RED BANK: A BASIE HOMECOMING
Scotty Barnhart and the Count Basie Orchestra make a too-rare and much-appreciated return to the historic venue that bears the name of the fabled Kid from Red Bank this Sunday, with the New York Voices making themselves heard.
“I called him the Chief,” said Count Basie Orchestra conductor Bill Hughes from the stage of the Count Basie Theatre, during a 2004 salute to the late and legendary William “Count” Basie. “He was ‘Bill’ to the well-to-do; ‘Count’ to the common folk… and to the pimps and hustlers he was simply BASIE.”
The baton’s since passed to trumpeter and bandleader Scotty Barnhart, but when the Basie Orchestra returns to Red Bank this Sunday, March 1, it’ll be picking up where it left off: celebrating the legacy of the fabled “Kid from Red Bank” in a too-rare match-up with another long-running institution that bears his brand.
Scheduled as a 3 pm matinee (or “3 O’Clock Jump,” in the pioneer swing pianist’s parlance?), the March 1 concert teams the CBO with a relatively young musical organization that bridges the perceived gap between the 1930s-’40s golden age of American jazz, and the globally savvy sounds of the new millennium — New York Voices.