Jazz trumpet virtuoso Scotty Barnhart’s fruitful career has been blessed in many ways. He was baptized by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Sr. and christened by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and his music-saturated childhood in Georgia was immersed in the rich, holy sounds of the black Baptist church.
The noted, now 47-year-old trumpet savant, author and jazz historian enjoyed the good fortune of having loving, supportive parents who valued education and taught him the virtue of hard work. His art and jazz loving mother, Shirley Barnhart, a church pianist and singer at the Kings’ Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., and friend of MLK Jr.’s wife, Coretta King, and his sister, Christine, stressed the paramount importance of articulate expression in everything from music — whether gospel, Handel, Bach or jazz — to the correct, clear and creative use of the English language in both speech and writing. Expressiveness began at home and early and he’s grateful.
Barnhart has been blessed to be a featured soloist with The Count Basie Orchestra for 20 years. For him, playing in the Basie Band is much more like a spiritual calling rather than just an excellent, prestigious gig, which, of course, it also is.
On Thursday, Aug. 23, Barnhart, a favored sideman for such super stars as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, gets to share his great joy with a Connecticut audience as he performs with the Basie Orchestra at the outdoor summer series, “August Nights at Harkness…Music the Way It Was!” at Harkness Memorial State Park, Waterford.
“To be called and asked to join an organization like this is the greatest gift that any musician can have. I grew up listening to The Basie Orchestra, and it was always my favorite big band even when I was in high school. Don’t ask me how, but I knew even then that one day I would be in The Basie Orchestra. I didn’t know when, but I just had that feeling,” he says by phone from his California home just outside of Hollywood.
Besides touring the world with the band and soloing in its fabled trumpet section in famous venues ranging from Carnegie Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, Barnhart has also had a noteworthy stint with the famous blind piano phenomenon, Marcus Roberts, and he teaches music at Flordia State University.
A serious lifetime photographer, Barnhart is working on several writing projects including a revision and expansion of his book “The World of Jazz Trumpet” (Leonard Books, 2005); a study of modern trumpet great Freddie Hubbard (his all-time trumpet favorite); as well as compiling and writing the text for a collection of his photographs of jazz and pop icons he’s interviewed or played with over the years. His portfolio of portraits includes Lena Horne and longtime pal and early supporter, Wynton Marsalis.
On breaks from work, he fuels up on coffee, which stimulateshis reflections on how jazz is interwoven into the fabric of American culture and our socio-political history. His historical and philosophical analogies connect jazz and blues with everything from slavery and Congo Square to the Civil Rights.
The busy trumpeter/arranger/composer, who some have called a jazz renaissance man, is just back in the States from yet another one of the Basie Band’s enormously popular tours of Japan. Already, he’s looking forward to the next tour, a road trip taking the Basie Band to Alaska, Australia, Taiwan and Macao.
“I’ve never looked at playing in The Basie Orchestra as a gig,” Barnhart says of his long tenure with the orchestra. A one-man musical industry who, in his spare time, also lectures around the world on jazz, the star trumpeter thrives on the Basie Band’s brisk work tempo as it has continued full-speed ahead under a royal succession of handpicked leaders since Basie’s death in 1984.
“I’ve never even asked for a raise in 20 years. That’s just the way it has been for me. I’ve always looked at it as a great honor and, right next to that and equal to that, is the sense of responsibility.
“I’ve been to every country in the world with the orchestra, except India. It’s beautiful, man. I’m doing what I love and would do for free, and I get to see the world for free. Imagine, just a week ago I was at the Golden Temple in Kyoto!
“It’s the best education in the world. As a matter of fact I keep a quote by Mark Twain right on my piano, so the first thing you see when you walk into this room is Twain’s: ‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.’ ” he says.
Getting hired over the phone, traveling to his first job with the orchestraand his very first solo 20 years ago are all still as clear as a new movie running in his head. His mind, he says, thinks about jazz 24/7, even dreams at night about music and, of course, his dream job with the Basie Band.
“I couldn’t believe it when I got the call from Frank Foster (then the leader of the orchestra), asking me to join the band. I took the bus from Tallahassee, Fla., to Atlanta, got a first-class ticket on Continental Airlines to Weatherford, Okla., where the band was going to play. I cried half the way there. I just couldn’t believe this was actually happening.”
Since he was a kid, Barnhartcollected Basie albums, absorbing the nuances of every solo and every chart, every distinctive rhythm, signature riff nd harmony.
‘As part of his intense, self-taught Basie studies, he memorized the names of every band member listed on the LPs’ liner notes just on the remote chance that someday, somehow, he might connect with his boyhood heroes for real.
“On the second tune on my first night with the band, I had a solo on ‘Corner Pocket,'” he recalls of his debut solo, his public baptism into the sacred Basie fold of chosen musicians.
More than just making the team, Barnhart believes that along with this great privilege comes an obligation to learn and absorb everything about the band’s rich, varied legacy. You’ve got to know not just the band’s book inside-and-out, but its history, its regal lineage of players, arrangers, and even its historic and sociological significance in American cultural history, he says.
“Basie band members have 77 years of history staring us right in the face every night we play. Either you become a part of that legacy and help preserve it and advance it, or you can ignore it, and you won’t be connected to anything at all. I take this commitment very, very seriously,” he says.
Along with entry into this musically elite organization, he says, come many responsibilities, including the task of maintaining the band’s legacy of hard swing and high quality, a mix of exuberance and excellence.
“I’ve always felt a responsibility to make sure that I understand every facet of what has made this orchestra as great as it is right down to details ranging from something as simple as the way the trumpets play what we call the shake, to tempos and volume, to how you walk on stage, and even how the stage is set up.
Not long after he had been hired by Foster, the great saxophonist/arranger and one of Basie’s successors, the versatile Barnhart was a soloist in the limelight, and behind the scenes, making sure that wherever the globe-trotting band played, everything was up to its standards in sound, lighting and staging.
“I’ve worked with sound people all over the world to get them to understand how to mike the band, to get the right balance between guitars and piano, drums and bass, etc., to make sure that every instrument can be heard crystal clearly. What I’ve found is that over half the sound guys I’ve worked with don’t have a clue how to do sound for a big band, much less the Basie Band,” he says.
“When you come to a Basie concert you should not have to worry about hearing anything. It should be perfectly balanced. You should be able to hear everybody and not get blasted out of the auditorium,” he says.
With its big book of blues-inspired pieces, classic jazz numbers, standards and arrangements by Frank Foster, Quincy Jones, Frank Wess, Sammy Nestico and Thad Jones, the band thrives.
“Our audiences aren’t just sitting there on their hands. Man, they go crazy. We get standing ovations. That’s why we know that with the power of jazz music, if it’s really unleashed and if people really promote it right, the country would be a whole lot better off than we are. Instead of feeding people fast food all the time, why not sit down and take the time to prepare a really serious meal that really looks out for every part of the nourishment of your body and your mind, which is what jazz is really doing.”
THE COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA, led by drummer Dennis Mackrel, as the headliner, the concert runs Thursday from 5:30 to 10 p.m. at Harkness Memorial State Park, Waterford. The bill also features the opening performance by Rob Zappulla and his Orchestra celebrating the songs of Frank Sinatra. A youth performance segment features The Glenn Hansen Orchestra with special youth guest appearances. The event goes on rain or shine. In case of rain, it relocates to The Garde Arts Center, New London. Tickets: $24 in advance; $30 at the gate. Information: http://www.bringourmusicback.org and 860-434-1882.
