A few years after its birth in New Orleans, jazz spread out to other cities for an incubation period. One of the hottest incubators was Kansas City, home of Count Basie. Basie's big band played an infectious, jumpy brand of jazz just right for pulling dancers onto the floor. The rhythm was the thing in the Basie band, but many great soloists (including Lester Young, Buck Clayton, Jo Jones, Freddie Green, Jimmy Rushing and Basie himself) had great opportunities to shine in this light.

Decca's The Best of Early Basie is a nice sampling of the band's '30s material, but the 3-CD Complete Decca Recordings is chock full of little three-minute slices of heaven. The '40s were lean years for Basie (and most big band leaders for that matter), but he bounced back in the '50's with a series of albums on Verve, the best being April in Paris; several good compilations also are available. Another indispensable disc from this era is The Complete Atomic Basie on Roulette. (Karl Pallmeyer)