Norman Keenan
Biography
Norman Dewey Keenan (November 23, 1916 in Union, South Carolina – February 12, 1980 in New York City) was an American jazz double-bassist. Keenan began playing piano before learning bass at age 15. He worked with Tiny Bradshaw (mid-1930s), Lucky Millinder (1939–40), Henry Wells (1940), Earl Bostic, and Cootie Williams, and jammed at Minton's Playhouse around the same time. Following World War II he worked with Williams again and with Eddie Cleanhead Vinson in 1947-49. From 1949 to 1957 he was the bassist in the house trio at the Village Vanguard. After backing Harry Belafonte from 1957 to 1962 and working on the TV show Hootenanny, he began playing jazz again in the 1960s, with Count Basie (1965-74) and Roy Eldridge (1966).
Bio from Wikipedia
Discography
Records they worked on — most-collected first.
Belafonte At Carnegie Hall (The Complete Concert)
1959
Jump Up Calypso
1961
Through The Open Window (The Bootleg Series Vol. 18 1956-1963)
2025
Belafonte Returns To Carnegie Hall
1960
Live At The Sands (Before Frank)
1998
Broadway Basie's...Way
1966
The Midnight Special
1962
Belafonte Sings The Blues
1958
Okeh Rhythm & Blues
1982
The Board Of Directors
1968
Arthur Prysock / Count Basie
1966
The Many Moods Of Belafonte
1962
The Okeh Sessions
1983
Basie On The Beatles
1970
Standing Ovation
1969
Basie's In The Bag
1967
Credited work
654 releases · 81 albums · active 1959–2025
- Performance · 754
- Other credits · 2
Studios: Carnegie Hall · T.T.G. Studios · Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey · The Tropicana, Las Vegas
Frequent collaborators
- Count Basie
- Various
- Count Basie And His Orchestra
- Harry Belafonte
- Cootie Williams And His Orchestra
- Count Basie & His Orchestra
- Big Maybelle
- Miriam Makeba