Proceeding an introductory performance from Chapman’s Big Band, The Legendary Count Basie Orchestra took to the purple-hued stage of Musco Center for the Arts Oct. 17. The orchestra featured a range of musicians of all ages, the youngest being 24, and some of the oldest members being in their 70s. All members work to maintain an 84-year-old legacy that has persisted despite the lamented death of world-renowned jazz musician Count Basie 35 years ago. 

Current director and 26-year orchestra member Scotty Barnhart is the first in a lineage of directors to never have worked directly with Basie himself, but still works in his honor. 

“To me it is still (Count Basie’s) orchestra and will always be his orchestra,” Barnhart said. “I don’t do anything that I think he wouldn’t do; I don’t say anything I don’t think he wouldn’t say; I don’t play anything I don’t think he wouldn’t play.” 

The band played an eclectic mix of Basie’s classic songs from passionate ballads to fast-paced alto-saxophone features. The group’s distinctive swing groove has led to its 20th Grammy nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album 2019 with their recent release “All About That Basie” coming off of its latest 2018 DownBeat Readers Poll award as the top jazz orchestra in the world. 

“It’s just about orchestration: swing and a bunch of guys playing together and sounding good” Mark Williams, a ten-year member of the orchestra and third trombone player, on the group’s sustained popularity. “That’ll never go out of style as far as I’m concerned.”

Whereas the 1920s through 1940s featured a rapid evolution within the jazz genre from ragtime to Dixieland to swing, its current relevance is heavily marginalized; the genre amassed a total of 0.6 percent on-demand streams according to Nielsen’s 2019 U.S. mid-year report. 

Jeremy Davalos, a junior trumpet performance and music education double major, said in jest that jazz means so much more in modern society than the occasional stream of Michael Buble’s Christmas album.

“Today, jazz cannot swing at all. It can be super funky; it can be super out,” Davalos said. “It’s a catch-all term.” 

While to some this progressive new sound for the realm of jazz is accepted, others like Chapman University’s Big Band director Albert Alva see the importance in staying consistent with the genre’s roots. 

While Alva aspires to implement newer styles into his teaching, he simultaneously “wants to do everything in an authentic way.”

Barnhart agreed, describing that while the perception of jazz may have shifted over time, the definition has stayed rigid in its foundation in blues and swing, and specifically Basie’s personalized sound has stayed pertinent in his music. 

Another constant in the realm of jazz is its dialectal functionality in a musical sense, distinguishing the genre from all else in the opinion of Steven Gudino, a senior guitar performance and music composition double major. 

“The main thing that makes jazz stand out is probably the communication between the players. It’s more of a conversation,” Gudino said. 

Count Basie himself epitomized the communicative nature of jazz, oftentimes placing the bass player within sight of his left hand on the piano so he could outwardly demonstrate the bassline he wanted the musician to follow, a tradition that the orchestra continues to this very day. The performance also featured several alternating soloists that played off one another’s riffs. 

“To me, it’s the most exciting music ever created by human beings,” Barnhart said. “When you see a jazz band play and they don’t have any music up there, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”