Tag: Military History

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MUSINGS IN Cb: “She’s my family.”

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.

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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.

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SQUIRREL 1 – ME 0

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.

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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.

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Listening and actually hearing

A bit over forty years ago my Army band barracks roommate began taking me to jam sessions in Munich, Germany on weekends as a way of helping me gain experience playing jazz.

Marcus Hampton (1941-2021) was a great jazz improviser, music arranger, and also a nephew of the great Locksley Hampton (Slide Hampton). The Hamptons are another royal family in the music from Indianapolis.

Learn more about their history here: https://indyencyclopedia.org/hampton-family/

Hamp’ knew both of us in 1977 as military musicians before we were married. And he remained among our closest family friends over the decades spanning into our current life as musicians here in KC.

During that period I was listening and transcribing lots of jazz music. I hadn’t a clue how to functionally apply my knowledge of harmony in a jazz improvisational context though. I relied heavily upon my ear. And I was still not very experienced in actually playing the music in typical small combo situations.

As was the case with Hamp’ and me, many mentors often don’t realize the value, significance, and importance of their role until much later. Taking advantage of that opportunity and participating in those jam sessions helped my jazz playing tremendously. I eventually became competent enough to teach others.

This album is an original from our vinyl collection. And when Terri Anderson Burnett and I became a family, we catalogued all of our music. This album is number 002 and remains a favorite.

Anyway, I was once listening to this same album when I roomed with Hamp’ and just marveled over Cannonball’s soloing throughout.

Hamp’ stated the common phrase of inquiry to me that I had already heard other older experienced musicians often ask younger inexperienced jazz improvisers like I was back then, “You can’t hear that, man?”

I said “no, I don’t know what I am listening for in order to understand what I am hearing.”

That reply was the key to the process and beginnings of my being able to truly learn music at a deeper level beyond playing written notated parts.

Hamp’ sat down at the keyboard in our barracks room and played (1) sub dominant, (2) dominant, and (3) tonic function sounds as chords in the harmonic progression context of various common modern jazz song forms.

He then further explained how they related to the scales that I already knew. Mind blown.

I have never looked at or heard any type of music the same since. Our great friend, Marcus A. Hampton, Jr. passed away in 2021 but his impact lives on through us as his friends and my jazz students who never met him.

Yes, I can hear that now, man. Thanks 🎵

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Musings In Cb: “Listening and actually hearing”

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.

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MY NATO ID CARD STORY…

This is a photograph of my NATO ID card from when I served with the Commander In Chief Allied Forces Southern Europe (NATO) Band at Naples Italy. Since it lived in my wallet and inside my pocket, this ID card was actually pristine when I finished that tour of duty in 1992, as well as when I concluded my entire 22-year active duty military career in 1996.

“Time Stamps” by Christopher Burnett (BMI)

The reason it became so tattered is that I gave it to our son, Micah to carry with him when he was deployed and served in combat. He carried it with him the entire time. In 2003, Micah deployed to Iraq with the 173rd Airborne Brigade. He received the Bronze Star Medal with Valor device for his exemplary heroic combat service. Yes, he was in the real stuff.

The Second Battle of Fallujah—code-named Operation Al-Fajr (Arabic: الفجر “the dawn”) and Operation Phantom Fury—was a joint American, the Iraqi government, and British offensive in November and December 2004, considered the highest point of conflict in Fallujah during the Iraq War. It was led by the U.S. Marines and U.S. Army against the Iraqi insurgents in the city of Fallujah and was authorized by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Interim Government. The U.S. military called it “some of the heaviest urban combat U.S. Marines and Soldiers have been involved in since the Battle of Huế City in Vietnam in 1968.”

Micah brought my NATO ID card back home to me as he promised he would. After his time in service, he went back to college, finished a double major, and even initially served in a job that provided services and resources that helped vets. They told me that he was a superstar in that work and enjoyed helping other veterans transition back to the civilian society after serving.

I was a musician in the band my entire career and never came close to combat duty. My son is a true war hero. I love him very much and I’m very proud to be his father. We have lots to be thankful for as a family. All four of us are military veterans, our son is a combat hero and our daughter was the very first commissioned officer in the history of our entire family. That’s cool. We are grateful. SALUTE! 🇺🇸

🔗 https://burnettpublishing.com/army-music/

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Musings In Cb: “Gratitudes”

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.