Arlington Heights Herald
Paul Little : 12/13/1956

Norm Granz, on his Norgran label (1086 is the 12-inch disc number to ask for), gives us This One’s for Basie, featuring Buddy Rich and his orchestra in arrangements by Marty Paich, who has arranged for Peggy Lee, Dorothy Dandridge, Stan Kenton, Les Brown and Chet Baker bands. Rich, one of the nation’s best jazz drummers surrounded himself with men like Harry “Sweets” Edison, who had a spell with the great Basie band and whose own imaginative Blues for Basie shows off one of the most remarkable muted solos to be found on wax and grooves. Others in the combo include Jimmy Rowles at piano, Bill Pitman on guitar, Buddy Collette on tenor and baritone sax and flute (his solo at the end of Blue and Sentimental is a gem), and Bob Enevoldsen on valve trombone and tenor sax. Buddy’s own solos come in 9:20 Special and Jumping at the Woodside. This is Buddy’s tribute to the sound of Basie’s superb band, and it comes mighty close to the original.

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Army Times : 12/15/1956
Tom Scanlan

Another kind of big band jazz, the Basie kind, is arranged by Marty Paich on an album called The One’s for Basie by a West Coast group headed by drummer Buddy Rich. I think Basie would enjoy it.

Harry “Sweets” Edison, who played with Basie’s band for many years, plays fine muted trumpet solos on Jump For Me, Blues for Basie, and Ain’t It The Truth. Other top sidemen on the date include Buddy Collette, Bob Cooper, Bill Pitman, Frank Rosolino, Conrad Gozzo, Pete Candoli, Joe Mondragon, Bob Enevoldsen, and Jimmy Rowles.

Rowles, one of the most underrated pianists in jazz, has a ball emulating the Count’s distinctive style.

There is one long drum solo, during Jumping at the Woodside.

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Billboard : 01/05/1957
Spotlight on… selection

Buddy Rich‘s “tribute to Basie” is not an imitation of the Basie sound, but an inspired attempt to get at the feel and musical juice of the Basie band. The knowledgeability of the soloists in Rich’s big band – and the thought that went into the arrangements of Marty Paich – bring off this difficult feat. Rich has two extended solos (in Jumping at the Woodside and 9:20 Special) and these are well conceived virtuoso displays. A highlight is the low-register flute solo of Buddy Collette on Blue and Sentimental. It’s a jumping album, running over with high spirits and tasty thrills, and can hardly fail to register with jazz fans of all kinds

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Hammond Times
Paul H. Little : 12/23/1956

Jazz gem of the week comes from Norm Granz on his Norgran label: This One’s for Basie, by Buddy Rich and his orchestra, a handsome tribute to the great Count Basie aggregation, and the jazz styling is very much alike.

Buddy’s own drum solos in Jumping at the Woodside and 9:20 Special are as fine as you’ll hear from any modern jazz drummer. Harry “Sweets” Edison, a former trumpet star with Basie, does a muted trumpet solo in his own Blues for Basie that’s worth the cost of the album all by itself. Intimate, closeup, natural sound.

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High Fidelity
Murray Schumach : March 1957

The nostalgic urge to form groups which sound like the old Basie band seems to be stronger among men who never played for Basie than in the Count himself. Buddy Rich has, in this fancy, come closest of any to picking up the true Basie feeling even though his band, on paper, is not especially Basie-oriented. Harry Edison, a proper Basieite, is on hand and so is Jimmy Rowles, who has frequently played the Basie role at the piano; and the are the tunes from the old Basie book. But although Frank Rosolino, Bob Enevoldsen, Bob Cooper, Buddy Collette, and Rich himself are all products of other influences and even though they remain essentially themselves in these performances, they still manage to fit into the over-all Basie framework that has been skillfully provided by arranger Marty Paich. The Basie crispness is here, the brass tight and precise, the reeds hoarse but soft. Rich gets in the way with drum solos on a few occasions – Jumpin’ at the Woodside suffers the most – and his lack of sensitivity is not very very helpful in some other instances but, his lapses aside, these are sterling big band works in one of the finest jazz traditions.

