guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story

Subject: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:49 PM

This is the first I have heard of this story,
but the news first broke in May.
Anybody else hear about this?

The Washington Post, to which I can never make a link properly,
has published an update report
and the situation remains controversial.




Kenny Burrell's wife appeals for fundraising

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 09:11 PM

Strange story. And another good reason why Homeowners Associations like that are a crime and should never be allowed. #TaxationWithoutRepresentation

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 10:41 PM

There is a much more detailed story in the WaPo which I can't seem link to. As a long time KB fan and a senior citizen I hope there's a good outcome for Mr. Burrell, he was such an elegant guitar player.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 01:04 AM

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/15/723183103/facing-homelessness-and-crushing-medical-debt-a-renowned-jazz-guitarist-reaches-

Sorry 'bout that.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 11:35 AM

The fundraising effort referenced in this story
can be seen

at this GoFundMe page.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 11:43 AM

... my apologies -- I just now found this online,
I guess it is a week old but I missed it.


statement from Kenny Burrell

---

These last two posts went up when the main mudcat site was down. Just because you COULD, didn't mean you should. Please save your posts until they can go up through the main portal. Thank you. ----mudelf

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:50 PM

Note: 3 of my devices said mudcat was down, but one of my mobile phones automatically opened "[xyz]"...

It would continue to successfully link to [xyz],
even though the others connecting to internet on the same broadband router
would not...???

Just mentioning this for notice of Admin techs...

---

You should tell your device to "forget" that URL. It's a huge strain on the server to use it for posting. Thanks.

Name changed to protect the innocent database.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:52 PM

btw..it wasn't using mobile data, because there's no Sim in that older spare phone...

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 03:38 PM

The most incisive reports on Kenny Burrell's current troubles
have been published in
the Washington Post.

These stories, however, turn up in more than one spot online.
I'm going to see if I can make links to them.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019 by Geoff Edgers   


Thursday, July 11, 2019 by Geoff Edgers

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 04:01 PM

If we aren't allowed to post about it here, maybe there's some other suitable forum?

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 04:13 PM

Jack,
I think we ARE
allowed to post
as long as we do it here and now,
and when the Mudcat site is online
with all the servers going as Max wants them to go.

The objection from the mudelf/moderator
was when I was so impatient to
link to the online story websites
that I did so
when there was only a single Mudcat server online.

So right now,
for example,
nobody ought object to you, me, or whoever
posting to this thread.

And if I'm mistaken, I hope somebody will put me in my place, thanks.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 04:23 PM

The mod was referring to the name of a Mudcat server, because that's not the way Mudcat is designed to work.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 02:16 PM

This small interview in the LA Times
dates back some seven or eight years,

when his private life remained private
and newspapers and journals were not talking about
his health, family, marriage, and residence.

Kenny Burrell at 80


My attempts to search the LA Times archives for Kenny Burrell,
by the way, result in abject failure --
like banging my head against a brick wall.
It surprises me that the LA Times would not cover
the present story, as it is happening right there.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 05:48 PM

Incomprehensible mess (folie a deux?) about somebody whose work I don't know well, and I'm not about to fight with a loose cannon mod to talk about it.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 09:00 PM

I don't know what you're talking about, Jack, but I suppose I don't need to.

I cant figure out what's really going on with Burrell. He gets paid ninety-something thousand dollars a year, and has health insurance, but still needs a load of money. If he was charged a ridiculous amount of money for medical issues, I can believe it, but it's difficult (for me, at least) to understand. I guess I'd be better off if I didn't have anything to say either (and didn't try to say it anyway). Plus, thinking one has enough money is relative.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 09:31 PM

Admins - I came to the same conclusion that the url must be stored in something like Chrome cache on that old smart phone...

I'll see if I can delete it...

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 09:50 PM

I think if you just make sure the address you go to is "mudcat.org..." it's fine. Using any specific server puts some stress on that server, and when it's one that isn't even in the main rotation, it's worse. I remember once in the long-ago (last century), Max briefly had Mudcat running off a laptop.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 10:43 AM

This interview at LA Weekly,
provided I can make a link to it,
was only three years ago.

