Kenny Burrell Quartet at Catalina Jazz Club

It was the ultimate birthday present. As guitar master Kenny Burrell contemplated turning 75 last year, he got word that two of the West Coast’s premiere jazz presenters had come together to throw him the birthday bash of a lifetime. In Oakland, Yoshi’s artistic director Peter Williams booked Burrell’s quintet for a five-night run with Hammond B3 maestro Joey DeFrancesco and flute virtuoso Hubert Laws as special guests, a gig culminating with a historic meeting between Burrell and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra on the guitarist’s actual birthday, July 31. Down the coast in Santa Cruz, Monterey Jazz Festival director Tim Jackson had conspired to bring Burrell and Wilson together the following night at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center by applying for an NEA grant, a particularly apt source of support considering that both men have been named NEA Jazz Masters, the nation’s highest jazz honor....

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It was the ultimate birthday present. As guitar master Kenny Burrell contemplated turning 75 last year, he got word that two of the West Coast’s premiere jazz presenters had come together to throw him the birthday bash of a lifetime. In Oakland, Yoshi’s artistic director Peter Williams booked Burrell’s quintet for a five-night run with Hammond B3 maestro Joey DeFrancesco and flute virtuoso Hubert Laws as special guests, a gig culminating with a historic meeting between Burrell and the Gerald Wilson Orchestra on the guitarist’s actual birthday, July 31. Down the coast in Santa Cruz, Monterey Jazz Festival director Tim Jackson had conspired to bring Burrell and Wilson together the following night at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center by applying for an NEA grant, a particularly apt source of support considering that both men have been named NEA Jazz Masters, the nation’s highest jazz honor.

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