Live at Birdland is a live album by the Count Basie Orchestra, recorded at the Birdland jazz club in New York City in 2020 and released by Candid Records on September 17, 2021.[1][2][3] It takes inspiration from the band's original 1961 date, Basie at Birdland. Under the direction of Scotty Barnhart, the album includes a number of familiar Count Basie charts and features soloists on each of its 33 tracks.[3]
John White of Jazz Journal was considerably positive, writing that the album "offered a mixture of 'New Testament' Basie favourites with some surprising additions... [which] retain the flavour of the originals." He added: "The band can (and does) explode on some familiar (but adapted) charts. [...] Pearson, Doug Lawrence and Barnhart turn in memorable solos, while the band provides an initial shouting and then a shaded down backing." However, he concluded that the album "has considerable merits, but minus Basie himself is rather like 'The Marx Brothers' minus Groucho – not quite authentic."[3] Matt Silver, writing for WRTI, stated: "There's not that much that's new here, not that much that could be branded as innovative— whatever that increasingly nebulous but ubiquitous merit badge even means. And maybe that’s why this album is, musically and conceptually, refreshing."[2]
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