Christmas with Count Basie

Two jazz stars with the initials CB are featured in the Spokane Jazz Orchestra’s holiday show, and only one of them is Count Basie.

The other is Carmen Bradford, who will be the guest vocalist in the SJO’s “A Count Basie Christmas” concert Saturday.

She may not be as legendary as the late Basie – who is? – yet you might be surprised at her stature. She is an influential and accomplished figure who was discovered and nurtured by Basie himself just a few years before his death in 1984.

Since then, Bradford has collaborated with an impressive string of other household names: Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, George Benson, Willie Nelson, Lena Horne and James Brown.

Lately, she has been performing with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. In other words, she has been working at the highest levels of the jazz world.

She’ll join music director Dan Keberle and the SJO for an evening of music associated with Count Basie.

The first half of the show will be all Basie instrumental music. The second half will feature Bradford singing holiday songs, many arranged by former Basie bandleader Frank Foster.

Bradford comes by her jazz credentials honestly. She was the daughter of trumpeter/composer Bobby Bradford, a leading figure in the avant-garde movement of the 1950s and beyond, and Melba Joyce, a well-known vocalist.

Her Web site features a picture of her as a child, being dandled on the knee of Louis Armstrong.

With those connections, it’s no surprise that she came to the attention of Count Basie in the early 1980s. He hired her as his featured vocalist, and she stayed with the band for nine years, long after his death.

One of Bradford’s biggest breaks occurred in 1990, when she and the Basie band recorded “Big Boss Band” with George Benson, one of the hottest jazz players in the world at the time.

She and Benson teamed up to sing one tune off that album, “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” on the “Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson in 1991.

After that, Bradford launched a lucrative solo career. She has performed on four Grammy-winning albums, including “The Benny Carter Songbook.” Recently, she completed an educational and performance project with Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra as part of their “Essentially Ellington” project.

She has also been a jazz vocal teacher at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she lives.

When she appeared with the SJO in 2003 in a previous Count Basie tribute, Bradford regaled the Spokane audience with anecdotes about what it was like to be the only woman in the traveling Basie show.

She’ll no doubt share a few stories again – and blast out some more of those great Basie tunes.

“She has such an earthy and bluesy style – not many vocalists can sing like that – although her style is typical of many of the Basie vocalists of the past, like Jimmy Rushing and Joe Williams,” said Keberle.

“It was a no-brainer to ask her back.”