Just looking at the bit about Frank Foster over on John Simons' Facebook pages reminded me of growing up in the 60s surrounded by Ellington and Basie, Armstrong, Sinatra, Henry Mancini, Rodgers and Hart, Ella, Tony Bennett and so many others. Father into jazz, mother into the crooners. I thought - and still think - Parker was very hip; but I'd swung from punk to Cole Porter (via Kid Creole, James White and the Blacks and Funkapolitan) by the time I ended my teens; and he and Harburg, Gershwin, Berlin etc. are all there on my CD rack, together with Trane, Chet, Horace, Brooks, Evans and all the rest.
Guys like these were something bigger than Ivy.
Definitely the best... you can't forget Duke Ellington and Count Basie... basics!
Aye - but what basics, eh? Billy Strayhorn...
Like Basie with Jimmy Rushing. Never particularly liked Ellington.
I've got some of the Rushing stuff somewhere.
Ellington put the exotic and urbane into swing.
He is the true godfather of 'Kind of Blue', only you need the right ears to pick up on it.