I listened to Count Bassie: I also listened to the Beastie Boys and my daughter asked who they were. After I told her, she started asking all weekend for more Beastie Boys. I cooked dinner tonight while listening to Sufjan Stevens Michigan album:
Basie! Bit of a coincidence: I was hanging out at Threadgill's the other day and they played this track: Which prompted a couple-day journey into the more obscure parts of his discography. What a musician, eh? "Basie was not a composer, he was a bandleader and his instrument was the band in the same way that the classical orchestra was French Romantic composer Hector Berlioz's instrument."
Did you see NPR's little article on how to introduce your children to music the other day? Thought of you while I was reading it. Now I can't find it, of course. They were basically saying do it while you still can, because pretty soon your son or daughter is gonna come home from a birthday party obsessed with Miley Cyrus and then it'll be too late.