The essence of Kansas City wafts from the tracks of this album. How could it not, with Count Basie and Joe Turner in charge? The essence, of course, is the blues, and every man in the band is a master of that most basic and most demanding of forms. Their résumés cover every jazz environ from the 12th Street clubs where Southwest swing matured to the Harlem hothouses that germinated bebop. The common language of the blues, and Basie's catalytic keyboard, bind them tightly together in support of Big Joe Turner, a shouter, a smooth talker, a testifier to the power, tenderness, despair, and joy of the blues and of life, which are the same.

The Honeydripper, Honey Hush, Cherry Red, Night Time Is the Right, Time, Blues Around the Clock, Since I Fell for You; Flip, Flop and Fly; Wee Baby Blues, Good Mornin' Blues, Roll 'Em Pete

with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Zoot Sims, Harry "Sweets" Edison, J.J. Johnson, Ray Brown, Irving Ashby, Louis Bellson