kspm0220s

By special request, I upload this great Moten performance. Bennie Moten (1894-1935) was a noted American jazz pianist and band leader born in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1922 he formed the B. B. & D. Trio (Beenie, Bailey and Dude. Subsequently, he led the Kansas City Orchestra, the most important of the itinerant, blues-based orchestras active in the Midwest in the 1920s, and helped to develop the riffing style that would come to define many of the 1930s big bands. They next recorded in 1926 for Victor Records in New Jersey, and were influenced by the more sophisticate style of Fletcher Henderson. By 1928 Moten's piano was showing some boogie woogie influences, but the real revolution came in 1929 when he recruited Count Basie, Walter Page and Oran 'Hot Lips' Page. Walter Page's walking bass lines gave the music an entirely new feel compared to the 2/4 tuba of his predecessor Vernon Page, coloured by Basie's understated, syncopated piano fills. When Moten died in 1935 from an erroneously performed tonsillectomy, Basie took over the band. This brilliant interpretation, however, was recorded in 1932.

bennieswing