This page is about the European nobility; for the baseball term, see count (baseball).
A count is a nobleman in various European countries, equivalent in rank to a Britishearl. Originally the title denoted the rank of a high official in the late Roman Empire and later in many German kingdoms in the early Middle Ages, as well as the Holy Roman Empire in Central Europe. It was often conferred by the head of a country as an honorific title for special services rendered.
In German kingdoms the title was combined with the word for the jurisdiction or domain the nobleman was responsible for, such as "Landgraf" - landgrave, "Burggraf" - burgrave (burg = castle).
Count Basie was a leading figure of the swing era in jazz and, alongside Duke Ellington, an outstanding representative of big band style.
After studying piano with his mother, as a young man he went to New York, where he met James P. Johnson, Fats Waller (with whom he studied informally), another pianist of the Harlem stride school.
The contract expanded and within a year the Count Basie Orchestra, as it had become known, was one of the leading big bands of the swing era.
Military counts in the Late Empire and the Germanic successor kingdoms were often appointed by a dux and later by a king.
From the start the count was in military charge, not of a roving warband, but settled in a locality, a countship, his main rival for power being the bishop, whose diocese was often coterminous.
In many Germanic and Frankish kingdoms in the early Middle Ages, the count might also be a countpalatine, whose authority derived directly from the royal household, the "palace" in its original sense of the seat of power and administration.
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