Carmen Bradford with UNCG Jazz Ensemble I
Carmen Bradford is jazz royalty, a 2024 Count Basie Orchestra Family member, and Grammy Award® winner for Basie Swings the Blues: The Count Basie Orchestra. She’s been nominated five times for Grammy Awards and is the recipient of the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s Jazz Vocalist Award. With her body of work, which reflects her vast experience, versatility, and technical brilliance, she has carved out her place in jazz history and continues to contribute to the preservation of this uniquely American art form.
She was discovered and hired by William “Count” Basie when she was just twenty-two; she went on to be the featured vocalist with the legendary Count Basie Orchestra for nine years and has continued to perform with them regularly throughout her career. All four of her Grammy Award nominations are for albums with the Count Basie Orchestra, including two in the 1980s and a third, Big Boss Band, with guitarist George Benson. (She and Benson performed the classic duet, “How Do You Keep the Music Playing,” on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.) The fourth is 2022’s Live at Birdland.
