Kenny Burrell at 75

[brownie]

Wish I was in San Diego these days. Kenny Burrell will turn 75 on July 31 and is celebrating with several attractive gatherings. Starting tonight.

From The Mercury News today:

JAZZ LEGEND TO MARK 75TH BIRTHDAY WITH FELLOW GREATS

GERALD WILSON TO JOIN KENNY BURRELL

By Andrew Gilbert

Special to the Mercury News

What do you give the musician who has everything when he reaches a milestone birthday? In the case of master jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell, the answer is a gig with a dream team of guest artists.

Burrell, whose career encompasses almost 100 albums as a leader and hundreds more as a sideman with jazz legends such as Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Jimmy Smith and Bill Evans, celebrates his 75th birthday with a five-night run at Yoshi's in Oakland.

He opens tonight with his excellent working quintet, which will be joined by powerhouse organist Joey DeFrancesco and the brilliant flutist Hubert Laws. On Monday, Burrell's actual birthday, the guitarist's band and his guest stars will share the crowded Yoshi's bandstand with the Gerald Wilson Jazz Orchestra, an evening that will be recorded for release as a CD on Blue Note Records.

Then on Tuesday, Burrell appears at Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz for two shows as special guest with Wilson's Orchestra, a superlative ensemble that rarely travels outside of Southern California. These performances also will be recorded by Blue Note.

`Already on top'

Though the Detroit-raised musicians didn't meet until years after they left the Motor City, Wilson and Burrell have become close friends over the past few decades, united particularly over their commitment to jazz education.

``Kenny was already on top when I first heard him play,'' Wilson says by phone from his home in Los Angeles. ``He was one of the greatest I had ever heard, an innovator in bebop and beyond.''

The pairing of Burrell and Wilson is ideal on many levels. Both are NEA Jazz Masters who have distinguished themselves in myriad musical arenas. Burrell is an esteemed educator who has led the jazz program at the University of California-Los Angeles since he founded it 10 years ago. Wilson was one of the first musicians he hired.

An elegant improviser with a clean, bluesy attack, Burrell has defined mainstream modern jazz guitar for several generations. While he looks a good decade younger than his chronological age and doesn't seem angst-ridden about his impending birthday, Burrell is likely to feel even more youthful standing next to the dynamic Wilson, who's still going strong at 87.

``I think he's a perfect role model for musicians, to be that creative and healthy and vital at his age,'' Burrell says over the phone from his UCLA office. ``As we say in our parlance, I want to grow up and be like you. He acts like he's 40 years old, and I love that.''

Wilson's résumé is so thick with achievements it's hard to know where to start. As a young trumpeter in the 1930s and '40s, he toured with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, which some consider to be the best swing orchestra of the 1930s. Settling in Los Angeles in the midst of World War II, he soon formed his own big band, a group that he has led intermittently ever since. In the 1960s, when the orchestra showcased a brilliant cast of improvisers such as tenor saxophonists Harold Land and Teddy Edwards, guitarist Joe Pass and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, Wilson recorded a series of classic albums for Pacific Jazz featuring many of his original compositions.

`Jazz is my life'

With his long white hair flying and his arms churning, Wilson cuts a striking figure as he conducts his band. The group is still one of jazz's finest orchestras, boasting a cast of world-class veterans such as trombonist Garnett Brown, baritone saxophonist Jack Nimitz and, most amazingly, the 87-year-old trumpeter Snooky Young, who's still playing pungent plunger mute solos more than 60 years after first sharing a bandstand with Wilson.

``Snooky and I are the same age, and we've known each other since we were with Lunceford,'' Wilson says. ``We were in a lot of bands together -- Les Hite, Benny Carter and Count Basie -- and it's a wonderful thing that we're still working together.''

For his program with Burrell, Wilson has written a sheaf of new material, but he won't neglect his catalog either. He knows that dramatic numbers like ``Viva Tirado,'' which has been recorded by more than a dozen bands, including El Chicano, whose 1970 version became a Top 40 hit, have lost none of their power to thrill an audience.

``We'll have to play those numbers,'' Wilson says, ``but I'll have some new pieces, too. I only write for my band. At this stage, jazz is my life.''The Kenny Burrell Quintet

With Joey DeFrancesco and Hubert Laws

Where: Yoshi's, Jack London Square, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland

When: 8 and 10 tonight-Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m. Sunday; and with the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, 8 and 10 p.m. Monday

Tickets: $26-$30

Call: (510) 238-9200, or see www.yoshis.com

Also: The Gerald Wilson Orchestra with Kenny Burrell; 7 and 9 p.m. Tuesday; Kuumbwa Jazz Center, 320-2 Cedar St., Santa Cruz; $38, $35 advance; (831) 427-2227, www.kuumbwajazz.org

[HolyStitt]

I am really looking forward to the Monday night shows.

Anyone else on the board going to be there Monday night?

[Dan Gould]

Cool that Blue Note is going to document the festivities, though I presume these are one-offs and they haven't signed KB or Wilson.

[fasstrack]

Bless you, Kenny. Your work has so much humanity. You are more relevant today than ever. As a guitar player in my early 50s I look out there among the individuals currently on my instrument with so much information age chops going on to hear sounds, idiosyncracies, personalities, and maturity and I still want Kenny Burrell back at the end.

Toninho Horta is beautiful, though. Cat turned my head.

Kenny, you still own the fattest sound and biggest heart in the biz, and not just among guitarskys.

Edited July 27, 2006 by fasstrack

[CJ Shearn]

a new KB on BN? I'm there. Please record a trio with Joey D. Kenny has always been one of my fav. guitarists, his tone, touch, phrasing and subtlety are unbelievable. Still, my fav. album of his is "Blue Lights", excellent blowing date.

[BFrank]

I am really looking forward to the Monday night shows.

Anyone else on the board going to be there Monday night?

You kiddin' me? I wouldn't miss THIS show for anything!

I'll be sitting at one of the first tables on the left side, right behind the booths.

[Lazaro Vega]

Wish I was there.

Blue Lake Public Radio will feature Kenny Burrell's recordings this evening after 10 p.m. et.

[HolyStitt]

What did everyone think of the show?

[BFrank]

What did everyone think of the show?

See Here