Count Basie's Hats

Cat, hat! In French: chat, chapeau!

On my radio show the other day I played a track from one of the 1970s albums of Oscar Peterson and Count Basie. You might expect that these albums compelled Peterson to edit and Basie to exert himself, but actually they seem content with their established styles and the contrast is wonderful. The first album was called Satch and Josh because Basie said that he felt like Satchel Page standing in the batter’s box facing Josh Gibson. I played a track from Satch and Josh Again and as I was looking at the album cover, I suddenly realized that the two men are laughing because… Peterson is wearing Basie’s hat!

If you close your eyes and picture a Count Basie LP, what kind of hat is he wearing? Probably a yachtsman’s cap like the one he sports in the documentary The Last of the Blue Devils: he enters the Kansas City Union Hall and somebody calls out: “Hey Count, where’d you park the boat?”

Or maybe you’re thinking of the Old Testament band and you picture a fedora or porkpie (à la Prez).

I took a tour through Count Basie album covers: unsurprisingly, he most often wears a hat for Norman Granz’s Verve and Pablo labels. I’ve sequenced this images more or less in the order of release (note that the photos don’t necessarily correspond to the recording session or the release date), and I’ve restricted myself to original LP issues (no reissues). As it happens, the first two hats are atypical (and clearly driven by the title of the albums in question).