In the royalty of jazz, few stood much higher than Count Basie. There was Fats Waller, the Count's early mentor and Duke Ellington, who Count Basie revered. The there was Tommy Dorsey, who led what many thought was the hottest, wildest band of them all. But for swing, the Count was King.

This documentary is short on length, but strong on content. This is one of the best jazz docos around, with meaty filmed excerpts of the Count at the keyboard and leading his various ensembles, and with top interviews with some leading players from his decades of swing.

The documentary shows that Count Basie never lived in the past. His Big Band of the late 1930s and 1940s, featuring such illustrious alumni as saxophonist Lester 'Pres' Young and drummer Jo Jones, could have been a hard act to follow. But the Count re-invented himself over the decades to come, never trying to duplicate what he had already done. He just kept coming up with fresh personnel and with new ways to swing, whether in small ensembles or in the Big Band format.

The musicians who worked with him keep emphasising that the Count was a great boss. He wanted above all for everyone to have fun - and that included his players and himself as much as his audience. If the joint wasn't jumping and the audience dancing, there was something wrong. And he'd work 'til it was right.

The live footage shows audiences bopping and jiving and the Count swinging from the keyboard with hot warmth. And when you listen to it, his music has the same effect today. It makes you want to get up and dance. This is for listening to through your feet. Get up now, and move and listen.

The quality is good for its vintage. Well, put it this way... you're not going to see or hear this material any better than this. And it's truly historic - indispensable in fact. An hour of this is worth 16 hours of that dull, dull epic, Ken Burns' Jazz. This is the real thing...

There are no extras to speak of, apart from trailers for four other jazz documentaries, covering Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker and Thelonius Monk.