Liz Beggs / lbeggs@miconews.comChris Burnett plays for the Drum Room audience April 7 in Kansas City, Mo. His quartet includes drummer Michael Shanks, guitarist Will Matthews and bassist James Ward.
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With the soul of a saxophone and the sound of a man
By: Liz Beggs, lbeggs@miconews.com
As he soulfully massages his alto saxophone keys, the Paola native talks with the crowd in the Drum Room.
He doesn't mention the weather or share typical pleasantries, rather, he communicates in a language of lines and melodies, improvisations and chord changes over standardized progression sequences.
For more than 30 years, Chris Burnett has worked to develop his own language, his own sound. A musician's sound can't be borrowed or stolen, but rather expanded and created anew.
Music — jazz — is all about creativity, Burnett said.
“I've been studying this music all my life and after you learn how to play, you have to express your own opinions musically — not necessarily your teacher's or your mentor's or the people you admire,” he said.
Much like a writer needs to find his own voice, a musician must develop a sound that communicates the song's meaning to the audience.
“That's our goal as individual musicians, not to be different just to be different, but to create what is uniquely your own and personal, because we're all different individuals, and we all have something different to say,” he said.
Burnett's language comes from a 22-year stint in the U.S. Army as a professional saxophone player, where he was awarded the Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal and two Army Meritorious Service Medals while traveling worldwide through countries, such as Germany and Italy.
But after years of playing in the Army, and a successful teaching and composing career, Burnett said he learned that it's important to connect with the audience.
“I really want to include listeners in what I'm doing,” he said.
Burnett's quartet, which most recently featured pianist Will Crain, Count Basie Orchestra guitarist Will Matthews, double bassist James Ward and drummer Michael Shanks, treats Drum Room patrons to a progressive form of acoustic jazz the first Saturday of every month.
“We're not playing the standard riffs and background things that you hear a lot of people play, but it isn't so modern that we alienate listeners,” he said.
Burnett and his quartet, who perform but never practice together, hope to record their music later this year, and the Drum Room venue provides the perfect spot for the group to develop its ensemble sound, he said.
“We have to have the spontaneity — the interaction — and if musicians of this caliber are able to interact in that kind of way you get more of a vibrant performance rather than something that is sterile, generic,” Burnett said.
And it's an attitude that he's sold to the rest of the members of the quartet.
“Chris's ideal is that everybody plays the way they play,” Shanks said. “We're trying to work on a more organic approach to playing the originals.”
Rehearsing with the group can kill an authenticity that is so important for jazz, Burnett said.
After the group solidifies its ensemble sound, it plans to concentrate on Burnett's original compositions.
“Chris's compositions are amazing,” Shanks said.
In 1995, Burnett won the Five-Star Award of Merit for the National Federation of Music Clubs and currently composes pieces for events, such as the Belle for the American Royal.
The quartet plays at venues, such as the Drum Room, but also performs at concerts and events.
In fact, the quartet debuted with a performance at the Paola Roots Festival in 2002.
When he is not playing with the quartet, he entertains at private events and records his own music on the ASR Record label, he said.
TEACHER AND STUDENT
When Burnett came back to the Kansas City metro area in 2001, he made three initial stops. He dropped off a resume at the local music store, set himself up to teach music lessons and met with Ahmad Alaadeen, a local jazz musician and owner of ASR records.
Burnett spent hours searching the Internet for a man like Alaadeen, an accomplished musician with his own sound and confident enough to become a mentor for an older student.
“I wanted to find somebody I could study with, and when I heard his music, I knew immediately. I said 'Yeah, I got to find this guy,'” he said.
As an older musician with an extensive resume, Burnett wanted to keep improving his art but knew it would be hard to find a mentor.
“Most teachers would not take me as a student,” he said, but “(Alaadeen) was not intimidated. He knew where I was at.”
Burnett has been studying with Alaadeen since his return, but the partnership has expanded since their initial meeting.
Burnett now manages the label for Alaadeen, and the company's been expanding since 2002, he said.
“The quality of the music on our label is as good as anything out there,” he said.
