Jazz trumpeter Scotty Barnhart taps blues artists for swinging new album

Tallahassee’s Scotty Barnhart, professor of jazz trumpet at Florida State University, melds musical styles with Friday’s release of his newest and most astonishing album, “The Count Basie Orchestra Swings the Blues.”

Barnhart teams with blues artists like Bobby Rush, Mr. Sipp and Shemekia Copeland on the new release, featuring Rush on "Boogie in the Dark" and Bettye LeVette on "Stormy Monday."

The renowned jazz trumpeter, composer, arranger, educator, author and for 10 years, director of the famed Count Basie Orchestra, has the names of musical greats tripping off the tongue as you try to get a handle on Barnhart and his universe of achievements.

Barnhart acknowledges that it all began in a flash of inspiration when in 2019 he found himself at a blues awards ceremony surrounded by the likes of blues legend Bobby Rush and the son of Muddy Waters.

“I could hear it (the sound of that merger of the Basie sound and the Blues) in my head a bit, and that was the driving force that helped me take a step each day,” Barhnhart said. And now, the release of this album, “has been a dream come true beyond my wildest expectations.”

Talking about “Swing,” the “Blues,” and “Jazz” may require a short definition of terms for those not steeped in the history of American popular music. But it will help to understand what an accomplishment is Barnhart’s melding of the classic sounds of the Big Band era heard in the Basie Orchestra with the down-home blues that poured from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago.

Jazz

To define jazz with an overarching definition is probably futile. From its beginnings at the dawn of the 20th century, leaping continents and eras, it has been in a constant state of evolution and expansion — New Orleans style, swing, free jazz, bebop, ragtime, cool jazz, free jazz. But the swing beats and improvisation are often found as jazz styles’ transform.

Swing

Then, what is swing? Emerging from the ground work laid down by the improvisations of jazz, a sub-genre known as swing delighted the youth of the '20s and '30s with its powerful, danceable imperatives. Triplets with a “missing beat” often gave the music a kind of syncopated rhythm that when embellished by full orchestras heavy with brass, led to swing dances like the Lindy, the Charleston, and dozens of jitterbugs and jumps. The Big Band era of Benny Goodman and Glen Miller, and Count Basie might have been its apogee.

Blues

And what about the blues? Derived from African American spirituals and work songs of the 1800s, often accompanied by guitar or harmonica, the blues with its pounding beats, pentatonic scales, and blue notes, spread throughout the 20th century by the likes of W.C. Handy, Bessie Smith, and is seen as the parent of Soul, Rock 'n' Roll, and R&B genres.

Barnhart is combining the sophistication of the Count Basie big band sound with the grittiness of the blues in an unprecedented album where blues actually does meet swing.

Legendary artists

And indeed, probably never before have so many legendary artists across the swing/blues landscape appeared together on one recording.

A few are George Benson, Carmen Bradford, Bobby Rush, Buddy Guy, Shemekia Copeland, Charlie Musselwhite —some of whom have performed at the Bradfordville Blues Club — each of them settling in beside the Count Basie’s glittering brass, but never giving up an ounce of the blues.

Barnhart, who joined the Basie orchestra in 1993, now stays on the road with the group for at least three months a year in addition to teaching at Florida State. He looks fondly back at how it all began.

“In Atlanta, where I was born, we attended the Ebenezer Baptist Church…Martin Luther King’s church. My mother sang in the choir…and music was everywhere. When I was 9 years old my mother went out to get me the instrument that I’d requested so I could play music too," Barnhart said. "But she brought home not the violin I’d asked for, but a trumpet instead. I opened the case and saw that horn sparkling in the sun…” and he never looked back.

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'Swing will never die'

Now, a two-time Grammy-award winner and with recordings made with Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Ray Charles, and Tito Puente, Barnhart, in professorial mode, he has also written a hallmark overview called, “The World of Jazz Trumpet: A Comprehensive History and Practical Philosophy.”

Today, as Barnhart readies for a Count Basie tour of Japan, he’s asked about the future of the swing that his orchestra presents. Can what enraptured the youth of the 1930s and '40s hold the same magic for their grandchildren today?

Barnhart can be heard through a smile, “Swing will never die,” he says. “Swing is the physical manifestation of the equilibrium of the body.” Translation: It makes you want to dance.

“What we musicians are aiming for and what you feel when it happens is when the music makes all hearts beat as one. That’s when you know swing will never, never die.”

The Count Basie Orchestra’s newest album: “The Count Basie Orchestra Swings the Blues” will be released Sept 15. It is available on Amazon, iTunes, and other digital platforms.

Marina Brown can be contacted at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Scotty Barnhart blends musical styles on 'Basie Swings the Blues'