<p><embed src=/graphics/2006/11/30/kenny.swf align=left width=300 height=300 hspace=5 vspace=5><div class=fctc><strong><font color=blue>KENNY BURRELL'S 75TH</font></strong><hr><font size=1>Saturday, 8 p.m.<br>Royce Hall, $15</font></div>Those who think that jazz music died out alongside Ellington, Coltrane, Davis and Gillespie ought to take another look closer to home. <br/>No, not at the dusty vinyl that sits in crates in your mom and dad?s basement, but at the heart of the UCLA music department, where living musical legends continue to enliven the well-renowned jazz faculty. <br/>In order to celebrate the life and career of jazz icon Kenny Burrell, director of the UCLA jazz studies program, on Saturday, Dec. 2, UCLA Live presents an exclusive tribute concert to Burrell?s 75th birthday, his 50th year of recording and his 28th year as a professor at UCLA. <br/>The concert, which features performances by the Kenny Burrell Trio, the Gerald Wilson Orchestra, the Jazz Heritage All-Stars and a long list of guest performers including Pat Metheny, Russell Malone, Barbara Morrison, Hubert Laws and Jeff Clayton intends to celebrate Burrell?s continuing legacy. <br/>Burrell is not only the founder of jazz education at UCLA but also an innovative composer, band leader and one of the world?s most-recorded and most-respected jazz guitarists. <br/>Burrell, whose extensive discography already includes 99 albums under his own name including the critically acclaimed ?Guitar Forms,? ?Ellington is Forever? and ?Burrell and Coltrane,? plans to record the live concert on Saturday as his 100th album. <br/>It will cap off the over 300 other recordings he has played on as a sideman with nearly every influential artist in jazz history including Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole, Ray Charles and Louis Armstrong. <br/>?When you have a man of Kenny?s musical and personal integrity, who has recorded music for the past 50 years, whose next album ... will be his 100th, and who has accomplished as much as he has not only as a performer but as an educator and a prime mover in jazz ? if you have any feeling in your soul at all, you will want this to be just a grand celebration,? said former Los Angeles Lakers star Tommy Hawkins, who will serve as the master of ceremonies at the concert. <br/>The evening should be a grand celebration indeed, with Burrell performing a mix of new original music, past recordings and personal favorites including a few pieces by Duke Ellington. <br/>He will be joined by an array of burgeoning artists, such as the UCLA Jazz Orchestra as well as all-star performers including featured guitarists Russell Malone and Pat Metheny, both of whom who have been strongly influenced by Burrell?s style of bebop jazz. <br/>?I feel honored that I?ve had an influence on people who are so great and not only popular in jazz music, but popular, period,? Burrell said. <br/>?It?s really important to get appreciation from people in your own field, your peers ? that?s great. And then I?m going to be (on stage) with Gerald Wilson and his big band, and he?s influenced me a lot. We influence each other all the time,? he added with a laugh. <br/>Although Burrell?s largest influence is in the realm of jazz guitar, his lifetime achievements extend well beyond performance and recording. <br/>As a professor in the ethnomusicology department of UCLA for 28 years and as the founder of the Jazz Heritage Foundation and the Friends of Jazz at UCLA, Burrell continues to inspire a new generation of jazz artists while also demanding that the history of jazz never be forgotten. <br/>?He has, most obviously, influenced a whole generation of guitarists that have followed him, including myself and some of the guitarists that are performing,? said Charley Harrison, conductor of the UCLA Jazz Orchestra, which will be performing with Burrell at Saturday?s festivities. The orchestra will join several of the higher-profile performers. <br/>?I know surely he?s influenced Professor Malone and Anthony Wilson as well,? Harrison said. <br/>But some of Burrell?s greatest contributions have been as a teacher. <br/>?He taught a class called ?Ellingtonia? that focused on the life and contributions of Duke Ellington,? said Harrison. <br/>The class, which Burrell started at UCLA in 1978, is still taught by him today. <br/>?Kenny, in my experience, has helped to keep the contributions that Ellington made from being so easily forgotten,? Harrison added. <br/>Although Burrell believes jazz is about implementing both past and present influences, he emphasizes that jazz music continues to exist because it is constantly presenting something new. <br/>This will certainly be showcased Saturday night. <br/>?It can always be fresh and it should always be fresh. (It) turns the audience on because you don?t know what you?re going to get. The musicians don?t know either!? said the 75-year-old guitarist. ?That keeps the musicians young.? </p><br><br><a href='; target='_blank'>;