By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – “Our work is not finished, our work is not finished, our work is not finished… Count Basie’s work is not finished.”
The words of young poet Italy Ja’rae Lee echoed through the Count Basie Center for the Arts Aug. 19, as the audience repeated the lines like an anthem nearly a dozen times.
Lee, the 2022 New Jersey State Poetry Out Loud champion, recited her poem “Art’s Lullaby” at the event hosted by the Basie Center to mark its centennial celebration and honor the 122nd anniversary of William “Count” Basie’s birth.
Elected officials, artists, Basie Center members and residents participated in the free celebration, recommitting themselves to art and community service with a series of commemorative events dedicated to the legendary musician and the arts institution that has helped shape Red Bank’s identity. Monmouth Street was renamed “Basie Center Way”; the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail unveiled a marker at the Basie Center designating the institute as an official stop; the Jazz Vanguard Award was presented to New York City-raised bassist turned concert promoter Jerry Bakal – Bakal’s first produced show was on the Basie stage in 1989; and the 91-year-old Grammy Award-winning legendary Count Basie Orchestra closed the day with Basie’s best and most memorable musical pieces.
‘A Kid from Red Bank’
Basie died in 1984 at the age of 79. Young Bill Basie, who grew up just blocks from Monmouth Street, became an international pillar of Black excellence, musical innovation and community pride.
It was “122 years ago today, William ‘Count’ Basie was born just a few blocks from where we’re standing,” Basie president and CEO Adam Philipson told the crowd. “He was a kid from Red Bank who fell in love with music long before the world knew his name. He went on to become one of the most important band leaders in American history and, to this day, his sound is inseparable from the story of jazz itself.”
Rev. Terrence K. Porter of Pilgrim Baptist Church reminded the crowd that before the world knew Basie as “Count,” he was simply a young Black musician navigating a segregated America. He said the title came about in the 1930s during an interview in Kansas City. While Basie was being introduced on a radio show, the announcer mentioned a couple of well-known bandleaders, Earl Hines and Duke Ellington, and said Basie should be introduced as “Count” to match the jazz royalty. It reflected the stature and talent the bandleader was displaying on stages around the world.
Porter added that institutions like the Basie Center carry forward not only Black history, but “all types of history,” including Asian, Hispanic, European and Jewish.
In a time when “there’s so much divisiveness and so many people trying to pit one group against another,” he said, the Basie Center stands as proof that “we can do more together than we can do in isolation.”
Basie and the
Black Heritage Trail
Officials at the event also unveiled the center as the newest stop on the New Jersey Black Heritage Trail.
The Black Heritage Trail was authorized by state legislation in 2022 and now features dozens of markers statewide. The markers recognize sites of Black struggle, resilience and achievement. Basie Center became the fifth Monmouth County site on a statewide trail of 70 markers. Other markers include the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center (journalism and civil rights), Cedarview Cemetery in Lincroft (African American Civil War history), InfoAge/Fort Monmouth (African Americans in communications and technology), and the Samuel “Mingo Jack” Johnson marker in Eatontown, the site of New Jersey’s only documented lynching.
“The reality is that to bring people together, we need to celebrate everybody’s heritage,” Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell said. He praised the role of arts organizations like the Basie Center in helping regulate “urban traumatic stress disorder” among students, particularly evident in cities like Trenton, Camden, Newark and Asbury Park. The arts, he said, allow young people “to get out of their environment without getting out of their environment,” and create space for healing.
Outside the Basie Center, officials unveiled a new street sign designating a stretch of Monmouth Street “Basie Center Way.” Red Bank Mayor Billy Portman said Basie was part of the town’s identity. “There’s always cool stuff going on here at the Count Basie,” Portman said. “A lot of people’s first introduction to Red Bank is obviously coming to a show here.”
91 Years on the Road
No tribute to Basie could be complete without the music itself. The Count Basie Orchestra, which has toured continuously since 1935, closed the day with a set including “The Kid From Red Bank,” “Blues in Hoss’ Flat,” and “Li’l Darlin’.”
Basie was the first African American to win a Grammy (1958); the orchestra has since won 20. The band has appeared in films from “Cinderfella” and “The Errand Boy” to “Blazing Saddles,” carrying Basie’s sound to new generations.
The band’s oldest member, trombonist Clarence Leroy Banks, joined in 1984, shortly before Basie’s death, and has played with the group for more than four decades. In a brief post-concert conversation, Banks, now in his 70s, recalled listening to a Basie recording on the radio one morning. He said he suddenly found himself in tears when the announcer revealed that Basie had died.
Basie was “the sweetest guy in the world,” Banks said, a leader he almost never saw angry, a man who retained his humility even as he became a global icon who called seasoned musicians “kid” with warmth and affection.
The Basie Center hosted performances by the Count Basie Orchestra throughout the weekend as part of the institution’s centennial celebration.
Other attendees at the event included Jeremy Grunin, chair of the Basie Center Board of Trustees; Monmouth County Commissioner Director Thomas Arnone; Assembly members Margie Donlon and Luanne Peterpaul (D-11); Red Bank borough manager James Gant; Sara Cureton, executive director of the New Jersey Historical Commission; Izzy Sackowitz, the Basie Center’s chief operating officer; and Octavia Harrell, who performed “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.”
The article originally appeared in the August 27 – September 2, 2026 print edition of The Two River Times.
