Category: Burnett Family

5 years ago Terri Anderson Burnett and I started Kansas City Area Youth Jazz because we had a vision that we believed adds tangible value to life based upon our experiences working in music and also contributing to the KC private jazz education paradigm. Doing positive and constructive things with our lives and helping others has always been possible for us through objective study of music.

Special THANKS to Bill Crain, Rev WM Thornton, David Cunningham, William Crain, Houston Smith, and Greg Carroll for being with us each step of the way.

Thank you to the truly incredible community of artists that make up the “KC Jazz Scene” for so many of you sincerely embracing our original vision of “synergy among” all of our jazz generations and our many jazz industry entities!

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YOUTH JAZZ utilizes the advantages of its diversely talented community of professionals within the greater Kansas City metropolitan area and beyond. It’s us.

We also understand that truly empowering the next generation requires creating an environment that allows all living generations in the music to interact with one another in the types of meaningful contexts our program provides during each season.

Combining applied performance of the art form with music business best practices presented in our educational learning contexts is a unique benefit of YOUTH JAZZ.

(1) Preparing music to a high level for recording,

(2) performing concerts in the community,

and (3) serving as peer mentors are among the opportunities that FELLOWS are afforded.

Networking among peers and developing relationships with industry mentors are vital skills for building infrastructure and community.

Meet some of our colleagues who have embraced our vision + joined us in this work at the link below. We’re not alone.

👨🏽‍💻👩🏼‍💻 https://YOUTHJAZZ.US

(ARTICLE)
Musings In Cb: “JAZZ IS ALSO COMMUNITY”

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 

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The US Air Force drummer in the band came to the TLA hotel where I was staying near the Naples American High School on my first night in Italy. His name was Stanley Swann. He knocked on my room door, I answered, he introduced himself and said get your horn and let’s go play. I said okay.

I got into his car which was the smallest Fiat I had ever seen in my life and had to hold my alto saxophone in my lap because Stanley’s drums took up the remaining unoccupied space.

We drove quickly in and out of traffic, honking at other cars and people, then stopped at a deli where two Italian musicians were already setting up in a space near an outlet.

Stanley introduced me to bass player Massimo Luise e DINO MASSA the pianist and when he was finished setting up his drum kit we played jazz standards for a couple of hours then ate Napoli pizza and talked. At that time I only knew a few rudimentary phrases in Italian but their English was good enough that I didn’t notice any communication barrier.

Besides, Stanley spoke fluent Italian. I played jazz gigs with this same basic quartet every night that I wasn’t working locally or away touring with the Commander In Chief, Allied Forces Southern Europe NATO Band.

The NATO Band assignment turned out to be my best military band assignment and we did it alone from each other on two different continents as an “all others” tour. The first of only two military duty assignments in a 22+ year career without Terri and our children with me. The money I earned playing those off-duty gigs paid for my plane tickets home to visit my family. Something so cool. Something so sad. Life’s best gifts. Bittersweet like that.

Fast forward to today and I am glad that Stanley and I kept in touch over the years. He was the son of a professional drummer and originally from Chicago. That’s where he got his killer shuffle beat. Stanley ultimately settled in the Boston area after the Air Force where he recorded, performed and taught at the Berklee College of Music. My friend Stanley passed away a few years ago.

I have never heard directly from Massimo Luise the bassist after I left but was told by him when we were playing jazz together that he would take over his family’s yacht harboring business and leave music ultimately. I searched the web and saw that he is doing that now. (https://luise.com)

However the jazz pianist Dino Massa has remained professionally active and successful over the years. We even reconnected on Facebook many years ago and before the pandemic he came to visit us in Kansas City. We played several co-led concerts and gigs in KC at venues like The Blue Room at the American Jazz Museum, Museum at Prairiefire, Take Five Coffee + Bar that was once at 5336 W 151st St. in Leawood, Kansas, along with recording the critically acclaimed album titled “Echoes of Europe” as Dino Massa Kansas City Quintet at Craig Rettmer’s studio in midtown. (https://ChristopherBurnett.us)

Dino has remained a dear friend of more that thirty years and counting…
Music is positive and powerful.

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(ARTICLE)
Musings In Cb: “JAZZ IS A CULTURAL BRIDGE”

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. 

Another article in my
“AGEISM IS REAL BUT I DON’T CARE”
series of articles.

You all can thank our mother, Violet for my being well over sixty years old and yet still not having very much visible gray hair.

Many people who don’t know me, often mistake my age as being significantly younger because of this.

But for the most part most people I interact with tend to not look at me as the senior citizen that I proudly am.

The only situations that any ageism towards me becomes an obvious part of the dynamics of interaction with others are those where everyone dealing with me legitimately knows my age, like medical appointments, the DMV, etc. #OkayBoomer

In those situations I am careful not to give the impression that I am in any way, shape, or form feeble minded or otherwise impaired by age.

Sounds hilarious but it is true.
Ageism is real.

I’m having to add this new layer of defense in ways similar to the precautions I have had to deploy living my entire life as a black man.
That’s still real too.

The best advice I’ve learned to live is the same advice that our parents gave us siblings growing up and that is to live life beyond the ‘isms.

And, after living more than six decades, I can say from experience that our parents’ approach works.

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MUSINGS IN Cb
BurnettFamilyUS.org

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.