Mule

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

Kenny Burrell is an internationally recognized American jazz guitarist and composer. He has a sober and melodic style based on blues and bebop and is a teacher that many jazz guitarists learn from even today. He started playing guitar at the age of 12 and his influences include Charlie Christian, Oscar Moore, Django Reinhardt, Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker. In 1951, while still studying music at Wayne State University, he made his first recording with Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet.

In 1955 he graduated, toured for six-months with Oscar Peterson’s trio and in 1956 he moved to New York with Tommy Flanagan. There they became highly sought after musicians, playing with Tony Bennett and Lena Horne, and recording with John Coltrane, Gene Ammons, Jimmy Smith, Kenny Dorham and Billie Holiday, among others.

Burrel plays a basic blues with Holley and then English joins. The three of them make a perfect combination. Then Holley starts playing walking and Burrell makes a melodic and spontaneous solo. He is followed by Turrentine at medium-slow tempo with passion, but then calms down using well chosen phrases. After that, Burrell reappears playing a poetic and inspired statement, and then stays alone again with Holley to re-expose the theme.