Kenny Burrell at 85

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 10:50 AM

This magazine article is actually an
excerpt from a recently published book about music.

book titled Jazz From Detroit

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:07 AM

About the personal-life-and-family angle:

If you read at least one of the previous articles closely,
it mentioned that one of Kenny Burrell's grown children
has already died.

death of David Burrell, 2006

Because Burrell's son David had been extremely active,
though in a low-profile way, on the music scene,
David's passing merited notice in the music business.

One of those Kenny-Burrell-exposé articles
quoted in previous posts
had lengthy quotations from Robin Tomchin,
whois Kenny Burrell's daughter-in-law (now divorced),
and the David Burrell tribute confirms Tomchin's family connection.


It is also apparent, with careful attention to names and relationship,

that guitarist Kenny Burrell's life includes multiple marriages.
Katherine Goodwin, his present wife, has attracted attention
because she initiated the GoFundMe campaign on behalf of her husband.

But when Burrell relocated from the East Coast to the West Coast,
as the LA Weekly interview reports,
he was thinking of raising a family:
the interview reports that, in the late 1970's,
his wife was pregnant with 'their daughter' when they moved to LA.

This was at least one previous marriage, perhaps two marriages back,
before the current marriage with Katherine Goodwin,
with whom, as far as I can make out,
Burrell has fathered no children.

If my arithmetic is correct,
Kenny Burrell is the father of five adult children;
four of them are alive today,
and they are from two different marriages
(see David Burrell article).
And when David Burrell died of Crohn's disease,
both his mother and 'step-mother' were still living.


I don't see all this as any big deal.
Multiple marriages are more common and more acceptable today
than they were in my grandparents' time.

And Burrell, as the 'Jazz from Detroit' chapter makes clear,
had the kind of successful, long-term entertainment career
that makes it very difficult
to settle down and provide for a growing family.

Sometimes when life happens, it happens in a cluster --
and some clusters are bad-luck, unfortunate clusters.
I imagine that to his fellow musicians in the business,
the hard-luck clusters are in fact very familiar --
other people have rough times in their lives,
they just don't have all of this publicity and news coverage about it.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: meself
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:14 AM

This is beginning to feel like prying into someone else's personal business - to me, anyway ......

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:22 AM

Fans can get very odd when they become too obsessed with the lives of their idols...

My sister used to behave like she'd joined a cult,
when she assumed superfan status in their online communities...

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:55 AM

At the risk of giving offense,

a public profile of
the lady who raised two of those five grown children.

Michi Burrell, AIFD (?FD means Floral Design maybe/]

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Stringsinger
Date: 17 Jul 19 - 01:45 PM

This is the exact reason that Capitalism doesn't work for everyone. Not everyone can play that game.

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jul 19 - 05:14 PM

Do not click on this link to the Jazz Guitar forum if

-- you avoid the BS threads below the line at Mudcat
for the conflicts that get acted out between Mudcat members

-- you don't care for the political/socio-economic questions
around health care for the injured, infirm, and/or elderly.

The forum in question is obviously specialized, created as it was
by a music periodical, and focussing on one type of music.

Only for the sake of following the Kenny Burrell story
does a non-guitarist like myself
go to this forum.
What fascinates me is how much this thread
reminds me of the BS section at Mudcat.

For those who think twice about looking at the JazzGuitar link,
here are some summaries of what is in the posts.

1. Unanimous respect and admiration for Kenny Burrell's artistry.
2. They all think he is an exceptional human being as well.
3. A few posts come from musicians well-connected in the music business,
    relating how they checked with mutual acquaintances and friends
    to ask if Burrell's situation is as alarming as the press says.

4. Some strong opinions about eldercare, economics,
    health care in the United States, politics, and the arts.
5. Contributions to the GoFundMe campaign for Kenny Burrell.
6. Gratitude to the JazzGuitar forum moderators who deleted
    several inflammatory-toned posts from the thread.


thread, Kenny Burrell needs help

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Jul 19 - 12:57 PM

Indepth interview from 2011:

what was on the horizon for Kenny Burrell
before
... 'life' happened to him.

L. A. Times: Kenny Burrell at 80 years

Subject: RE: guitarist Kenny Burrell - alarming story
From: Megan L
Date: 20 Jul 19 - 03:04 AM

This is so old is gone mouldy