Date of Exhibition: Fall 2022-Summer 2023

Curator: Christopher Lynch (Project Coordinator, Center for American Music)

Location: Archives & Special Collections exhibit gallery, 3rd floor Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh 3960 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Description: Dave Burrell is one of jazz’s most influential innovators. After graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 1965, he moved to New York, where he began playing alongside trailblazing musicians such as alto saxophonist Marion Brown and tenor saxophonists Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp. In New York’s lofts and clubs, he became a legend among “free jazz” players. In 1968, with Beaver Harris and Grachan Moncur III, he started the ensemble 360 Degree Music Experience, and the following year he made seminal albums with BYG in Paris. He toured extensively with David Murray in the 1980s and 1990s, and with William Parker in the 2000s.  

In addition to his work as an improviser, he has composed an opera, collaborated on numerous ballets, and written many extended works for various types of ensembles. He has recorded more than forty albums as a bandleader and over eighty as a sideman. He continues to be a fixture at international jazz festivals and top clubs around the world. 

The posters in this exhibit come from the Dave Burrell Archive, which Burrell and his wife, Monika Larsson, are in the process of donating to the Center for American Music in the University of Pittsburgh Libraries. Documenting his life and career from the 1960s to the present, the archive includes commercial and archival recordings, posters, photographs, programs, correspondence, contracts, musical scores, and more.