This month marks the centennial birthday year of my mother Violet Lorraine Jackson Burnett (1924-2012).
That’s mom standing on the right in the Polaroid of us on our porch in the series of pictures that were taken by Terri’s parents at our home in Missouri in the spring of 1989.
Mom is 68 years old in this photo but looked at least twenty years younger relative to other people the same age of her generation.
We were still an active duty military family when she came to live with us after her retirement from a very successful 25-year career as an alcohol and drug abuse counselor.
The technical subtleties and refined essence of any highly sophisticated art form like jazz music are most genuinely perpetuated by master artists directly passing along their knowledge to the following generations of artists.
Kansas City Area Youth Jazz actually realizes that artist industry mentoring paradigm while also teaching the business craftsmanship and techniques of arts entrepreneurship that builds living wage infrastructure for artists while bringing jazz music to broader audiences and also to underserved communities.
It’s been said that most new businesses take five years or more to become viable entities.
Kansas City Area Youth Jazz went from being a “great idea” supported exclusively by volunteers, to a formal nonprofit public charity organization that is in its second year of fundraising.
Terri Anderson Burnett and I would like to thank all of you who have supported this project and we hope that you continue to support it going forward. You are vital to this program!
And we want to personally thank these specific people and entities:
Bill Crain
Will Crain
Rev WM Thornton
Houston Smith
Dr. Mary Burnett
Erica Lindsay
Sumi Tonooka
Greg Carroll
Dr. Doris Carroll
Dr. Adrianna Marshall
David Cunningham
Bobby Watson
Leon Brady
Patrick Cornelius
Victoria Alaadeen
Clarence Smith
Toni Gates
Kelsey Vetter
Dr. Todd Wilkinson
Joel Gordon
Jim Mair
Dr. Dan Thomas
Duane Hallock
Mike Gerken
Debra Gerken
Bill Mullin
Jon McGraw
Marcus Hampton, Jr.
Artists Recording Collective (Record Label)
BRC Audio Productions
Kansas City Public Schools
The Tune Shop
Conn-Selmer Inc.
All of the albums recorded during each season of the Kansas City Area Youth Jazz are made available worldwide at all of the major music services and the albums from the last three seasons will complete postproduction on December 15, 2023.
This program is a truly unique resource and great opportunity for our next generation jazz artists.
ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY
2023 FELLOWS (ARC-3459) (pending)
2022 FELLOWS (ARC-8715) (pending)
2021 FELLOWS (ARC-3671) (pending)
2020 FELLOWS (ARC-2277) (released)
2019 FELLOWS (ARC-2994) (released)
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Kansas City Area Youth Jazz is a spring and summer only program.
We don’t encourage students with known potential conflicts to audition due to the musical rigors and scope of the KCAYJ program.
Each awarded Fellowship is vital to each ensemble.
KCAYJ Fellows prepare professional level literature for recording, perform in a next generation summer showcase concert festival, some play paid gigs in the community, and Fellows work with a variety of renowned teaching artists as clinicians each season.
Musician, Composer, Educator . First Sergeant (Ret), US Army . “Soldier For Life” Army Music 🇺🇸
(ARTICLE) MUSINGS IN Cb: “Youth Jazz Updates”
PHOTO by Corinna Gray Photography (2023)
Christopher and Terri (Anderson) Burnett established their branch of The Burnett Family in March of 1979 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are professional musicians, educators, and entrepreneurs based in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
Growing up during my early formative years in a United States Air Force 🇺🇸 family that traveled, I lived in at least five sibling homes in three different states and also overseas in France 🇫🇷 before I was 10 years old.
When my sibling family finally settled not far from my paternal hometown of the city of Olathe, in my maternal hometown of Paola, Kansas after my father’s military service, I was conditioned to moving and starting over.
Most military kids who have moved around and lived in different places are generally pretty resilient. The most resilient among them “grow where they are planted.”
Our own military service involved lots of moving too.
We’ve lived in our current city longer than we have lived anywhere including our paternal hometowns where we grew up with our respective sibling families.
We’ve adopted this community (and it’s adopted us) as our forever home.
But everywhere we have lived together has become our home where we “grew where we were planted.”
We have come to realize that the mindset of making a home and doing our best to serve our community wherever we are is one of the keys to our resilience.
The other is understanding the fact that “together” the two of us are always home.
Family. Life has taught us that our family is just the two of us and then expands to include our offspring, blood relatives, and our “life” family members.
In 2024 our family will celebrate our being a home and together for 45 years.
We both will also celebrate continuing to learn from our ancestral family trees despite being displaced from most of them individually by generations.
We’re validating our research as musicians and artists again by releasing the recording of our newest album inspired by family on the date of our anniversary too.
If you’re reading this and made it to the end, you are likely “family.” Thank you for growing with us.
(ARTICLE) MUSINGS IN Cb: “She’s my family.”
PHOTO by Corinna Gray Photography (2023)
Christopher and Terri (Anderson) Burnett established their branch of The Burnett Family in March of 1979 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are professional musicians, educators, and entrepreneurs based in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
Featured artists on this album are Roger Wilder on piano; Gerald Spaits on bass; Morgan Rogers on drums with special musical guests Terri Anderson Burnett and Freda Proctor on flutes; WM Thornton on tenor saxophone; Greg Carroll on vibraphone; Will Matthews on guitar. LINER NOTES are finished for the album we’re recording in December at BRC Audio Productions in Kansas City. We’ll add the individual track duration times during postproduction. Avalon Video Services from Lawrence is also documenting this project.
