The world-famous jazz pianist and bandleader Count Basie helped redefine music several times over and set the preconditions for jazz innovations, rock and roll, and popular American music, and today, a whole new host of colorful talents have mixed with Basie’s legendary sound and influence as part of a brand new album called Late Night Basie.

More than five decades ago, the legendary Count Basie covered Sonny Rollins’s now-classic “St. Thomas,” melding his iconic piano playing and big band stylings with its Caribbean-inflected feel to great effect. The blending of sounds and cultures moved people’s bodies and minds in a way that still ripples into the current day.

Count Basie’s name alone conjures images of late nights, swaying to sounds that are ever cool, hip, and fresh. The world-famous jazz pianist and band leader helped redefine music several times over and set the preconditions for jazz innovations, rock and roll, and popular American music. On April 7th, a whole new host of colorful talents will mix with Basie’s legendary sound and influence as part of a brand new album called Late Night Basie.

Tangerine Records has announced the re-release of the transformative mashup album Ray Sings, Basie Swings, for September 23rd, 2022. Originally released in 2006, the uniquely inspired album mixes previously unreleased Ray Charles vocal performances from the seventies with newly recorded instrumental tracks by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra, and will be available on all streaming services for the first time in over a decade, as well as on CD and in a double-vinyl package.

The great Count Basie said, “If you play a tune and a person don’t tap their feet, don’t play the tune.” He could have easily been referring to Dave Bass and David Basse. Each artist’s music causes countless toes to tap, and now, performing together, they present a night of the Count’s music, their own tunes ... and beyond.

By the early 1960s, Frank Sinatra and Count Basie had already cemented their respective reputations as two of the most versatile and enduring entertainers of the 20th century. When these two titans united in the studio for recordings on Reprise — Sinatra’s own label, which he’d launched at the start of the decade — the results were historic.