Chris Burnett is a performing artist who is based in his native Kansas City area.
Chris Burnett is an alto saxophonist, composer, recording artist and
educator who began his active career at the age of 18 years old when
he was selected by audition and accepted for musical service as a
performing artist with the US Army Bands Career Program, where he
performed and toured with several noteworthy professional US military
band organizations for audiences at numerous locations in the
continental United States and overseas. Subsequently, Mr. Burnett has
continued as a life-long learner while performing music professionally
for over three decades.
Born in Olathe, Kansas, he was ultimately raised in Paola after his
family had traveled extensively in early childhood and lived at such
places as: France, Michigan and Colorado. His studies in instrumental
music began seriously under clarinetist, James R. Fuchs. Mr. Fuchs was
the local school band director who exposed him to professional
saxophone players like Charles Molina and Gary Foster during those
formative years. He has studied with numerous significant teachers and
at the Armed Forces School of Music, Webster University, Columbia
College, Berklee College of Music, and American University.
Mr. Burnett is a former director of the Jazz Ensemble Program at
Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly University of
Missouri-Rolla); a former director of the NATO Jazz Ensemble; and, a
former featured performing member of the Faculty Jazz Ensemble of the
Armed Forces School of Music that was under the direction of Maurice
Williams, Jr. (former leader of the Army Blues Jazz Ensemble).
Today, Chris Burnett has established a credible reputation within his
peer group as one of the finest alto saxophonists of his generation
and is also considered to be among Kansas City’s most respected jazz
artists. He has two commercial CD recordings available on the Artists
Recording Collective label.
Professional Memberships include: American Federation of Musicians
(Kansas City Local 34-627), The Recording Academy (GRAMMY® - voting
membership), and the US Army Career and Alumni Program (ACAP). He
serves as a member of the Kansas City Youth Jazz Advisory Council, and
was most recently elected as a Board Member (At-Large) of Kansas
City’s historic Mutual Musicians Foundation. Mr. Burnett has been a
writer-affiliate of Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) since 1984.
See: BurnettMusic.com
for C.V. and complete biographical narrative.
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About the writer... Chris Burnett was an active Columnist at
All About Jazz from 2001 through 2006, upon his return home to be
based out of his native Kansas City metropolitan area. As the applied
musical performing, writing and teaching aspects of his career have
become inherently more established, his time to devote to writing has
progressively become limited. Couple this factor with other exciting
administrative responsibilities and there is little time to write
articles outside of his own Official Blog at BurnettMusic.com. However, several articles still remain in the archives at
All About Jazz and a google
search will also still uncover archived articles at other
publications. In addition to All About Jazz, his Musings in Cb
writings have been published by such worthy publications as Tag It
Publishing (New York), and syndicated by hundreds of other
publications and websites.
About the column... “Musings in Cb was started in 2001 and
began with writings that centered upon issues related mostly to the
impact of online music on the jazz scene. A lot has changed since
those early days - both, here at AAJ and in the field of music. I
still hope to contribute something in writing here on occasion, so
stay tuned...” ~ Peace, Cb
