Kenny Burrell was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He
remembers “being surrounded with music and love. I came from a
very loving family where everyone played an instrument and tried
to sing”. He first studied piano with little enthusiasm but got
excited about the guitar when he was 12. Encouraged and coached
by his older brother Billy, an accomplished guitarist, Kenny played
both bass and guitar in the high school dance band led by Louis
Cabrerra. His hometown still claims him. “Native son Burrell has
always been mentioned in tones of adulation around Detroit,”
boasts Bob Carr in the Detroit News, “and now it seems to be
nationally unanimous that Kenny is our guitar laureate.”

A Bachelor of Arts degree in composition and theory from
Wayne State, classical guitar study with the eminent Joe Fava, and
playing in local Detroit bands and groups of his own readied Kenny
for his first road tour immediately after graduation — as a member
of the Oscar Peterson Trio. Subsequently, he has recorded and
played with Tony Bennett, Nat Cole, Sammy Davis, Jr., Aretha
Franklin, Ray Charles, Lena Horne, Sylvia Sims, Benny Goodman,
John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Sonny
Rollins, Freddie Hubbard, Ron Carter, and many other major artists
in the music business. :

“Kenny Burrell plays music that resists labels,” Maggie Hawthorn
reports in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “That it is jazz may be
allowed — it moves with that undeniable pulse at any tempo, and
it depends on the improvisational gifts of its practitioners for its
core . . . To further categorize Burrell’s music would be a mistake.”

 

 

Personnel

Kenny Burrell, Guitar
Reggie Johnson, Bass
Alan Dawson, Drums