Dave Burrell

Born in Middletown, Ohio,[1] Burrell grew fond of jazz at a young age after meeting Herb Jeffries.[2] Burrell studied music at the University of Hawaii from 1958-60,[1] then, beginning in 1961, attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating with degrees in composition/arranging and performance in 1965.[3] While in Boston, he played with Tony Williams and Sam Rivers.[1]

In 1965, Burrell moved to New York City, where he worked and recorded with Grachan Moncur III, Marion Brown, and Pharoah Sanders.[2] He also started the Untraditional Jazz Improvisational Team with saxophonist Byard Lancaster, bassist Sirone, and drummer Bobby Kapp.[1] In 1968, Burrell co-founded The 360 Degree Music Experience with Grachan Moncur III and Beaver Harris[1] and recorded two albums with the group. The following year, Burrell began an association with Archie Shepp,[1] with whom he would play the 1969 Pan-African Festival in Algiers,[4] and with whom he would go on to record nearly twenty albums.

Burrell's first album as a leader was High Won-High Two (1968), produced by Alan Douglas. Echo and La Vie de Bohème were recorded for BYG Actuel in Paris in 1969. He recorded Round Midnight for Nippon Columbia.

In 1978 he composed a jazz opera entitled Windward Passages, in collaboration with Swedish poet and lyricist Monika Larsson, with an album of the same name, based on the opera, released in 1979 on Hathut in Switzerland. Their touring and recording collaborations resulted in Daybreak (1989), Brother to Brother (Gazell, 1992), In Concert (Victo, 1992), and Windward Passages (Black Saint, 1993). Burrell appears on Murray's DIW albums Lovers, Deep River, Ballads, Spirituals, Tenors, Remembrances, and Picasso, recorded between 1988 and 1993.

Burrell tours and performs as a soloist and as a leader of a duo, trio, and larger ensembles. He recorded for the High Two label from Philadelphia. His 2004 album Expansion (with bassist William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille) was acclaimed by NPR, Down Beat, Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Wire, and others. Splasc Records in Italy released a studio solo piano recording, Margy Pargy in 2005. In 2006, Burrell released Consequences (Amulet), a live duet set with drummer Billy Martin, and Momentum (High Two), featuring bassist Michael Formanek and drummer Guillermo E. Brown. RAI Trade, Italy, did a live recording of Burrell's and Larsson's collaborations, Dave Burrell Plays His Songs, featuring singer Leena Conquest, that was released in 2010.

• Official site
• Dave Burrell at AllMusic
• Consequences with Billy Martin