HT0605 - Lessons from Count Basie

Count Basie could play a frenetic rag time as well as anyone. But the passages from his music that are most interesting to me are the ones in which the horns and band suddenly become silent while the bass and rhythm lay a background against which Count Basie plays a note here, another note there, perhaps a chord, and presents us with an experience that is perfectly in sync with the rhythm but not overpowering in his keyboards. It's an applied contrast that I think we could use in photography.