| A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas! | |
|---|---|
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| Studio album by | |
| Released | November 6, 2015 |
| Recorded | August 2014 – July 2015 |
| Label | Concord |
A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas! is a 2015 Christmas album by the Count Basie Orchestra, directed by Scotty Barnhart, and released by Concord Records. [1] [2] The album was recorded between August 2014 and July 2015. [3]
William James "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and their first recording. He led the group for almost 50 years, creating innovations like the use of two "split" tenor saxophones, emphasizing the rhythm section, riffing with a big band, using arrangers to broaden their sound, and others. Many musicians came to prominence under his direction, including the tenor saxophonists Lester Young and Herschel Evans, the guitarist Freddie Green, trumpeters Buck Clayton and Harry "Sweets" Edison, plunger trombonist Al Grey, and singers Jimmy Rushing, Helen Humes, Thelma Carpenter, and Joe Williams.
Clark Virgil Terry Jr. was an American swing and bebop trumpeter, a pioneer of the flugelhorn in jazz, and a composer and educator.
Harry "Sweets" Edison was an American jazz trumpeter and a member of the Count Basie Orchestra. His most important contribution was as a Hollywood studio musician, whose muted trumpet can be heard backing singers, most notably Frank Sinatra.
Thaddeus Joseph Jones was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader who has been called "one of the all-time greatest jazz trumpet soloists".
John Carl Hendricks, known professionally as Jon Hendricks, was an American jazz lyricist and singer. He is one of the originators of vocalese, which adds lyrics to existing instrumental songs and replaces many instruments with vocalists, such as the big-band arrangements of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He is considered one of the best practitioners of scat singing, which involves vocal jazz soloing. Jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather called him the "Poet Laureate of Jazz", while Time dubbed him the "James Joyce of Jive". Al Jarreau called him "pound-for-pound the best jazz singer on the planet—maybe that's ever been".
Ellis Louis Marsalis Jr. was an American jazz pianist and educator. Active since the late 1940s, Marsalis came to greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s as the patriarch of the musical Marsalis family, when sons Branford and Wynton became popular jazz musicians.
"April in Paris" is a popular song composed by Vernon Duke with lyrics by Yip Harburg in 1932 for the Broadway musical Walk a Little Faster. The original 1933 hit was performed by Freddy Martin, and the 1952 remake was by the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra, whose version made the Cashbox Top 50. Composer Alec Wilder writes, "There are no two ways about it: this is a perfect theater song. If that sounds too reverent, then I'll reduce the praise to 'perfectly wonderful,' or else say that if it's not perfect, show me why it isn't."
Doug Lawrence is an American jazz tenor saxophonist from Lake Charles, Louisiana.
The Count Basie Orchestra is a 16 to 18 piece big band, one of the most prominent jazz performing groups of the swing era, founded by Count Basie in 1935 and recording regularly from 1936. Despite a brief disbandment at the beginning of the 1950s, the band survived long past the Big Band era itself and the death of Basie in 1984. It continues under the direction of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart.
"I'm Beginning to See the Light" is a popular song and jazz standard, with music written by Duke Ellington, Johnny Hodges, and Harry James and lyrics by Don George and published in 1944.
Ernest Brooks Wilkins Jr. was an American jazz saxophonist, conductor and arranger who spent several years with Count Basie. He also wrote for Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and Dizzy Gillespie. He was musical director for albums by Cannonball Adderley, Dinah Washington, Oscar Peterson, and Buddy Rich.
Irvin Mayfield Jr. is an American trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator. On November 3, 2021, Mayfield was sentenced to 18 months in prison for defrauding the New Orleans public library system for over one million dollars.
A Swingin' Christmas is a Christmas album by Tony Bennett, released in 2008, that features the Count Basie Big Band. Bennett's daughter Antonia duets with him on one track.
Ray Sings, Basie Swings is an album that mixes previously unreleased Ray Charles vocal performances from 1973 with newly recorded instrumental tracks by the contemporary Count Basie Orchestra.
William "Scotty" Barnhart is an American jazz trumpeter. A two-time Grammy winner, he has played since 1993 as a featured soloist with Count Basie Orchestra. In September 2013, Barnhart was announced as the new director of the Basie Orchestra. He has multiple recordings with pianist Marcus Roberts, as well as recordings with Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Ray Charles, and Tito Puente. A solo CD, released with Unity Music, is titled Say It Plain and features Clark Terry, Ellis and Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Jamie Davis and Etienne Charles; it achieved number 3 in the Jazz Charts. Also active as an educator and clinician, he is author of The World of Jazz Trumpet - A Comprehensive History and Practical Philosophy. He is a professor in the College of Music at Florida State University.
Sing Along with Basie is an album by vocalese jazz group Lambert, Hendricks & Ross with Joe Williams and the Count Basie Orchestra recorded in 1958 and originally released on the Roulette label.
Live at the Sands (Before Frank) is a live album by the pianist and bandleader Count Basie with performances recorded in Las Vegas in 1966 at the same concerts that produced Frank Sinatra's 1966 album Sinatra at the Sands. It was released on the Reprise label in 1998. The album is of the warm-up sets by Basie's band before Sinatra's performances.
Live at Manchester Craftsmen's Guild is an album by the Count Basie Orchestra that won the Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album in 1997. The orchestra is led by Grover Mitchell and features four songs with New York Voices.
John C. "Johnny" Williams is an American saxophonist who known for his work in the jazz, blues and soul genres. During his career, Williams maintained a longtime association with the Count Basie Orchestra.
All About That Basie is an album by the Count Basie Orchestra, released on September 7, 2018. On the album, the Count Basie Orchestra, now under the leadership of trumpeter Scotty Barnhart, remakes classic swing and blues classics with guest appearances by modern artists including Take 6, Stevie Wonder, and several notable jazz musicians.
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