The label has developed a new Web site, which is set to launch at the end of May or the beginning of June, he said.
“All of our artists are on iTunes and Rhapsody right now, but what we're doing with the store is we're adding the physical CD-distribution to that, and that's going to put us on par with any label — the huge labels and the not-so-huge labels — that are legitimately distributed,” he said.
But the best part of the label, Burnett said, is that it gives artists a cost-effective outlet to release their music.
“It's not going to cost them the rights to their music to be able to put out CDs,” he said.
Once the Web site gets up and running in a few months, Burnett plans to add to his musical recordings, which includes his CD “Time Flies” and record three CDs, including the disc with his quartet.
Locally, Burnett has performed at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Kansas City with Maynard Ferguson, the fourth annual Jazz and Wine Festival in Excelsior Springs, Mo., and he hosted the Blue Monday Jam at Kansas City's infamous Blue Room in 2004.
But before he was a teacher, recording artist and known worldwide as an entertainer, Burnett worked at Funk's Music Center in Paola after school and on Saturdays.
In fact, Funk's indirectly led him to the U.S. Army.
Going through boxes one day at work, Burnett found a flier advertising for the Army band. Unaware that the Army had a band, Burnett put the flier in his pocket and forgot about it. Later, when his mom sorted through his clothes to prepare them for the laundry, she found the flier.
Burnett called the number on the paper and went up to Leavenworth to audition for the band — and made it.
Until then, area musicians tutored Burnett, including Paola High School's former band director James Fuchs. As part of his teaching, Fuchs exposed Burnett to professional saxophone players, such as Charles Molina of Paola and Gary Foster.
“That's one of the main reasons I teach lessons and interact with the young people because of what happened with me and Mr. Fuchs and Mr. Molina,” he said.
Even though both Fuchs and Molina inspired Burnett, his family wasn't exactly void of talent.
Burnett's brother Richie Pratt spent 25 years in New York City as a first-call percussionist and worked on Broadway, in film and ballets, played with Lionel Hampton and the New York Jazz Quartet a recorded a lot of music, Burnett said.
“He's very encouraging to me, and I really appreciate that,” he said. “When he heard that I was a musician as well, we had a bond, and he's always been a mentor.”
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He doesn't mention the weather or share typical pleasantries, rather, he communicates in a language of lines and melodies, improvisations and chord changes over standardized progression sequences.
For more than 30 years, Chris Burnett has worked to develop his own language, his own sound. A musician's sound can't be borrowed or stolen, but rather expanded and created anew.
Music — jazz — is all about creativity, Burnett said.
“I've been studying this music all my life and after you learn how to play, you have to express your own opinions musically — not necessarily your teacher's or your mentor's or the people you admire,” he said.
Much like a writer needs to find his own voice, a musician must develop a sound that communicates the song's meaning to the audience.
“That's our goal as individual musicians, not to be different just to be different, but to create what is uniquely your own and personal, because we're all different individuals, and we all have something different to say,” he said.
Burnett's language comes from a 22-year stint in the U.S. Army as a professional saxophone player, where he was awarded the Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal and two Army Meritorious Service Medals while traveling worldwide through countries, such as Germany and Italy.
But after years of playing in the Army, and a successful teaching and composing career, Burnett said he learned that it's important to connect with the audience.
“I really want to include listeners in what I'm doing,” he said.
Burnett's quartet, which most recently featured pianist Will Crain, Count Basie Orchestra guitarist Will Matthews, double bassist James Ward and drummer Michael Shanks, treats Drum Room patrons to a progressive form of acoustic jazz the first Saturday of every month.
“We're not playing the standard riffs and background things that you hear a lot of people play, but it isn't so modern that we alienate listeners,” he said.
Burnett and his quartet, who perform but never practice together, hope to record their music later this year, and the Drum Room venue provides the perfect spot for the group to develop its ensemble sound, he said.
“We have to have the spontaneity — the interaction — and if musicians of this caliber are able to interact in that kind of way you get more of a vibrant performance rather than something that is sterile, generic,” Burnett said.
