Kenny Burrell was born in Detroit and raised by his musical parents. It wasn’t long before he was playing in Detroit’s top jazz circles with Elvin Jones, Donald Byrd, Tommy Flanagan and Yusef Lateef. He began his recording career in the early 1950s, which has seen him play with a wide variety of musicians from John Coltrane and Billie Holiday to Gil Evans and Jimmy Smith. Burrell’s smoky, bluesy style has come to define a certain jazz sound, and he has used his extensive knowledge to further jazz education at UCLA.
