Donald Edwards Quintet
Donald Edwards (drums)
Ben Wolfe (double bass)
Abraham Burton (saxophone)
Abraham Burton (born 17 March 1971, New York City[1]) is an American alto saxophonist and bandleader. He is a featured performer on the 2011 Grammy Award winning album Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standard. />
A graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School and the Hartt School, Burton's teachers included Michael Carvin, Justin DiCioccio, and Jackie McLean. In 2013 he was awarded the Ralph Bunche fellowship for post-graduate studies in music education at Rutgers University. While attending the Hartt School he performed with the Collective Expression Band. During the early 1990s he played with Nat Reeves' band, and from 1991-1995 he performed with Art Taylor’s Wailers
In 1994 Burton formed his own band, Forbidden Fruit, whose members at various times included pianists Marc Cary, Allan Palmer, and James Hurt, the double bass players Billy Johnson and Yosuke Inoue, and the drummer Eric McPherson. With that band he toured internationally and recorded several albums. He has also performed in ensembles led by Louis Hayes, Ali Jackson, and Santi DeBriano.
David Gilmore (guitar)
The notion that nothing spurs the creative process like a deadline fully matches the back story of David Gilmore’s second album for Criss Cross, on which the 54-year-old guitar master navigates eight never-recorded compositions of both recent and older vintage, and a pair of well-wrought covers. “I had two months to write the music, so I was under the gun,” Gilmore says, before distinguishing From Here To Here with his label debut, Transitions (Criss-1393), for which he convened a crackling quintet to interpret repertoire by a cohort of recently deceased masters (Victor Bailey, Paul Bley, Bobby Hutcherson, Toots Thielemans, Woody Shaw, and iconic living elder Hermeto Pascoal). “I wanted to get a smaller working group in the studio to facilitate touring. My very first record Ritualism was centered around a guitar-piano-bass-drums quartet; I wanted to return to that format (a) because I like it, and (b) because of logistics.” The end result is an exceptionally vivid, varied date on which the leader showcases characteristically fluent chops, conceptual acumen and focused intention, matched by a rhythm section of New York first-callers. His primary soloistic foil is Luis Perdomo, himself a leader of four Criss Cross albums and pianist of choice for such avatars of Afro-Caribbean expression as David Sanchez and Miguel Zenon. “Luis is one of my all-time favorite pianists, one of the best out there,” Gilmore says. “He picks up things super-quick, he’s got great ideas, and harmonically and rhythmically he’s got it all covered.”
Anthony Wonsey (piano)
Sophia Edwards (vocals)
Frank Lacy (vocals)
Timing is everything, and as Donald Edwards continues to make recordings, we are able to hear the clarity of his development as a composer and artist. The Color Of US Suite throws the door open to the levers of power and opportunity in rebellion against systems engaging in fundamentally inimical propositions against the humanity of Black people. Art is not created in a vacuum, it represents the culmination of the total breath of one’s life experiences represented through a creative medium. It is a direct reflection of the tenor of the times in which it is created. So where talent meets preparation and discipline, at the cross roads these attributes come together for the best expression of artistic genius. Learning and knowing continues to be a hallmark of exceptional talent - the more you know, the more you can do. This recording carries with it the total range in expressions of the freedom concept, the obsession with hope through the infatuation of dreams - the disappointment, anger, and love for the framing of our evolving paradigm from within the prism of democracy. Donald captures those gradations of condition in a high-minded representation of passion, delivered with high-skilled precision, and soulful highs that are as exciting to the gutbucket enthusiast as it is intriguing for the high-brow aficionado.
"The commitment of the musicians is colossal; guitarist Gilmore is in his element, and saxophonist Burton sometimes evokes the memory of John Coltrane, in his freedom-loving records. Drummer Edwards himself reveals that in 1994 he won the Louisiana Arts Ambassador's Award for a reason."