And it's an attitude that he's sold to the rest of the members of the quartet.
“Chris's ideal is that everybody plays the way they play,” Shanks said. “We're trying to work on a more organic approach to playing the originals.”
Rehearsing with the group can kill an authenticity that is so important for jazz, Burnett said.
After the group solidifies its ensemble sound, it plans to concentrate on Burnett's original compositions.
“Chris's compositions are amazing,” Shanks said.
In 1995, Burnett won the Five-Star Award of Merit for the National Federation of Music Clubs and currently composes pieces for events, such as the Belle for the American Royal.
The quartet plays at venues, such as the Drum Room, but also performs at concerts and events.
In fact, the quartet debuted with a performance at the Paola Roots Festival in 2002.
When he is not playing with the quartet, he entertains at private events and records his own music on the ASR Record label, he said.
TEACHER AND STUDENT
When Burnett came back to the Kansas City metro area in 2001, he made three initial stops. He dropped off a resume at the local music store, set himself up to teach music lessons and met with Ahmad Alaadeen, a local jazz musician and owner of ASR records.
Burnett spent hours searching the Internet for a man like Alaadeen, an accomplished musician with his own sound and confident enough to become a mentor for an older student.
“I wanted to find somebody I could study with, and when I heard his music, I knew immediately. I said 'Yeah, I got to find this guy,'” he said.
As an older musician with an extensive resume, Burnett wanted to keep improving his art but knew it would be hard to find a mentor.
“Most teachers would not take me as a student,” he said, but “(Alaadeen) was not intimidated. He knew where I was at.”
Burnett has been studying with Alaadeen since his return, but the partnership has expanded since their initial meeting.
Burnett now manages the label for Alaadeen, and the company's been expanding since 2002, he said.
“The quality of the music on our label is as good as anything out there,” he said.
The label has developed a new Web site, which is set to launch at the end of May or the beginning of June, he said.
“All of our artists are on iTunes and Rhapsody right now, but what we're doing with the store is we're adding the physical CD-distribution to that, and that's going to put us on par with any label — the huge labels and the not-so-huge labels — that are legitimately distributed,” he said.
But the best part of the label, Burnett said, is that it gives artists a cost-effective outlet to release their music.
“It's not going to cost them the rights to their music to be able to put out CDs,” he said.
Once the Web site gets up and running in a few months, Burnett plans to add to his musical recordings, which includes his CD “Time Flies” and record three CDs, including the disc with his quartet.
Locally, Burnett has performed at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Kansas City with Maynard Ferguson, the fourth annual Jazz and Wine Festival in Excelsior Springs, Mo., and he hosted the Blue Monday Jam at Kansas City's infamous Blue Room in 2004.
But before he was a teacher, recording artist and known worldwide as an entertainer, Burnett worked at Funk's Music Center in Paola after school and on Saturdays.
In fact, Funk's indirectly led him to the U.S. Army.
Going through boxes one day at work, Burnett found a flier advertising for the Army band. Unaware that the Army had a band, Burnett put the flier in his pocket and forgot about it. Later, when his mom sorted through his clothes to prepare them for the laundry, she found the flier.
Burnett called the number on the paper and went up to Leavenworth to audition for the band — and made it.
Until then, area musicians tutored Burnett, including Paola High School's former band director James Fuchs. As part of his teaching, Fuchs exposed Burnett to professional saxophone players, such as Charles Molina of Paola and Gary Foster.
“That's one of the main reasons I teach lessons and interact with the young people because of what happened with me and Mr. Fuchs and Mr. Molina,” he said.
Even though both Fuchs and Molina inspired Burnett, his family wasn't exactly void of talent.
Burnett's brother Richie Pratt spent 25 years in New York City as a first-call percussionist and worked on Broadway, in film and ballets, played with Lionel Hampton and the New York Jazz Quartet a recorded a lot of music, Burnett said.
“He's very encouraging to me, and I really appreciate that,” he said. “When he heard that I was a musician as well, we had a bond, and he's always been a mentor.”