Jimmy Rushing

Jimmy Rushing (August 26, 1901 – June 8, 1972) was the Oklahoma City-born blues shouter who served as featured vocalist for the Bennie Moten Orchestra and the Count Basie band across nearly two decades — the defining voice of the Kansas City jazz era. Known as “Mr. Five by Five” for his compact, rotund build, Rushing possessed a powerful tenor-to-baritone range that cut through any big band without a microphone and anchored the Kansas City blues-vocal tradition alongside Big Joe Turner. After leaving Basie in 1948 he pursued a long solo career, recording with some of the most celebrated names in American jazz until his death in 1972.

Early life and KC years

James Andrew Rushing was born August 26, 1901 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, into a musical family — his father was a trumpeter and his mother and her brother were singers. He studied music seriously as a young man and worked as a pianist in California before returning to Oklahoma and entering the territory-band circuit.

Around 1927 Rushing joined Walter Page’s Blue Devils, an Oklahoma City-based territory band that toured the Plains and Southwest. The Blue Devils were a talent-rich outfit: alongside Rushing, the band included Page on bass, the young Count Basie on piano, Hot Lips Page on trumpet, and Buster Smith on alto saxophone — a cohort that would collectively define the KC jazz era. The Blue Devils gave Rushing his first platform as a professional blues shouter and established his reputation across a wide regional circuit.

By approximately 1929, Bennie Moten had recruited Rushing along with several other Blue Devils into his orchestra. Rushing remained Moten’s featured vocalist through 1935, appearing on major Moten Victor recordings including the canonical 1932 session that produced “Moten Swing.” The Moten band years placed Rushing at the center of Kansas City’s emerging sound at its most competitive and creative period.

Count Basie’s vocalist (1935–1948)

When Bennie Moten died unexpectedly in April 1935, Rushing continued with the core band as it reorganized under Count Basie. The group — calling themselves the “Barons of Rhythm” in their early Reno Club residency years — built a national reputation through a 1936 radio broadcast picked up by talent scout John Hammond, leading to a Decca recording contract and a booking at New York’s Roseland Ballroom.

Rushing remained Basie’s featured vocalist for thirteen years, a partnership Basie himself described as unmatched in blues singing. Among the defining recordings from those years:

“Sent for You Yesterday and Here You Come Today” (1938) — one of the most celebrated vocal recordings of the swing era
“Good Morning Blues” (1937) — a showcase for Rushing’s blues phrasing at its most direct
“Going to Chicago Blues” (1941) — a road-weariness narrative that became a blues standard
“Boogie Woogie” — a Basie band signature built around Rushing’s rhythmic drive

The Basie band’s national touring and recording schedule carried Rushing’s voice — and the Kansas City blues-vocal style — across the country and into the ears of a generation of American listeners.

Style and influence

Rushing’s vocal power was his most remarked-upon attribute: a full baritone-to-tenor range delivered without amplification that projected cleanly over the reed and horn sections of a full big band in a crowded ballroom. His phrasing was rooted in the blues — relaxed, behind the beat, conversational in a way that made extended shouting feel effortless. Basie said Rushing “never had an equal” as a blues vocalist; Rushing himself, characteristically modest, maintained that he was primarily a ballad singer.

The nickname “Mr. Five by Five” came from a 1942 popular song of the same name, a hit for Harry James, whose lyrics described his physique directly: “he’s five feet tall and he’s five feet wide.” Rushing wore the name without complaint and it followed him for the rest of his career.

Alongside Big Joe Turner, Rushing defined the Kansas City blues-shouting school — a tradition that fed directly into postwar rhythm and blues and shaped the vocal expectations of an entire generation of singers. The two men were contemporaries and complements: Turner rawer and more rooted in barrelhouse blues, Rushing more at home in a big-band swing context, together constituting the twin peaks of the Pendergast-era KC vocal tradition.

Later career and legacy

Rushing left the Basie band in 1948 when Basie temporarily dissolved the orchestra amid the postwar economics that ended many big-band operations. After a brief retirement, Rushing formed his own small group and returned to active performing. His post-Basie decades produced a string of well-regarded recordings and collaborations:

Albums with Buck Clayton, Eddie Condon, and Vic Dickenson through the 1950s
A guest appearance on Duke Ellington’s Jazz Party (1959)
A 1960 album with the Dave Brubeck Quartet
Multiple appearances at the Newport Jazz Festival, including a noted July 2, 1959 set with Buck Clayton, Ruby Braff, and Vic Dickenson, and a 1960 appearance alongside Muddy Waters
Reunion performances with Count Basie’s reorganized orchestra

Rushing continued recording and touring internationally through the 1960s. He died on June 8, 1972 in New York City from leukemia at age 70.

His place in Kansas City’s musical history rests on three interlocking facts: he was present at the formation of the KC sound in the late-1920s Blue Devils; he was the voice of the Moten-to-Basie continuum across its peak period; and his recordings with Basie distributed that sound to a national audience that recognized KC jazz as a distinct and vital tradition. The American Jazz Museum in the 18th & Vine District holds documentation of Rushing’s career as part of its permanent collection.

Contemporaries and collaborators

Walter Page — Blue Devils bandleader; first employer in the territory-band circuit
Bennie Moten — orchestra employer 1929–1935
Count Basie — orchestra employer 1935–1948; lifelong artistic partner
Big Joe Turner — KC blues-shouting tradition contemporary
Lester Young — Basie band colleague
Eddie Durham — Moten and Basie band colleague
Buck Clayton, Freddie Green, Jo Jones — core Basie band colleagues
Benny Goodman, Eddie Condon — post-Basie collaborators

Sites in KC associated with Jimmy Rushing

18th & Vine District — primary KC performance and rehearsal hub
The Reno Club — site of the Basie band’s 1936–1937 residency and the radio broadcast that broke the band nationally
The Mutual Musicians Foundation — Black musicians’ union and after-hours gathering point