The Atomic Mr. Basie

Pre Listen:
Based on the album cover, the mention of Orchestra, and the release date, I think I know what this album will be all about. Fallout music time.

Notable Tracks:
Whirly Bird - I really appreciate the brass and drums on this one. They're doing a bangin job. My favorite on the album.
Li'l Darlin' - Another highlight. The best of the slow songs, it's so nostalgic. I think it's the soft guitar playing that does it for me.

Post Listen:
Oh yeah, that was some fallout music. This was a nice change of pace from the various genres of Rock that makes up most of this project.

A long time ago this album would've been a perfect 5 for me. Jazz and its various genres made up the foundation of my musical tastes growing up. I hadn't yet narrowed down what parts of Jazz I really loved, so I just listened to it all. Since then though I think my tastes have gotten a bit more filtered.

I appreciate this album a lot, and it's all very well made. I think the majority of the songs were a bit too low-tempo and smooth to be amazing. Slow swing isn't bad by any means, it just isn't 5/5 worthy.

4/5

Fun, nostalgic. What's not to love.

Nice. 3.5 :)

The formula on the cover says it plainly: E = MC² = Count Basie Orchestra + Neal Hefti Arrangements. What it doesn't say is that the result is something self-evidently beautiful that somehow still gets dismissed as elevator music by people who aren't listening closely enough, and that this is genuinely sad.
Neal Hefti wrote and arranged every track, and his charts are models of what big band writing can be at its highest — tight, swinging, built from riffs that develop rather than solos that show off. The orchestra is the instrument. Individual virtuosity is beside the point. What matters is the whole, and the whole is immaculate.
Basie himself is the lesson in restraint that every musician should hear. His piano comps and punctuates and gets out of the way, saying ten words where another pianist would say a hundred. The space he leaves is as musical as anything he plays — a reminder that knowing what not to do is the hardest and most valuable skill in any ensemble context. It is both of its time and completely beyond it, which is the definition of a record that earns its place in any era.
What this music does, more than almost anything else in the project, is make you want to find people to make a similar sound with. That instinct — ensemble-first, groove-forward, every player serving something larger than themselves — is the through line connecting everything worth reaching for musically. Basie's orchestra isn't just a great band. It's an argument for why playing together matters.
Some people hear elevator music. They are wrong, and it is a shame.
A five without hesitation.

Smoooooth jazz. I could fall asleep to this. Not bad, not exciting at all though.

Liker swing, og her har man jo på en måte hele kvelden. Fra eksplosiv dans i starten og avslutte med klinedans.

Men det føles ikke ut som dette er et album man egentlig skal sitte stille og lytte til. Det er bruksmusikk for dans og klining

essa capa eh mto foda parabens aos envolvidos. dito isso, é pedradaça. geral ARREGAÇANDO o instrumento, bão demais. dá pra ouvir em um milhão de situações diferentes e ainda assim ficar com vontade de dançar e encher o rabo de cachaça. muito bão!!

she whirl on my bird til i splanky

fun. music i dont mind hearing at a random restaurant. 3.5

starinska zabavna glazba, malo kao da igram bajošok (2 > 1 > infinite)

Great musicianship but I can’t imagine listening to it again

The first thing I noticed even before starting to listen to this album were the fun song titles. This album was pure joy plus some relaxation thrown in for good measure. Atomic indeed!

The ball, the boot, the bell and the bowtie. Every single Chicken McNugget will come in one of these shapes. Yes, there can be slight variations and imperfections, but it’s always predictable and recognizable as a ball, a boot, a bell or a bowtie because it’s made with a preformed shape die, like a cookie cutter but for chicken.
Now, this Count Basie album predates the McNugget by about 20 years but the music follows the same recipe - predictable, cookie cutter jazz. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just boring with the same old shapes showing up all the time. It’s a display of great musicianship, but on forgettable tunes from a genre as dead as the chickens at the McFactory Farm.
Like a McNugget, it leaves you wishing you had made a better decision.

fun! enjoy a good jazz album

Fun and wholesome. Music my grandparents may have fooled around to. Me gusta.

I wonder if the album cover was controversial at the time.

I had to listen and relisten to this for days. It's good, really good, but I find it pretty safe. Jazz coloring inside the lines. Still though, I enjoy it. 3.8/5 -> 4/5

Ken Oath. One of the great sleeves.

Nice as background music

*Incredible big band sound in Basie's late stages
*I still prefer quartet, quintet, etc. jazz from the 50s on over this

Great big band work. I love that the album gave a variety of high tempo, crazy energy charts, while slow, emotional, and beautiful ballads were chronologically paced along the record wonderfully.