Count Basie Orchestra

In the history of jazz, there is only one bandleader whose orchestra still performs all over the world more than 40 years after his passing. Pianist and bandleader William James “Count” Basie was—and still is—an American institution personifying the grandeur and excellence of jazz. The Count Basie Orchestra, now directed by Scotty Barnhart, has won 18 Grammy Awards and every respected jazz poll in the world at least once. Their most recent honor is a 2023 Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble, for Basie Swings the Blues.

Basie was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1904. He began his early playing days by working as a silent movie pianist and organist and by eventually working with the Theater Owners Booking Agency circuit. In 1927, he found himself stranded in Kansas City, Missouri, where he heard Walter Page’s Blue Devils and Benny Moten’s Kansas City Orchestra, and soon was playing with both. In 1935, Bennie Moten died, and it was left to Basie to take some of the musicians from that orchestra and form his own. The Count Basie Orchestra epitomized Kansas City swing, and helped define the big-band era. It also began to become the first choice for the top jazz vocalists of the day, including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, and Basie’s “Number One Son,” the great Joe Williams. Since Basie’s passing in 1984, Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Grover Mitchell, Bill Hughes, Dennis Mackrel, and Scotty Barnhart have led the Count Basie Orchestra and maintained it as one of the elite performing organizations in jazz. They made their debut at the San Francisco Symphony in July 1988.

Scotty Barnhart, Music Director

Scotty Barnhart is an internationally acclaimed jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator, author, producer, three-time Grammy winner, and director of the Count Basie Orchestra. He was previously the orchestra’s featured trumpet soloist for 20 years.

Barnhart also appears on three critically acclaimed recordings with pianist Marcus Roberts and more than 20 others with artists as diverse as Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, and Ray Charles. He has performed with Frank Sinatra, Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Nat Adderley, Aretha Franklin, George Clinton, Buddy Guy, Barbra Streisand, George Benson, and many others; been featured in the Asian Wall Street Journal; performed at the Academy Awards; and is in demand as a soloist and lecturer on jazz history all over the world. In 2009, Unity Music released his solo album, Say It Plain. He is also co-founder and artistic director of the Florida Jazz and Blues Festival, and is a tenured professor of jazz trumpet at Florida State University.

Carmen Bradford is a four-time Grammy Award nominee, most recently in 2022 for Live At Birdland with the Count Basie Orchestra, and the recipient of the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jazz Vocalist Award.

Bradford was born in Austin, Texas, and raised in Altadena, California. The daughter of legendary cornetist and composer Bobby Bradford and world-renowned jazz vocalist, composer, and author Melba Joyce, and granddaughter of Melvin Moore (who sang with Lucky Millender and his Big Band, Dizzy Gillespie’s Big Band, and the Ink Spots), Bradford grew up with music in her home and in her heart. She was discovered and hired by William “Count” Basie when she was just 22; she went on to be the featured vocalist with the Count Basie Orchestra for nine years and has continued to perform with them regularly throughout her career. She also has performed and/or recorded with the Dallas Symphony, Detroit Symphony, DIVA Jazz Orchestra, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, National Symphony, Philadelphia Pops, among others. In 2017, she was vocalist in residence at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Roots, Jazz, and American Music Program, where she also previously served as director of jazz voice.