“The real innovators did their innovating just by being themselves”
In the history of Jazz music, there is only one bandleader that has the distinction of having his orchestra still performing sold out concerts all over the world, with members personally chosen by him, for nearly 40 years after his passing. Pianist and bandleader William James “Count” Basie was and still is an American institution that personifies the grandeur and excellence of Jazz. The Count Basie Orchestra, today directed by Scotty
Barnhart, has won every respected jazz poll in the world at least once, won 18 Grammy Awards, performed for Kings, Queens, and other world Royalty, appeared in several movies, television shows, at every major jazz festival and major concert hall in the world. The most recent honor is a 2024 Grammy Win of Best Large Jazz Ensemble for Basie Swings the Blues! Other honors include their 2022 Grammy Nomination for
Live At Birdland, a 2018 Grammy Nomination for All About That Basie, which features special guests Stevie Wonder, Jon Faddis, and Take 6 among others, and the 2018 Downbeat Readers Poll Award as the #1 Jazz Orchestra in the world. Their critically acclaimed release in 2015 of A Very Swingin’ Basie Christmas! is the very first holiday album in the 80-year history of the orchestra. Released on Concord Music, it went to #1
on the Jazz charts and sold out on Amazon! Special guests include vocalists Johnny Mathis, Ledisi, our own Carmen Bradford and pianist Ellis Marsalis. A BBC TV produced documentary on Mr. Basie and the orchestra entitled Count Basie: Through His Own Eyes premiered on PBS in the US and UK in 2019 coinciding with the orchestra’s 85th Anniversary. It features interviews by Quincy Jones, Scotty Barnhart, Dee Askew, John
Williams, and several other important members and associates of Mr. Basie and the orchestra.
Some of the greatest soloists, composers, arrangers, and vocalists in jazz history such as Lester Young, Billie Holiday, Frank Foster, Thad Jones, Sonny Payne, Freddie Green, Snooky Young, Frank Wess, and Joe Williams, became international stars once they began working with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra. This great 18-member orchestra is still continuing the excellent history started by Basie of stomping and shouting the blues, as well as refining those musical particulars that allow for the deepest and most moving of swing.
William “Count” 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 (TOBA) circuit. In 1927, Basie, then touring
with Gonzelle White and the Big Jazz Jamboree, found himself stranded in Kansas City, Missouri. It was here that he would begin to explore his deep love of the Blues and meet his future band mates including bassist Walter Page.
Walter Page’s Blue Devils and Benny Moten's Kansas City Orchestra caught Basie’s ear and soon he was playing with both and serving as second pianist and arranger for Mr. Moten. 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, which is still alive and well today some 86 years later. His orchestra epitomized Kansas City Swing
and along with the bands of Fletcher Henderson, Jimmy Lunceford, Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, Basie’s orchestra would define the big band era.
While the media of the period crowned Benny Goodman the “King of Swing”, the real King of Swing was undoubtedly Count Basie. As the great Basie trumpeter Sweets Edison once said, “we used to tear all of the other bands up when it came to swing”. The Basie
orchestra evolved into one of the most venerable and viable enterprises in American music with the highest levels of continued productivity rivaling any musical organization in history.
With the April In Paris recording in 1955, the orchestra began to set standards of musical achievement that have been emulated by every jazz orchestra since that time. One of the things that set Mr. Basie’s orchestra apart from all others and is one of the secrets to its longevity, is the fact the Basie allowed and actually encouraged his musicians to compose and arrange especially for the orchestra and its distinctive soloists
such as Snooky Young, Thad Jones, Frank Foster, and Frank Wess on flute, who recorded the very first jazz flute solo in history. The orchestra also began to become the first choice for the top jazz vocalists of the day including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony
Bennett, and of course, Basie’s “Number One Son”, the great Joe Williams.
During the 1960s and throughout the 1970s and into the 80s, the orchestra’s sound, swing feel, general articulation and style began to become more laid back and even more relaxed. As 30-year veteran trumpeter Sonny Cohn once stated, “this is a laid...back...orchestra....a...laid...back...orchestra”. With very few personnel changes, the orchestra members were able to blend into one sound and one way of phrasing that is now known as the “Basie way”.
Since Basie’s passing in 1984, Thad Jones, Frank Foster, Grover Mitchell, Bill Hughes, Dennis Mackrel, and since September 2013, Scotty Barnhart, have led the Count Basie Orchestra and maintained it as one of the elite performing organizations in Jazz.
Current members include musicians hired by Basie himself: Frequent guest vocalist Carmen Bradford (joined in 1983) and trombonist Clarence Banks (1984). Long-time
members include Doug Miller (1989, formerly w/Lionel Hampton), guitarist Will Matthews from Kansas City (1996), and members who have 15-25 years of service;
trombonist Mark Williams, trumpeters Shawn Edmonds and Endre Rice, saxophonists Doug Lawrence (formerly w/Benny Goodman) and returning on lead alto, David Glasser.
Newer members include bassist Trevor Ware, lead trumpeter Frank Greene III and trumpeter Brandon Lee, pianist Reginald Thomas, lead trombonist Isrea Butler, bass trombonist Ronald Wilkins, alto sax and flute Stantawn Kendrick and the youngest members, drummer Robert Boone and baritone saxophonist Josh Lee.