Carmen Bradford almost missed the phone call that changed her life.
The Grammy Award–winning singer, now a professor of vocal jazz in the Michigan State University College of Music, performed at local venues during her time as a student at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Texas. When Count Basie and his Orchestra came to town in 1982, the owner of the Paramount Theater insisted Bradford be part of the opening act, despite hesitation from Basie’s booking agent.
Bradford made it a point to introduce herself to Basie before the show — and made a bold claim. Before the show began, “I went over and said, ‘Hi, Mr. Basie. My name is Carmen Bradford, and I’m opening the show tonight. I think you’d make a million dollars if you hired me,’” she says. “He just stared at me like he wanted to call security. I said, ‘Will you listen to me when I go out and sing?’ He said, ‘Sure, honey, I’ll listen.’”
After Bradford sang “A Foggy Day” and “Lost in the Stars,” she asked Basie for his opinion.
“I asked Mr. Basie, ‘What did you think?’ He said, ‘Well, I think I’m going to hire you.’ I said, ‘Really? When? I can go pack up my dorm now!’ He laughed, saying, ‘No, not tonight. Give me your phone number, and I’ll be in touch.’ I told him I’d get him a cassette so he wouldn’t forget me, and he said, ‘Oh no, sweetheart, I won’t forget you.’”
Nine months later, she received the call she had been waiting for — a request from Basie himself to tour with Count Basie and his orchestra. There was just one problem: She initially thought it was a prank from one of her friends and hung up.
“I was leaving for a gig when my roommate said, ‘There’s some old man on the phone.’ I thought it was my grandfather. Instead, the voice asked, ‘Is this the little girl that wants to work with me? This is Mr. Basie,’” Bradford says. “I thought it was my friend Otis playing a joke and hung up. The phone rang again. Mr. Basie said, ‘If you hang up on me again, I’m going to call another little girl.’ I said, ‘Hi Mr. Basie! Yes, I’m the little girl!’”
Two days later, Basie’s road manager, trumpet great Sonny Cohn, called Bradford and instructed her to meet the orchestra in Boston that Friday and come ready with beaded gowns and big band arrangements.
“I told him I sing R&B and rock ‘n’ roll in Levi’s and cowboy boots; I don’t have any big band arrangements,” Bradford says. “[Cohn] said, ‘Well, just put a little rope around your suitcase and we’ll see you on Friday.’”
Bradford’s mother, also a jazz vocalist, overnighted some of her beaded gowns, and Carmen arrived at the airport with about 30 friends who came to see her off. They even pooled their money to buy her a plane ticket after a miscommunication meant there wasn’t one waiting for her at the counter.
“They said, ‘If it doesn’t work out, come back to school.’ I said, ‘I’m not coming back. This is the University of Count Basie,” Bradford says.
Raised on jazz
Before Bradford began her studies at Huston-Tillotson University — and at the self-proclaimed University of Count Basie — her musical education began at home on Saturday mornings.
Bradford comes from a family of musicians. Her grandfather was jazz vocalist and big band singer Melvin Moore, her father is trumpeter Bobby Bradford, and her mother is jazz vocalist Melba Joyce, who, coincidentally, ended up singing with the Count Basie Orchestra after Carmen.
“Every Saturday morning, while my brothers and I were doing chores from about 7 a.m. to noon, my mom had one rule: We listened to jazz. It was Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Nancy Wilson, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Count Basie and Duke Ellington. That was our routine every single Saturday,” Bradford recalls. “Then, the minute noon hit, I switched to Motown and the radio: Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder.”
Between those Saturday morning music sessions and being raised by artists, it seemed Bradford’s path was predetermined. But she says there was no pressure for her to pursue a singing career. In fact, she didn’t sing much in front of her parents until she was a teenager. But she knew singing was what she was meant to do.
“Growing up with both my parents as artists shaped me. My mom didn’t have to stay home, but she had three little children that she absolutely adored, and the thought of leaving us was too much for her. She turned down opportunities to open for big-name artists because she wanted to be around me and my siblings” Bradford says. “While she never regretted being our mother, you could see the sadness on her face because singing was like breathing to her.
“Watching that made me realize I never wanted to choose between a family and music. I knew from a very young age that singing was what I wanted to do. Music is my baby.”
Helping students find their voice
These days, Bradford channels her passion into teaching and mentoring young jazz singers as a professor of vocal jazz in MSU’s College of Music, while continuing to perform with the Count Basie Orchestra and other big bands and symphony orchestras.
“My teaching is very hands-on and repetitive. I don’t tell students to figure it out later in the practice room: We work through it together,” she says. “We break down every phrase, every note, every lyric. I ask them: ‘What is the story you are seeking to tell?’ I sing a lot in lessons because sometimes the best way to teach is to show them. Then we work on improvisation one note and one chord at a time until they find their own voice.”
Bradford has previously taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Irvine — all in her native California. While she wasn’t actively looking for another teaching opportunity, she couldn’t say no to MSU Director of Jazz Studies Rodney Whitaker and his wife, Cookey Whitaker, an academic specialist in MSU’s Jazz Studies department, after serving as an artist in residence in 2021.
“I spent a week working with Jazz Orchestra One. The students were incredible. They played with the maturity of musicians decades older, and I fell in love with the program. At the end of the week, I told Rodney, ‘The only thing missing is a jazz vocal program.’ He said, ‘Well, how about it?’” Bradford says. “I laughed and said, ‘Oh no, not me. I tour 40 to 50 weeks a year.’ But he kept planting the idea and, eventually, I decided to come teach at Michigan State.”
Bradford is used to being in constant motion, so staying in one place has been an adjustment, albeit a rewarding one. Now in her third year at MSU, she’s grown to love East Lansing. She still finds time on weekends for performances with the Count Basie Orchestra and other smaller groups. She’s also continued to earn recognition in her field, as a member of the Count Basie Orchestra that was awarded a Grammy in 2024 and, most recently, receiving the Benny Golson Jazz Master Award from Howard University, which recognizes artists, educators and organizations for their outstanding, long-term contributions to jazz.
“I’m not used to staying in one place and spending every day with students, but it’s been incredibly fulfilling. You have to love this work — to help young singers grow, inspire them every day and watch them develop is incredible,” she says. “I love it here so much.”
Top image by Nick Schrader. Video by Greg Kohuth, Anthony Siciliano, Jacob Templin-Fulton, Garret Morgan and Nick Schrader.
