Guido Basso

Who is Guido Basso?

Guido Basso, CM is a jazz musician from Montreal. He started playing the trumpet when he was nine. Settling in Toronto in 1960, he became a studio trumpeter. He also occasionally played harmonica in-studio. In 1963, he became a music director for CBLT, a post he held until 1967. He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1994.

He is a trumpeter, flugelhornist, harmonica-player, arranger, composer, conductor. He studied at the Conservatoire de musique du Quebec. His career started in his teens, when singer Vic Damone included him in an international tour.

In 1958 he joined singer Pearl Bailey and her bandleader husband, drummer Louis Bellson, touring North America with them for three years before moving to Toronto to join the studio and television scene there. Beginning in 1975, he frequently organized and led big band concerts at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition featuring jazz luminaries including Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Woody Herman, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie. He can be heard on hundreds of record albums, playing and recording with stars from Buddy Rich and Oliver Jones to Carol Welsman and Diana Kralll. He is currently featured on vocalist Diana Panton’s release “Pink”.