Burrell blends the antique and the modern with a naturalness recalling Earl Hines, Jaki Byard, Monk, and Sun Ra. Burrell evokes more than recreates early jazz styles, combining an avant-gardist’s love of density with a buoyant old-timey sense of rhythm.
-Kevin Whitehead
The first time I heard Dave Burrell was on the first BYG/Actuel album I ever bought, which I picked out based on the title alone.
The Album was la vie de bohême, an instrumental reinterpretation of Giacomo Puccini’s opera La Bohême.
I first heard of Puccini’s La Bohême in a kind of offhand way.
When I got out of the service, I lived in Carmel, California. My favorite Carmel restaurant was called La Bohême. After I’d been there a few times, I started to wonder what La Bohême meant.
As I looked around for information (this was per-internet 1980s), I discovered that La Bohême was an opera based on Henry Murger’s “novel” Scenes de la vie de bohême:
Murger is barely remembered today, but Scenes de la vie de bohême (Scenes of the Bohemian Life) is one of the most culturally influential works of all time and popularized the idea of the Bohemians: the rebellious and indifferent young starving artists living on the left bank of Paris.
So later, when I saw this Burrell album in a record store, I bought it. Although I would go on to buy nearly the entire BYG/Actuel jazz catalog, it still amazes me that the first would end up as my favorite.
Here is the terrific First Act from Burrell’s la vie de bohême.
This is a masterpiece and one of BYG/Actuel’s best.
The BYG/Actuel label would become famous for recording a dozen albums in Paris in 1969 between August 11 and 17. In the wake of the Pan-African Cultural Festival that took place a few weeks earlier in Algiers, these BYG/Actuel recordings have now become free jazz and cult classics.
The 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers was a ten-day extravaganza to celebrate post-colonial African nations and a call for liberation for the rest of the continent. This historic festival brought the global spotlight to African culture and arts.
The event saw poets, photographers, and musicians from 31 countries commingling with activists like Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers and Stokely Carmichael of the Black Power movement. The festivities also included a book release party for Cleaver, who had just written Soul on Ice.
The U.S. State Department sent over to the festival a jazz group led by saxophonist Archie Shepp that included pianist Dave Burrell. They were joined by trombonist Grachan Moncur III, cornetist Clifford Thornton, bassist Alan Silva, drummer Sunny Murray, and poet Don L. Lee.
Photographer and jazz buff Jacques Bisceglia was among those intoxicated by the scene in Algiers. Bisceglia shot material for Actuel, a French monthly magazine founded in 1967 devoted to avant-garde jazz and alternative music, which had just been bought by still-fledgling record label BYG. Along with Claude Delcloo, the founder and editor of Actuel and sometimes jazz drummer, Bisceglia convinced the two remaining BYG owners, Jean-Luc Young, and Jean Georgakarkos, that the label could make a huge impact by taking these festival performers from the stages of Algiers into the recording studios of Paris. The Shepp band agreed and met up in Paris with other American jazz expats to discuss options.
According to Alan Silva, “Jacques had convinced (BYG) that it was a great time to build the label, and offered contracts to us, Archie was under contract to Impulse already, so I don’t know how his deal went. But we all signed contracts with BYG – me, Sonny Murray, Dave Burrell, I think Andrew Cyrille – and then agreed to play on each other’s records (for no extra charge) so each of us could do our own thing.”
These recording sessions have been called the greatest week in avant-garde jazz history. In 2008, Burrell explained that “we were so high off of the experience of playing in Algeria that Paris seemed like dessert after the main course. It was like going to a big party every morning. Who are you going to record with today?”
On August 11, the first day of this legendary week in Paris, Dave Burrell recorded with Grachan Moncur III on his album New Africa.
From that album, here is the groovy When, with Roscoe Mitchell on alto, and Archie Shepp on tenor:
I like how after over 10 minutes of chant rhythm Burrell finally gets to stretch out on piano just a little near the end of the song.
On August 13, Dave Burrell recorded Echo. This album is commonly praised as a landmark free jazz album; however, when my wife hears it she says, “It’s time to get out the rosary.” On some level, I have to agree with her….
