This story invites viewers to see the many faces of this “dark lady of the sonnets”, as one poet called her, and to appreciate her undying art more deeply. While she was a victim of hard times and drug addiction, the single fact of her life that matters above all others is that she was a great artist who, with Louis Armstrong, invented modern jazz singing.
A leading musician of the Swing era and an outstanding representative of the Big Band style, Count Basie was an eminent bandleader and jazz pianist. He led one of the most enduring swing bands of all time; no other musician was ever more committed to stomping, shouting, swinging, jumping, and dragging away the Blues than Count Basie.