Live & Local: Carmen Bradford on New Album, Carmen Sings Carmen: Echoes of Carmen McRae
Carmen Bradford is out with a new album honoring the musical legacy of noted vocalist Carmen McRae. It's called Carmen Sings Carmen: Echoes of Carmen McRae, and this week on The Morning Set's Live and Local, we featured a conversation Carlos Lando and Carmen Bradford had around this album, which has some musical roots here in Colorado. The idea came from Dana Landry of the Compass Jazz Orchestra, who also heads up the UNC Jazz program, one of the great collegiate programs in our nation, going 40 years strong.
Carmen Bradford: He called me and said, "Listen, I have an idea. I love you and I love Carmen McRae, and I'd like to do an album project, and I want to know if you're interested." I said, oh my goodness, absolutely! I'd love to do that. He said, "Well, you can choose all of the tunes for the album, and we have such incredible arrangers, and you can speak with each of them and let them know exactly what you're looking for on each arrangement. And Dana was just so giving, he just handed me one of the biggest gifts of my life, and I'm just so grateful. So I met with each of the arrangers and sent them a bunch of my recordings so they could just hear what I was physically able to do when it came to singing, how long I like to hold a note. I mentioned to each of them that I like a lot of space. I'm not a singer that needs a lot of filler, as long as it's swinging.
And Carmen Sings Carmen: Echoes of Carmen McRae indeed swings! It was Bradford's wish that these songs were arranged in the style of the Count Basie Orchestra, with which she is often a featured vocalist. A couple of years ago, when the Count Basie Orchestra was set to perform at our 2023 Live at the Vineyards event, we spoke with her ahead of the show. She shared the story of how Count Basie and she met when he discovered her at just 22.
This recording, however, marks Carmen Bradford's first solo big band recording outside of her work with the Count Basie Orchestra. Just as the Basie swing is in her soul, so are these songs and the voice of Carmen McRae. It was a natural fit for Bradford to honor McRae and her catalog because she had grown up listening to her through the records of her mother, jazz vocalist Melba Joyce.
Carmen Bradford: One of the reasons I was so on board with this is because when I was a little girl, my mother, jazz vocalist Melba Joyce, would play Carmen. She'd play Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson, Frank Sinatra, lot of Tony Bennett, lot of Antônio Carlos Jobim on Saturday mornings when I'd be doing my chores, and this is all that I listened to. Every album over and over and over again. And Carmen's always really stuck out with me because (of) the way she phrased, the way she told a story, it just became very visual to me in my mind. And I always carried that with me over the years and thought maybe I can be this kind of singer between she and Tony Bennett. That's where I learned to truly phrase
Carlos Lando: When I listen to singers, especially when you're talking about jazz and such a personal interpretation of a song, especially standards and so forth, it gets into your soul. It's like they're talking to me at that moment. Other genres don't necessarily have that but in jazz, it's all about the interpretation and the feeling and the soul and what comes through and the connection. And Carmen, you've always had that. I know that when you came here with the Basie band just a few years ago to our Live at the Vineyards event, that was amazing. I mean, you've got three or four songs that you sing in each set at the most, and everybody walks away going, they love the Basie band, but they love you just as well or better. It's like, my God, did you hear Carmen Bradford? And it's because you bring life to a song. And that is, I think, the greatest essence and the greatest accolades that a jazz singer can receive, is that you touch so many souls with your interpretation of songs.
Carmen Bradford: You're about to make me cry, so sweet! Thank you so much!
Check out the audio above for more stories around the album and stay connected with Carmen Bradford and her future tour dates.
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