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Dave Burrell: Pianist Navigating the Windward Passages
by Victor L. Schermer
Dave Burrell is a master pianist and composer who encountered the avant-garde in the 1960s and has been following his own independent path ever since. He combines classical and jazz elements that are both “inside" and “outside" the mainstream. The title of a poem by J.V. Cunningham, “The Metaphysical Amorist" characterizes much of his playing, which is “romantic" (amorous) in both the sense of that era in music history and the influence of the American Songbook, and yet penetrates the ...
Continue ReadingDave Burrell / Steve Swell: Turning Point
by John Sharpe
Although firmly associated with the avant-garde, pianist Dave Burrell often harkens back to pre-bop styles in his execution. On Turning Point he explicitly acknowledges such sources in his writing too. Perhaps that's appropriate in a sequence inspired by the American Civil War -what Burrell terms a war to end slavery. While composer in residence at Philadelphia's Rosenbach Museum where this recital was performed, Burrell researched the people and events of the conflict. The collection here is actually the third in ...
Continue ReadingDave Burrell at Rosenbach Museum
by Victor L. Schermer
Dave Burrell's Civil War Concerts Ode to a Prairie Lawyer Rosenbach Museum and Library Philadelphia, PA April 9, 2015 Dave Burrell is an iconic jazz pianist and composer with long time connections to the avant-garde. Ohio born and bred, he started performing in the 1960s and has been going strong ever since, pushing the envelope of jazz expression and piano technique, inspired by his collaborations with the likes of Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, ...
Continue ReadingDave Burrell / Steve Swell: Turning Point
by Glenn Astarita
Distinguished jazz and improvisation artists, pianist Dave Burrell and trombonist Steve Swell have crafted one of the most exciting and unique duo presentations I've heard in quite some time. The album moniker Turning Point is the third in a series of five suites honoring the individuals and events of the American Civil War. Here, Burrell ruminates upon Civil War era Americana, integrated with a progressive jazz flair amid lofty improvisational sequences and humbly stated melodic choruses via the artists' respective ...
Continue ReadingDave Burrell: Philadelphia, PA, January 18, 21 and 30, 2012
by Kurt Gottschalk
Dave BurrellThe Rosenbach Museum & Library and Philadelphia Arts Alliance Philadelphia, PAJanuary 18, 21 and 30, 2012 Dave Burrell is something of a renaissance jazzman. He recorded with drummer Sunny Murray and saxophonist Archie Shepp during the halcyon free jazz days of Paris in the late 1960s, and over the last four decades has returned every so often to that fiery, driving jazz. Yet he is also an enthusiastic advocate of the great pianists ...
Continue ReadingDave Burrell Trio: New York, NY, September 10, 2011
by Garrison Fewell
Dave Burrell TrioCrosscurrent 3 Festival Poisson RougeNew York, NYSeptember 10, 2011For its third annual edition, Crosscurrent moved the festival from its home in Botticino, Italy to New York City. Following the sonic delights of the Vision Festival in June, Crosscurrent 3 offered an additional array of creative music ensembles led by Wadada Leo Smith, Dave Burrell, Wayne Horvitz, Taylor Ho Bynum and Joe McPhee. Dave Burrell has long been a ...
Continue ReadingPharoah Sanders: Tauhid
by Chris May
Conventional wisdom has it that saxophonist Pharoah Sanders' signature, late-1960s astral jazz recording is “The Creator Has A Master Plan" from Karma (Impulse!, 1969). But conventional wisdom is rarely to be trusted. Clocking in at an unhurried and mesmerising 32:45, “Master Plan" is certainly definitive Sanders of the time; yet “Upper Egypt And Lower Egypt," from Sanders' own-name Impulse! debut, Tauhid, recorded in November, 1966, is arguably the finest statement in his astral oeuvre.At a relatively brief 16:16, ...
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