* Donald ‘Tee’ Carson; Jazz Pianist Replaced Basie

Donald Tecumseh “Tee” Carson, 70, a jazz pianist who replaced Count Basie on piano in Basie’s legendary big band after his death in 1984. A native of Washington, D.C., Carson performed with some of the most renowned bands and singers of the last century. Besides fronting his own trio for decades, Carson accompanied such notable vocalists as Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Pearl Bailey and Tony Bennett from the 1950s to the 1970s. Basie, who often played laconic counterpoint to his band’s sharp and spirited brass section, saw Carson as a suitable disciple and handpicked him as a fill-in pianist as his health declined in the late 1970s. In 1987, Carson’s last year with the Basie outfit, Nat Hentoff wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Carson “comes very close to approximating the catalytic Basie touch.” While working as a jazz pianist at night, Carson held a day job with the Justice Department as a U.S. marshal. Carson moved to San Francisco after his retirement from the Justice Department and hosted radio jazz programs there. On Feb. 13 of lung cancer at his home in Cedar Park, Texas.