"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 musical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Our evening’s programme will celebrate the music of Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein, legendary songwriters who wrote a series of musicals dazzling Broadway, and offered the world timeless jazz standards, such as "My Funny Valentine," "Where Or When," "The Lady Is A Tramp," "Spring Is Here," "Falling In Love with Love," and "Bewitched.
"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 musical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Our evening’s programme will celebrate the music of Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein, legendary songwriters who wrote a series of musicals dazzling Broadway, and offered the world timeless jazz standards, such as "My Funny Valentine," "Where Or When," "The Lady Is A Tramp," "Spring Is Here," "Falling In Love with Love," and "Bewitched.
ABOUT RODGERS, HART & HAMMERSTEIN AND THE THEME “SOME ENCHANTED EVENING
ABOUT RODGERS, HART & HAMMERSTEIN AND THE THEME “SOME ENCHANTED EVENING
"Some Enchanted Evening" is a show tune from the 1949 musical Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. Our evening’s programme will celebrate the music of Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein, legendary songwriters who wrote a series of musicals dazzling Broadway, and offered the world timeless jazz standards, such as "My Funny Valentine," "Where Or When," "The Lady Is A Tramp," "Spring Is Here," "Falling In Love with Love," and "Bewitched.
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Carmen Bradford
​Carmen Bradford is jazz royalty, a 2024 Grammy Award winner for “Basie Swings the Blues – the Count Basie Orchestra.” She’s been nominated five times for Grammy Award 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 she continues to contribute to the preservation of this uniquely American art form.
Bradford was born in Austin, Texas and raised in Altadena, California. The daughter of legendary cornetist and composer Bobby Bradford and world-renown jazz vocalist, composer, and author Melba Joyce, and granddaughter of Melvin Moore (who sang with Lucky Millender and his Big Band, Dizzy Gillespie's Big Band, and the Ink Spots), Bradford grew up with music in her home and in her heart. She was discovered and hired by William "Count" Basie when she was just 22; 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.”
In 1992, Bradford released her first debut album, "Finally Yours" (Evidence Records), to critical acclaim. In 1995, the release of her second solo album, "With Respect" (Evidence Records), established Bradford as one of jazz music's most diverse and exciting vocal stylists.
Bradford has performed and/or recorded with Patti Austin, Tony Bennett, George Benson, Shelly Berg, James Brown, Benny Carter, Dori Caymmi, John Clayton and the Clayton-Hamilton Orchestra, Freddie Cole, Lena Horne, Kurt Elling, Wynton Marsalis, Jeremy Monteiro, David Murray, Willie Nelson, James Newton, Kenny Rankin, Lou Rawls, Doc Severinsen, Frank Sinatra, Byron Stripling, Tierney Sutton, Jeff Tyzik, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson, Liz Wright, and countless other artists around the world.
She also has performed and/or recorded with the Dallas Symphony, the Dani Felber Big Band, the Detroit Symphony, the DIVA Jazz Orchestra, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the National Symphony, the Philadelphia Pops, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Vancouver Philharmonic, and many other organizations.
Bradford teamed with singer/composer Kenny Rankin for the Benny Carter Songbook Project, performing with him the duet, "And All That Jazz." Other notable artists on the album include Ruth Brown, Jon Hendricks, Shirley Horn, Diana Krall, Peggy Lee, Diane Reeves, Bobby Short, Joe Williams, and others. At the request of Benny Carter, Bradford also sang "Key Largo" on this Grammy Award-winning album.
Bradford’s 2004 release, "Home With You" (Azica Records), is a warm and beautiful collection of vocal and piano duets with jazz great Shelly Berg. In 2008, with the release of “Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center's Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola: Sherrie Maricle & The DIVA Jazz Orchestra featuring Carmen Bradford,” Bradford returned to her big band roots. That recording ultimately brought her back to her first big band family, as well: She continues to tour with the Count Basie Orchestra, always grateful to Count Basie for opening the door for her. “When the Count Basie Orchestra calls me”, she says, “I go”.
The 2015 release of "Invisible Design," with jazz great John Mills, showcases Bradford’s versatility. 2015 also saw the release of "A Very Swingin' Basie Christmas" with the Count Basie Orchestra (conducted by Scotty Barnhart). The album features Bradford, Ledisi, Ellis Marsalis, and Johnny Mathis.
In 2016, Bradford’s was the voice on the album "Imagination Nation," a tribute to Nelson Mandela by South African trumpeter Darren English. This critically-acclaimed album won the Pledge for Peace award from the Global Peace Song Awards, and was named Best in Jazz.
The 2019 Grammy Award-nominated album, "All About That Basie" with the Count Basie Orchestra, conducted by Scotty Barnhart on Concord Records, features Bradford, Jamie Davis, Joey DeFrancesco, Kurt Elling, Jon Faddis, Wycliff Gordon, Stevie Wonder, and Take 6. In 2021, another Grammy Award-nominated album was released: "Live At Birdland – the Count Basie Orchestra,” conducted by Scotty Barnhart and featuring Bradford and Jamie Davis.
Bradford regularly pays tribute to the great Ella Fitzgerald with her show, "A Century of Ella," created and conducted by jazz great Jeff Tyzik. And, with the incredible trumpeter and vocalist Byron Stripling, Bradford honors Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in their show, "Ella and Louis," which consistently performs to rave reviews. Bradford has recently added a new show, “Carmen Pays Tribute to the ‘First Ladies of Song.’”
Bradford has loaned her inimitable voice to stage productions and the music of Hollywood films, cartoons for television and radio commercials, and the theater. She sang on the haunting soundtrack for Oprah Winfrey's "Beloved" and starred in the title role of Duke Ellington's Folk Opera, "Queenie Pie," at the University of Texas at Austin's Butler School of Music.
As she tours and performs around the world, Bradford continues to sing multiple genres, from straight-ahead jazz to fusion to blues – and to sing as no one else can.
In 2017, Bradford’s gift for teaching and mentoring others inspired the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to recruit Bradford to serve as Vocalist in Residence, and Director of the Jazz Voice Department in the school’s new Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) Program.
Bradford also is CEO and Artistic Director of Carmen Bradford Productions, Inc. and an artist with Earthworks Audio. She serves as a panelist for AMPLIFY, part of the Emerging Black Composers Project (a partnership among the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM), the San Francisco Symphony, and the SFCM President’s Advisory Council on Equity and Inclusion.) She is a Governor of the Atlanta Chapter of the Recording Academy.
Bradford sings on the critically acclaimed 2023 release, “Basie Swings the Blues” on Candid Records. In addition to Bradford, this album features some of the greatest blues artists alive today, including George Benson, Castro “Mr. Sipp” Coleman, Shemekia Copeland, Robert Cray, Jamie Davie, Buddy Guy, Charlton Johnson, Betty LaVette, Ledisi, Keb’ Mo’, Charlie Musselwhite and Bobby Rush.
Bradford’s body of work reflects jazz’s improvisation, creativity, and freedom. She looks forward to continuing her work to preserve this uniquely American art, so reflective of the cultural fabric of our country.