Three days later, Burrell recorded on Archie Shepp’s Blasé.
Here’s the great title track with Shepp joined by Jeanne Lee on vocals, Malachi Favors on bass, and Philly Joe Jones on drums.
Whether playing solo piano or in a group, Dave Burrell is equally at home and brilliant. I completely agree with this assessment by jazz critic Thom Jurek:
There is only one other pianist in Dave Burrell's class, and that is Misha Mengelberg. Burrell is so thoroughly a pianist, composer, and improviser that the three are inseparable in him, whether he is playing one of his own tunes; a stride blues boogie by Fats Waller, Albert Ammons, or Meade "Lux" Lewis; or spontaneously composing (as Mengelberg has termed it); or all three rolled into one.
In 1979, while living in Hawaii, Burrell wrote a forty-one-song jazz opera called Windward Passages. The opera barely has seen production, but the forty-one songs have become staples of his recording and performing career. For example, his Windward Passages album, initially released by Hat Hut Records in 1980, features eleven of the opera’s forty-one songs. This vastly underrated album is a real masterpiece in solo piano.
It’s difficult to single out just a couple of songs from Burrell’s sweeping Windward Passages, but I’ll go with Overture and Teardrops for Jimmy. Both were recorded live at Foyer Stadttheater in Basel, Switzerland in September 1980.
Here is Overture:
I find this song fascinating, as it covers a lot of musical styles.
In this interesting short video, Burrell talks about another song on this album, which he wrote for Jimmy Garrison: Teardrops for Jimmy:
Here is Teardrops for Jimmy:
In the late 1980s, Dave Burrell recorded a large number of excellent albums with David Murray, mostly on the DIW label. One of my favorites is Ballads. Earlier in our journey, we explored the waters on David Murray, and you can read more about him here:
Ballads was recorded in January 1988 in New York City and released in 1990. From the album, here is Burrell’s tune Lady in Black:
Windward Passages, a wonderful duo album with David Murray, was recorded on December 8, 1993, at Mu Rec Studio in Milano and released in 1997 by the Italian Black Saint label. Oddly, the album was misnamed by the record company and according to Burrell has no relation to his jazz opera of the same name mentioned above.
From that album, here is a nice version of Jelly Roll Morton’s The Crave:
Interestingly, while many jazz musicians move over time from “inside” to “outside” or from traditional to free jazz, like John Coltrane for example, Burrell played “outside” before he played “inside”. In fact, it wasn’t until the late 1980s that he discovered the music of Jelly Roll Morton.
After recording his Windward Passages tunes with David Murray, Burrell had an idea. He recalls, “So I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I brought opera people and jazz people together in a cabaret-style jazz opera!” In 2006, when he became the composer-in-residence at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, he was finally able to pursue this dream.
In 2010, Burrell began his unique five-year American Civil War project inspired by his study of the Rosenbach’s Civil War documents and photos. The project is now being developed into a full-length suite: From Emancipation to Assassination. Not everyone is able to get their works played on the grandest levels, like Wayne Shorter and Terrance Blanchard; however, that doesn’t make their work any less valuable. Dave Burrell’s work is clearly in that category.
Here’s one more for the road. As part of his American Civil War project, in 2011 Burrell composed the cabaret opera Civilians During Wartime. It included six compositions: Legends of Auction Block Runaways; Have You Seen My Son; Three Way Tie; One Nation; Mama I'm Still Hungry; and Code Name: Cheap Shot.
In this short October 2011 video, Burrell explains his wonderful composition Mama I’m Still Hungry.
Here is a video of Burrell’s January 2011 Civilians During Wartime cabaret opera performed at the Rosenbach Museum and Library. At the 35:40 minute mark, you can hear Burrell and violinist Odessa Balan in a stunning performance of Mama I’m Still Hungry. I find the beginning has a distinctly Debussy or Satie feel:
Dave Burrell is a true American treasure. I hope that in due time we’ll hear more about him, but it seems to me that it’s taking time for the world to catch on. In the mean time, I hear you Dave.
Next week on that Big River called Jazz, we’ll dig our paddles in to explore the very slim but deep waters of Grachan Moncur III.
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Until then, keep on walking….