RECORDING DAY 1
ALWAYS
INFINITY
LATER
CbQ PERSONNEL
C. Burnett, alto saxophone; R. Wilder, piano; G. Spaits, bass; M. Rogers, drums
ENGINEER AND PRODUCER
William Crain, BRC Audio Productions
VIDEOGRAPHER AND DOCUMENTARIAN
Gordon Brown, Avalon Video Services
RECORDING DAY 2
FINALLY
MAYBE
CbQ PERSONNEL+:
C. Burnett, alto saxophone; R. Wilder, piano; G. Spaits, bass; M. Rogers, drums with Terri Anderson Burnett and Freda Proctor, flutes; Greg Carroll, vibraphone
ENGINEER AND PRODUCER
William Crain, BRC Audio Productions
VIDEOGRAPHER AND DOCUMENTARIAN
Gordon Brown, Avalon Video Services
YESTERYEARS
CbQ PERSONNEL+:
C. Burnett, alto saxophone; R. Wilder, piano; G. Spaits, bass; M. Rogers, drums with Willie Meyers Thornton, tenor saxophone; Will Matthews, guitar
ENGINEER AND PRODUCER
William Crain, BRC Audio Productions
VIDEOGRAPHER AND DOCUMENTARIAN
Gordon Brown, Avalon Video Services
ALBUM: “ORIGINALS” (ARC-3442) by Christopher Burnett (BMI)
The music will be released on the Artists Recording Collective + ARC Recording Label and available worldwide. I’m very excited about this work and all six pieces of music that make up “ORIGINALS.” Looking forward to sharing this music with you!
MUSIC DEMOS + SHEET MUSIC
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
MOCKUP AUDIO of Track 1 “FINALLY”
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
VIDEO CLIP of Track 2 “ALWAYS”
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
MOCKUP AUDIO of Track 3 “MAYBE”
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
VIDEO CLIP of Track 4 “INFINITY”
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
MOCKUP AUDIO of Track 5 “LATER”
PURCHASE THE SHEET MUSIC FROM SHEET MUSIC PLUS (HAL LEONARD)
MOCKUP AUDIO of Track 6 “YESTERYEARS”
REHEARSAL GALLERY
SHE’S MY FAMILY. TOGETHER, WE ARE HOME. (BURNETTFAMILYUS.ORG)
PHOTO GALLERY: Piano and Drums rehearsing with the Flutes
We have everything for our new album “ORIGINALS” (ARC-3442) set up in advance for distribution and the release date is set for our 45th anniversary, 03/23/2024
REFERENCES + MEDIA QUOTE
“Saxophonist, educator, and military band veteran Christopher L. Burnett is known for his warm and lyrical jazz sound. Following a 20-plus year military career, during which he taught and performed, Burnett embarked on fruitful university teaching, as well as a performance career. He continued to perform in his native Kansas, releasing albums like 2013’s Time Stamps, 2014’s Firebird, and 2021’s The Standards Vol. 1.”
— Matt Collar / AllMusic, TIVO (ALLMUSIC.COM)
THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING ENTITIES FOR YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
(ARTICLE) Musings In Cb: “WE ARE CONSTANTLY WORKS IN PROGRESS”
PHOTO by Corinna Gray Photography (2023)
Christopher and Terri (Anderson) Burnett established their branch of The Burnett Family in March of 1979 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are professional musicians, educators, and entrepreneurs based in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
Yes, I’m a country boy from Paola, Kansas but my country boy game is now admittedly pretty weak.
I left Paola to strike out on my own almost 50 years ago and have subsequently lived in a wide variety of large cities and small towns in the United States and also some countries in Europe over those decades.
I have lost my country boy edge.
You would think that I could still tell the difference between squirrel scat and that from a rat or mouse.
I thought we had a rat or field mouse visiting us at night. Even had our exterminator company leave a humane trap to catch and relocate whichever.
Not so. Mystery solved.
I just caught the culprit (a cute bushy tailed squirrel) on his noontime pooping rounds today.
I am having to clean up after this dude a couple times a week.
Thanks to my sister Dr. Mary Jane Burnett for a solution: “Purchase some Repel All and sprinkle it where the poop was and you won’t have that problem. I buy mine from Home Depot.”
She further suggested: “I mix the granules with my grass seed when I overseed to keep the birds from eating them.”
Besides being smarter than me, my sister has maintained her connection to such things from our childhood.
Our neighbor’s uncle Marwood Lindsey used to take all of us as kids out hiking in the woods and along the nearby Bull Creek. We learned about nature on all levels from him. It was cool.
(ARTICLE) Musings In Cb: “SQUIRREL 1 – ME 0”
PHOTO by Corinna Gray Photography (2023)
Christopher and Terri (Anderson) Burnett established their branch of The Burnett Family in March of 1979 in Copenhagen, Denmark. They are professional musicians, educators, and entrepreneurs based in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area.
