^^^ I'm a Rich/Ellis/Kenton fan too, as well as Louie Bellson and Count Basie.
I particularly like the Buddy Rich stuff on Pacific Jazz, his first label with his new band that premiered in 1966--Swingin' New Big Band, Big Swing Face, The New One, Mercy Mercy, Buddy and Soul, and Keep the Customer Satisfied. Then he had a stint with RCA. The music is good, but the recordings are a bit thin sounding. For an album or two in the mid-'70s he was with a small label called Groove Merchant. One of the albums from this period, "The Roar of '74," is a kick-ass fusion album--hard rocking with great charts, sharp musicians, and Buddy driving hard instead of swinging. He also did a direct-to-disk recording called "Class of '78."
It's really hard to go wrong with Basie from any era. His stuff on Pablo is great, especially when he had Butch Miles on drums. He also did a great album with Tony Bennett called "Strike Up the Band."
Another great great band, drummer, and band leader was Louie Bellson. I saw him live in 1975, and have a Pablo album recorded within a couple weeks of that gig. It's called "The Louie Bellson Explosion" with Blue Mitchell, Snooky Young, and Cat Anderson in the trumpet section, Don Menza and Pete Christlieb trading tenor sax solos (Menza did the big solo in Buddy Rich's Channel One Suite on Mercy, Mercy; Christlieb was the sax soloist in Steely Dan's Deacon Blues), plus Ross Tomkins on keyboards. Bellson and band also did an album with James Brown called "Soul on Top."