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Down Beat : 01/09/1957
Ralph J. Gleason : 4 stars

The title of this is This One’s for Basie, and when you come right down to it, there is nothing harder to do in jazz than to emulate the lighter-than-air feeling and the compelling sound of the seemingly simple Basie band. Numerous attempts before this have been abortive. Now and then some approach it, but this is the first time in my memory when an album has been able to get the atmosphere, the mood, and the light texture of Basie to a pretty good degree.

Dual responsibility, I think, must be shared by Marty Paich, who had the common sense to keep the arrangements as simple as possible, and by Buddy Rich, who, as leader, is the first one to get the tempos right. Once the right place to play them had bene set, the rest fell in more easily.

All in all, this is a splendid album. Buddy Collette is utterly delightful on Blue and Sentimental. Harry Edison is superb in his numerous trumpet solos as well. The brass section gets a fine Basie-ish feel, and the shakes are right there. The numbers vary in mood and feeling from the fine, swinging Down for Double, through the haunting Blues for Basie (the only new tune on the LP) to the light and swingy Ain’t It the Truth.

There is a remarkable full sound to the band, Jimmy Rowles is excellent on piano without straining to sound like Count, and the whole thing comes off very well indeed. If it were not for the inclusion of two long drum solos, this would be a five-star LP. If you dig drum solos, it is. The personnel, for once, is listed on the jacket.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

Whenever the opportunity has presented itself, drummer Buddy Rich has always delighted in sitting in with the Count Basie band. It’s not altogether surprising that in time Rich would want to pay his respects to the Basie band in more concrete fashion. And this album, as you may have gathered from the title as it – This One’s for Basie, from Buddy. This is a two-way street, of course. Basie also has great admiration for Buddy Rich. Buddy returns that compliment by saying, in awe, “One thing I’ve always wanted is to have a band like the Count’s!”

In this album, Rich’s intention is not to imitate the Basie sound but rather to pay tribute to the man and his music with a sound that would suggest the wonderfully weightless Basie sound and also to revive several of the tunes that Basie originated a decade or more ago. To accomplish this, Rich assembled some of the finest musicians on the West Coast and secured the services of a top-notch arranger, Marty Paich. Buddy himself takes only two extended solos in this album, the major one on the Basie favorite, Jumping at the Woodside and another on Earle Warren‘s 9:20 Special. Most of the selections are by Basie, with several others contributed by such Basie band veterans as Harry “Sweets” Edison (whose muted trumpet on his on Blues for Basie is one of the album’s high spots) and Freddie Green, long time Basie guitarist. The low-register flute solo on Blue and Sentimental, incidentally, is by Buddy Collette.

Bernard “Buddy” Rich, one of the more colorful performers in jazz, has won every award possible in his field and has earned his reputation as jazz’ foremost drummer both in big bands and in his own small unit. Brooklyn-born Buddy started out as a drummer when he was still in short pants – he was an entertainer in his parents’ vaudeville act when he was only 4. A Marine Corps veteran of World War II, Rich has led his own band and served as a featured drummer with Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, Artie Shaw and Bunny Berigan. In recent years he has also added to his following by becoming a pop singer.

Marty Paich, the arranger, is a native of Oakland and possesses his masters’ degree in composition from the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. His credits form a long list – he led an Army Air Force band in the war; he played in and wrote for the Jerry Gray band and he has also written for Stan Kenton, Les Brown, Chet Baker and the Dave Pell Octet, among others; he was accompanist and arranger for Peggy Lee and Dorothy Dandridge and for a long time was one of Shorty Rogers‘ Giants.

The artists are: Conrad Gozzo, Pete Candoli, Harry Edison, trumpets; Frank Rosolino, trombone; Bob Enevoldsen, valve trombone and tenor saxophone; Bob Cooper, tenor saxophone; Buddy Collette, tenor, baritone saxophones and flute; Jimmy Rowles, piano; Joe Mondragon, bass; Bill Pitman, guitar; Buddy Rich, drums