Ken Burns
Position: bass
Occupation:
Trombone:
King 7B (Bass)
Yamaha (Tenor)
Groups:
* Tommy Banks Orchestra
* Grant MacEwan Outreach Band
* River City Big Band (current)
* Cosmopolitan Music Society Monday Band (current)
* Trocadero Orchestra (current)
* Ritchie Trombone Choir (current)
Teachers:
Ken Read
Single lessons with
* Dick Erb (New Orleans)
* John Engelkes (San Francisco)
* Edward Kleinhammer (Chicago- yes, THAT Edward Kleinhammer! An unforgettable 3 hour session!)
Influences:
Roy Williams (a great British jazz trombonist); Al Grey; Dennis Wick and Frank Matheson from the LSO of the late 1960s; Stan Tracey (an innovative British jazz pianist); Eric Clapton; any musician who moves me – in Edmonton that would include PJ Perry, Chris Andrew, Tommy Banks, Bob Tildesley.
Bio:
I’ve been playing trombone since 1958 when I joined the Walthamstow Borough Silver Band in London (England) as a complete beginner. I played in my school orchestra, after deciphering bass clef – British brass band parts were in treble clef then and that was all I knew – and later joined the first of many big bands that rehearsed and played in various pubs in and around London. I also played 2nd trombone in the Forest Philharmonic Orchestra, a largely amateur but very good orchestra. During my time with them we played “Heldenleben”, “Don Juan”, “The Planets”, symphonies by Brahms, Dvorak, and Martinu, “The Damnation of Faust” and Symphonie Fantastique”, and much more great repertoire.
Between the mid-sixties and mid-seventies I was at concerts, operas, etc. at least twice a week, regularly hearing the five great London orchestras (including André Previn’s London début, Leonard Bernstein conducting Mahler 8, and Barbirolli and Boult conducting Elgar and Vaughan Williams), as well as the Berlin Phil under Herbert Van Karajan and the Vienna Phil under George Solti. I also heard Birgit Nilsson in “Elektra” at Covent Garden, Placido Domingo’s first appearance there (in “Tosca”), and most of the Janacek operas at Sadler’s Wells. The bands of Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Woody Herman, and Stan Kenton made regular appearances in London, as did Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, and Sarah Vaughn, and I saw them all. I was just a musical sponge, soaking everything up!
Since coming to Edmonton in 1982 I’ve played in a variety of groups with such great musicians as Bob Stroup, John McPherson, Chris Taylor, Neil Corlett, Harry Pinchin, Tommy Banks, and PJ Perry, and feel very fortunate to be a small part of such a rich and exceptionally talented musical community.