T2 Music has released Royalty: The Music of Duke Ellington and Count Basie by the Springfield Symphony Jazz Orchestra. It’s a magnificent tribute to the two composers, complete with alto sax (2), tenor sax (2), clarinet, baritone sax, trumpet (6), trombone (3), tambourine, piano (2), guitar, bass, drums (2) and vocals (2). The Count Basie Orchestra recorded the 1949 Memphis Slim hit “Everyday I Have The Blues” with Joe Williams in 1955. Here, Kurt Elling sings it.

Over 300,000 people attend shows every year at the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank. Erected in 1926 as Reade’s Carlton for Vaudeville and Cinema, it now also houses the Vogel nightclub and the Grinn Arts Education Building, with an adjacent movie theater. Over 20,000 students annually learn there and at other locations.

The concept of the jazz “ghost band” refers to orchestras who continue to play long after the leader dies. Twelve years after Glenn Miller went missing during World War II, his orchestra revved back up.