Tag: Jazz Musicians

Posted on

Kansas City Area Youth Jazz Inc.

YOUTHJAZZ.US UPDATE

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. 

It’s like going away in summer to something like the Interlochen Center for the Arts or the Berklee College of Music summer sessions except it’s local, merit based, and free of tuition. 

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.

2024 FELLOWSHIP INFORMATION 

🔗 https://youthjazz.us/event/2024-fellowships-auditions/

Christopher L. Burnett (BMI) . Founder and Artistic Director . Kansas City Area Youth Jazz, Inc. 

🔗  https://YOUTHJAZZ.US

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.

Posted on

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.

(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.

Posted on

WE ARE CONSTANTLY WORKS IN PROGRESS

2024 ALBUM

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

LINER NOTES PDF

DOWNLOAD THE LINER NOTES
email-LINER-NOTES-ORIGINALS-ARC-3442Download

RELEASE DATE IS 03/23/2024

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

Learn more at ChristopherBurnett.us

(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.

Posted on

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.

(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.

Posted on

Musings In Cb: “IMITATION IS ALWAYS A REFERENCE IN JAZZ”

As both an artist and educator with decades of successful professional experience in both aspects of practicing music as a career, it seems a healthy degree of stoicism is needed to grow into your own creative craftsmanship.

The best informed compliment someone can pay an aspiring jazz artist is to say that nobody sounds like them.

Meaning? You can hear their understanding of the lineage of the music in their playing, but simultaneously you can predominantly hear their own ideas and understanding of dealing with harmony and melodies in context as well.

I say “aspiring” because we all are perpetually and continuously aspiring artists and teachers.

Therefore, a primary goal in transcribing solos and practicing the imitation of great musicians is not to remain stuck playing “like” the master artist you’re studying at the time.

That practice isn’t genuine in jazz culture anyway. This is because our thesis is not the same as a musician learning classical repertory interpretations regardless of how thin that line is in our times. Jazz is a cultural phenomenon and expression as much as it is an art form.

When I hear any person seemingly playing beyond their genuine depth of life experience I appreciate the dues they are paying toward establishing their own voice.

My only advice would be to not get stuck copying people. It typically happens to all of us at some point during our development. I know people who stay in this zone and are fine doing it forever. But most jazz artists go on developing to realize their own thing.

Imitation is only a means to finding your own voice or leaf on a branch of the “jazz tree.” It’s like taking a master class or highly specific course or imitation of a native speaker while learning a language.

I still try to always remember the entirety of this often referenced quote:

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery … that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”- Oscar Wilde.

Be brave enough to be yourself in all things, but especially in the arts. Be brave enough to be the most excellent you that is possible. Nobody else can ever do that. That’s the spirit of jazz…

(ARTICLE)
Musings In Cb: “IMITATION IS ALWAYS A REFERENCE IN JAZZ”

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.

Posted on

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 🎵

(ARTICLE)
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.