Dave Burrell

Dave Burrell website

This jazz opera, composed more than 40 years ago, confirms the importance of the collaboration of the written/improvised fully noted work, achieved by the world renowned African American artist, Dave Burrell and his wife and also librettist, Monika Larsson.
Windward Passages is a socio-economic portrayal of the maturation of a young African-American man and his local friends in rural Hawaii while the island paradise is becoming the 50th State of the United States of America in 1959.
The orchestra is composed by 16 musicians.

• audio •

Dave Burrell Chicago Trio (25-1-2020)

Dave Burrell' Db3 / Broken Promise

Dave Burrell Solo Piano / Punaloo Peter

David Murray with Dave Burrell Windward Passages

The 360 Degree Music Experience In:Sanity

• video •

Archie Shepp Quintet "Live in Montreaux" (18-7-1975)

Dave Burrell & Michael Formanek "Astoria Rag"

Dave Burrell Trio in Montreal with William Parker and Michael Wimberly

Micheal Harrison interviews Dave Burrell on William Parker's The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield

Dave Burrell plays free improv at Rashied Ali Memorial at the Clef Club, Philadelphia

Dave Burrell at Argentine Tango School, Philadelphia on 10/27/2022

• biography •

Distinguished composer-pianist Dave Burrell is a performing artist of singular stature on the international contemporary music scene. His dynamic compositions, with blues and gospel roots recall the tradition of Jelly Roll Morton, James P. Johnson and Duke Ellington, as well avant garde composers Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. After majoring in music at the University of Hawaii, he enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts in 1961. After graduating with degrees in composition/arranging and performance in 1965, he moved to New York City, where he quickly established himself as one of the most innovative and original pianists, collaborating with the emerging leaders in contemporary jazz, joining the groups of tenor saxophonists Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp.

Burrell's Jazz Opera Windward Passages, written in collaboration with Swedish-born poet/lyricist Monika Larsson, blends opera voices with world class jazz instrumentalists, a 21-piece jazz opera orchestra, dancers and chorus. Seldom has the classically trained voice played such a unique improvising roll as in this important, ground-breaking endeavor. Burrell's dance drama, Holy Smoke, with blue-print by Monika Larsson, is being developed for contemporary dance. La Vie de Boheme, Burrell's arrangement of Giacomo Puccini's La Boheme, recorded on BYG Records, France in 1969, was presented at the Bordeaux Jazz Festival in France in 2008.

Dave Burrell appears regularly on national and international radio broadcasts, including NPR's Bi-Centennial Tribute to Jelly Roll Morton, Dr. Jazz; Duke Ellington's Centennial Duke and the Piano; Louis Armstrong's The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong, and Leonard Bernstein: An American Life. Dave Burrell was recently featured on NPR's nationally syndicated show Fresh Air, hosted by Terry Gross. Burrell performed the music of Jelly Roll Morton solo piano The Lomax Legacy: Folklore in a Globalizing Century symposium, along with jazz author and scholar John Szwed, presented by American Folk Life Center at the Library of Congress and at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage, Washington, D.C. In 2009, RAI, Italy aired "Dave Burrell Plays His Songs featuring singer Leena Conquest and lyricist Monika Larsson" on internet radio.

Upcoming 2009 performances include solo piano at Le Mans Jazz Festival and the Berlin-Brandenburg Jazz Festival. Duo performances with Leena Conquest, Catanzaro, Italy and a 4 days (8 shows) with Archie Shepp at Duc des Lombardes, Paris6, Dave Burrell Trio w/William Parker and Nasheet Waits at Casa di Popolo Jazz Festival, Montreal. Dave will join the The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield ensemble for 3 concerts in Porto, Portugal, Warsaw, Poland and Zagreb, Croatia in 2009.

As a musician in-residence at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Dave Burrell was commissioned to write music for "Look Again" - African-American History is American History - in 2007: Bill of Sale for a Slave.
His second commission at the Rosenbach, Syllables of the Poetry of Marianne Moore, in duet with bassist Michael Formanek, premiered in February, 2008. His third commission at the museum, Western Extention of the United States of America (1811 - Astoria), will premiere in duo with bassist Michael Formanek on September 9, 2009.

Burrell wrote an original score to Oscar Micheaux's silent black and white film Body and Soul (1925). Some of the music is featured on Burrell's Db3's CD Momentum (High Two Records , 2006). Amulet Records released Consequences (2007) featuring Dave Burrell and percussionist Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin and Wood). Burrell's project, Dave Burrell Plays the Burrell/Larsson Songbook, featuring jazz singer Leena Conquest continues to tour in Europe including Italy, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic and France. RAI Trade, Italy is releasing a CD, a duo recording with Dave and Leena in 2009.

During the last 30 years Dave Burrell has appeared on over 115 recordings, 30 under his own name, (High, High Two, Echo, La Vie de Boheme, After Love, In-Sanity, Only Me, Dreams, Black Spring, Lush Life, Round Midnight, Teardrops for Jimmy, Windward Passages, Daybreak, Brother to Brother, In Concert, Jelly Roll Joys, Esquisses for a Walk, Live at Caramoor, Changes and Chanses, Recital, Expansion, Consequences, Margy Pargy, and Momentum)

Dave Burrell is renowned for his pivotal recordings with tenor saxophonists Archie Shepp: Live from Pan-African Festival, There is a Trumpet in My Soul, Blase, Kwanza, Attica Blues, Cry of My People, Montreaux One, Montreaux Two, Lover Man, Pharoah Sanders: Tauhid, Marion Brown: Jubalee, Three For Shepp, Live in Japan, David Murray : Hope Scope, Lovers, Deep River, Ballads, Spirituals, Remembrances, Lucky Four, Picasso, Windward Passages). Other important recordings are 360 Degree Music Experience: From Ragtime to No Time, In:sanity, Grachan Moncur: New Africa, Sunny Murray: Homage to Africa, Bob Stewart: Here and Now, and most recently William Parker: The Inside Songs of Curtis Mayfield.

A frequent lecturer, Burrell's Master Classes include Strasbourg Conservatory, Tremblay Conservatory (Paris), Conservatoire Municipal (Paris), Guildhall School of Music and Dance (London), New York University, Queens College, University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, Duquesne University School of Music, Pennsylvania, Bard College, New York, Brandeis University, Massachusetts, Rice University, Houston, Texas, DePauw University, Indiana, Columbia University, New York City and Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Recent commissions include Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, and Whitney Museum, New York City.

Dave Burrell is the recipient of numerous grants and awards including National Endowment for the Arts, Philadelphia Music Foundation, William J. Cooper Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts, MidAtlantic Foundation, John Garcia Gensel Award, and the Pew Fellowship in Jazz Composition.

Dave Burrell joined the Steinway Artist Roster (www.steinway.com) in 2007.

Update version at Dave Burrell's website

• texts and interviews •

Quotes at Dave Burrell's website

Dave Burrell talks and plays

Interview with Clifford Allen - July 15th, 2004

From Ragtime to No Time - interview with David Grundy - December 3rd, 2021

Listening to Lincoln: Dave Burrell's Civil War Concerts "An ear-opening musical evocation of a Civil War massacre" by Victor L. Schermer

• discography •

Complete Discography as a leader