound when he joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils in 1928. Basie now called Kansas City home.
