Vinyl Vault: Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, “The Gifted Ones”

Swing meets bebop on the next Vinyl Vault when we listen to an album entitled “The Gifted Ones,” by Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie. The master frontmen were joined by Ray Brown on bass and Mickey Roker on drums. The album is a 1977 release on Pablo Records.

Count Basie was a master of swing-jazz and Gillespie was one of the fathers of bebop. However, before bebop, Gillespie played swing, so the combination of these two jazz greats was not that much of a stretch. And, of course, both of those jazz genres rely heavily on the blues making for plenty of common ground.

Most of the tracks on the album were composed by the leaders, but they also covered the standard “St. James Infirmary” and they delivered a unique and tasty version of this one.

Join Geoff Anderson for some of the most elegant jazz around on the next Vinyl Vault, this Tuesday, March 4 at 8:30 p.m. on KUVO JAZZ.