Count Basie & The Mills Brothers-"The Board Of Directors" (1968)

Pianist and big band director for fifty years, he is probably the musician most associated with swing music and the traditional jazz movement.
His parents were musicians, and he received lessons from them (especially his mother) and from other popular pianists like Fats Waller.
Basie, for a time, played accompaniments for silent movies. Later, in Kansas, he joined Walter Page's group called "Blue Devils."
Basie left the band in early 1928 to play with other orchestras, including the one led by Bennie Moten. After his death in 1935, Basie worked for a time as a soloist before forming his own orchestra with some of the musicians from the previous one, including the Lester Young sax.
Basie's band played a seedy joint called the Reno Club. Drinks were 15 cents, hamburgers 5 cents, and musicians made just $ 15 a week for seven nights of work. Like Billie Holliday, it was scout and promoter John Hammond who noticed them from a local station, and recommended them to various agents and record companies. His first recording was on Decca Records in January 1937. His recording of "One O'Clock Jump" became his first song on the charts in September 1937; later, after becoming his most popular song, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Basie's return to New York took place in 1938 at the Famous Door club, which was a huge success for the orchestra. In the winter of that year, "Stop Beatin 'Round the Mulberry Bush" sung by Rushing, entered the Top Ten of hits. In the early 1940s he toured the country extensively, lasting until he entered the United States in the Second World War in December 1941, after which his tours were reduced.
During his stay on the west coast he participated with his orchestra in five films, all made in 1943. He had numerous musical successes both in the field of pop and rhythm and blues: "I Didn't Know About You", "Red Bank Blues","Rusty Dusty Blues","Jimmy's Blues" and "Blue Skies".
At the end of the 1940s he disbanded his orchestra in a context of general decline for big bands and decided for a time on small groups. In 1952, however, he returned to form a big band with a view to touring abroad: in 1954, the same year that singer Joe Williams (who would be with him until 1960) would join him.
With Williams he published in 1955 one of his most renowned titles, Count Basie Swings - Joe Williams Sings, of which the song "Every Day (I Have the Blues)" would obtain a formidable success reaching the highest positions in the charts and entering the Grammy Hall of Fame. His instrumental version of "April in Paris" was also a great success in 1956. Between the late 1950s and early 1960s he won various awards and Grammy nominations. In 1962, Basie signed with Sinatra's new company, Reprise Records, and recorded with him Sinatra-Basie which entered the Top Five list in early 1963.
All of these popular hits kept Basie away from jazz throughout the 1960s; However, at the end of it he resumed the genre with different albums with singers such as Ella Fitzgerald (Ella and Basie !, 1963); again Sinatra (It Might as Well Be Swing, 1964); Sammy Davis, Jr. (Our Shining Hour, 1965); the Mills Brothers (The Board of Directors, 1968); and Jackie Wilson (Manufacturers of Soul, 1968). Of all these works stands out "Count Basie & The Mills Bothers / The Board of Directors" considered a cult work and a jewel of jazz and swing.