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Jazz Guitar Legend Kenny Burrell Set to Launch Jazz Studies Program at UCLA

Carolyn Campbell (ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu) (310) 825-6540
For Immediate Use Monday, September 30, 1996.

Legendary jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell has been named director of UCLA’s Jazz Studies Program, which is commencing this fall quarter.

Burrell’s reputation not only as a jazz guitarist, but also as a composer and recording artist, precedes his appointment. As an international performer, Burrell has appeared in formats ranging from solo, combos and big bands to choral groups and symphony orchestras. He has collaborated with jazz and blues figures including Tony Bennett, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington (about whom Burrell has taught a course since 1978 as a UCLA visiting professor), Gil Evans, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Milt Jackson, Quincy Jones, B.B. King and Oscar Peterson. He recently was named the No. 1 guitarist -- for the second time -- by the Jazz Times International Readers Poll.

As part of the curriculum for UCLA’s jazz program, Burrell hopes to have some of the best jazz musicians now playing take part as guest artists with student ensembles, as teachers of master classes and as faculty with whom he might, for example, teach a jazz combo series. He also is developing a jazz theory and improvisation class.

Rounding out the Jazz Studies Program will be three-time Grammy nominee Gerald Wilson, who teaches a class at UCLA on the development of jazz. Professor Steve Loza, an expert in Latin jazz and world music, also will contribute. Assistant Professor Cheryl Keyes will present a course on women in jazz, and a history of jazz course will be taught by Associate Professor Robert Walser. Others who will work with the program are saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Billy Childs, trumpeter Oscar Brashear, trombonist and arranger Garnett Brown, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist and composer Roberto Miranda, and multi-instrumentalist and composer Tom Ranier, and vocalists Barbara Morrison and Ruth Price.

The Jazz Studies Program will include lectures, private lessons, combo classes, big band ensembles, and jazz theory and improvisation classes. There will be seminars and workshops given by visiting guest artists such as Herbie Hancock, who will come to UCLA as a Regents lecturer in ethnomusicology in early 1997.

Burrell stresses that jazz students will get a well-rounded education -- a strong academic foundation and a good education in music. "Upon graduating, our students will be prepared to enter a diverse range of activities, careers and graduate study in jazz performance, composition, arranging, research and teaching," he said. "This is about American culture and it’s about us, the people, taking a more serious look at our own culture. I’m glad that UCLA is taking the lead on it."

Burrell has been appointed a full professor in both the Department of Music and the Department of Ethnomusicology.

On Nov. 8 at 8 p.m., Kenny Burrell will perform with the UCLA Jazz Ensembles under the direction of three-time Grammy nominee Gerald Wilson at Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA campus. Admission is free. On-campus parking is $5.

One phone number. Lots of entertainment options. The UCLA Arts Line.

Call (310) UCLA-ART.



-UCLA- CCCE397

Contact: Carolyn Campbell
Phone: (310) 825-6540
Email: ccampbel@arts.ucla.edu