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At 9 p.m. tonight KCET's new Open Call series is airing a documentary I helped produce on UCLA professor and jazz guitar legend Kenny Burrell. A native of Detroit, he began playing clubs as a teenager and became a protege of Duke Ellington. Burrell started and heads the jazz program at UCLA, where his 80th birthday concert in Royce Hall last November featured performances by B.B. King, Lalo Schifrin and Dee Dee Bridgewater and a surprise on-stage appearance by Stevie Wonder. All of them plus Burrell perform in the 90-minute documentary, which also features behind-the-scenes action, interviews with music figures such as Stevie Wonder and Herb Alpert, and footage from Burrell's hometown. Set list and more at KCET's website
Weekend note: A reminder that on Saturday at 2 p.m. I'll be showing more than 100 pictures creamed from the best of the Los Angeles Public Library's Valley Times collection, at a free event in the Central Library's Taper Auditorium. The event is sponsored by Photo Friends of the Library. There are a lot of very cool photos from the '50s and '60s, mostly in the Valley.
Kenny Burrell concert photo: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA. Drive-in church: Valley Times/LAPL
