Midnight Blue

Kenny Burrell (electric guitar), Major Holley (double bass) Bill English (drums) and Ray Barretto (congas). From the album Midnight Blue (1963).

In 1956, Kenny Burrell recorded his first album as a leader Introducing Kenny Burrell and from 1957 to 1959 worked on Benny Goodman’s big band. Since then, Burrell has had a fruitful career recording many albums, mainly for Blue Note Records, including The Cats with John Coltrane in 1957, Midnight Blue with Stanley Turrentine in 1963 and Guitar Forms with arrangements by Gil Evans in 1965. He has also played with orchestras, such as the Detroit Symphony and the Buffalo Philarmonic.

From 1971 onwards he began to give seminars, including a special course on the life and work of Duke Ellington, of which he was his favorite guitarist, called "Ellingtonia". During the years 1980, 1990 and 2000 he has continued playing, recording and teaching. He is founder and director of the Jazz Studies Program at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), where he is a professor of music and ethnomusicology, and president emeritus of the Jazz Heritage Foundation.

After a small introduction, Burrell exposes the theme, which has a care-free and easy feel. He continues making a friendly solo that invites you to forget about your problems and to enjoy it, then plays perfectly placing each chords in its place, and continues to develop an agile and lively melodic line until he re-exposes the theme, always impeccably accompanied by the rhythm section.