Greg Burk Musician - All About Jazz

Updated: June 6, 2023

Born: June 24, 1969

Pianist/composer/educator Greg Burk has lived, studied, educated and performed around the world. Over the last decade, living and working in Detroit, Boston and now Rome, he has established himself not only as a vital sideman, but also as a leader with the rare ability to combine original compositions with memorable melodies and a desire to push the creative envelope as an improviser. He has been called "an exceptional pianist/composer" (All Music Guide), "a pianist and composer with vigorous, freewheeling ideas that always feel grounded within a well-reasoned structure" (Boston Herald), "a pianist with a gift for melody and a generous touch that makes you want to like him" (LA Weekly), and a musician that "plays with an apparent love and passion for his craft" (AllAboutJazz). Greg grew up in a culturally diverse and musical household. His father, Dennis Burk, was an internationally active conductor and the son of Russian and Polish immigrants. Greg's mother, Giovanna Collonelli, was a singer and linguist who came to the U.S. in her 20's. In her native Italy, she was a trained opera singer and winner of a national competition to study at La Scala in Milan. Greg began studying piano at age six with his grandmother, Billie Endervelt, a classically trained pianist and improviser who accompanied silent movies in her youth. At 15, Greg discovered jazz and by 16 he was working professionally, playing solo gigs and in a group with some friends. Before leaving high school, his group performed at DownBeat's Musicfest in Chicago, where Greg was awarded outstanding soloist. His decision to become a professional musician was solidified as a teenager when friend and Detroit-based bassist Rodney Whittaker took him to hear and sit in with veteran jazz musicians and the talented younger players from the city's fertile musical scene. As a music composition student at UMASS Amherst, Greg was fortunate to have Yusef Lateef and Archie Shepp as teachers. "Lateef's approach to teaching improvisation/composition was as organic and spiritual as it was systematic and disciplined," Greg remembers. "This approach allowed me to cultivate my ideas freely while tempering them with form and specific materials. Shepp's teaching was more hands-on and involved playing Bird and Ellington tunes each week." With composer/bassist Sal Macchia, Greg's studies included aural training, orchestration and composition. He finished his degree at the University of Michigan, where he received a Bachelor's Degree in English and Music. After graduation, Greg settled in Bratislava, Slovakia, from which he toured throughout Czechoslovakia, Poland, Austria, and Italy, appearing in clubs, at festivals, and on radio and television.

A year later, Greg moved back to Michigan where he found a fertile environment for growth in the dynamic musical climate of Detroit with its diverse mix of genres, venues, and generations of musicians. In Detroit he worked with veterans Larry Smith, Bobby Battle, Donald Walden, George Goldsmith, the Graystone Big Band, Francisco Mora, Steve Wood, Roy Brooks, and Jaribu Shahid, as well as blossoming contemporaries like Gerald Cleaver, Mark Hynes, Vince Chandler, Mike Graye, James Carter, Cassius Richmond, Rodney Whittaker, and Dwight Adams. At 25, Greg moved to Boston and enrolled at New England Conservatory (NEC), where he earned a Master's Degree in Jazz Studies, having studied composition with George Russell and piano with Danilo Perez and Paul Bley. Russell's concept had a profound impact on Greg's musical thinking, as did Bley's open approach to improvisation. He also had the opportunity to play as a student with Curtis Fuller, Sam Rivers, Cecil McBee and the George Russell Big Band. Greg credits the combination of this progressive education with the dues he paid playing bebop in Detroit as the catalyst for creating his own inside/outside approach to music. After earning his Master's, Greg continued to live in Boston, teaching at Berklee College of Music and working as an in-demand sideman with notable musicians like Jerry Bergonzi, Garrison Fewell, Steve Grossman, Benny Golson, Bob Moses, and others. He also joined the Grammy®-nominated Either/Orchestra, appearing on three of the group's recordings, Afro-Cubism, Neo-Modernism, and Live in Addis. During his tenure, the group toured throughout U.S., Italy, Russia and Ethiopia. His work under his own name in Boston was equally extensive. Along with numerous solo piano performances, Greg led/co-led a duo, two trios, an original quartet, and a second quartet that performed commissioned jazz arrangements of Bach pieces. These groups featured notable sidemen including Jerry Bergonzi, Gerald Cleaver, Paul Del Nero, Garrison Fewell, Luther Gray, Jon Hazilla, Bob Moses, and Jonathan Robinson. He also continued to perform around the world, and founded the Sant'Elpidio Jazz Festival in Le Marche, Italy. Inspired by mentor Paul Bley's advice to continually document one's own music, Greg has recorded extensively with all of his groups. Along with three self-released solo piano recordings, he has three recordings on the legendary Soul Note/Blacksaint Italian label, and three recordings on the forward looking 482 Music. After nearly 10 years in Boston Greg relocated his family, including wife Serena and daughter Sonia, to Rome in June 2004. Daughter Maia was born in Rome on July 1, 2005. Greg continues to actively record and perform as well as teaching Jazz Piano and Aural Comprehension at New York University's Florence music program.

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Greg Burk: Sound Neighbors

Read "Sound Neighbors" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 13, 2021

Just as they say in real estate, “location, location, location," the same can be said for the piano trio of Greg Burk, bassist Ron Seguin, and drummer Michel Lambert. Recorded in Rome, where the American Burk now makes his home, Sound Neighbors reunites the pianist with the Canadians Seguin (also a resident of Rome) and Lambert, who were last heard on Burk's Many Worlds (482 Music, 2009) with Henry Cook.The music does travel well, meaning that locating the ...

Album Review

Greg Burk: As A River

Read "As A River" reviewed by Don Phipps

by Don Phipps
June 6, 2019

Having studied with George Russell and Paul Bley, and performed with Kenny Wheeler, David Murray and Steve Swallow, there is no doubting Greg Burk's bona fides. And with As a River, Burk has fashioned a series of deeply-felt original compositions--15 in all--that would make his mentors proud. Burk's compositions are edgy and serene, bluesy and poetic, all of them demonstrating a wide range of emotions. His technique is both forceful and flowing, a difficult tandem to deploy; but ...

Take Five With...

Take Five With Greg Burk

by Greg Burk
May 28, 2019

About Greg Burk Following his acclaimed 2016 release Clean Spring on SteepleChase Records, American pianist and composer Greg Burk returns with solo piano As A River--his 12th and most lyrical album to date. The son of classical musicians, Burk spent his formative years on the jny: Detroit jazz scene, followed by studies in jny: Boston with the likes of George Russell, Danilo Perez and Paul Bley. The lyrical, classical, side of Burk's music emerges with conviction ...

Album Review

Greg Burk Expanding Trio: Deep Blue Sky

Read "Deep Blue Sky" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo

by Maurizio Zerbo
May 13, 2017

Deep Blue Sky ripropone la sonorità elettrica del sintetizzatore Moog, con scansioni ritmiche tra jazz e funky. Il canone di riferimento, in voga negli anni Settanta, viene talora rinverdito con una dimensione ritmica contemporanea. C'è pure spazio per le sonorità acustiche, magnificamente rivelate dall'aura intimistica ed introspettiva di “Starbright Reverie." Oltre a rispecchiare maggiormente la poetica jazzistica di Greg Burk, l'intensa narratività melodica di questa composizione è l'episodio più riuscito di un percorso musicale complessivamente arioso e ritmicamente ...

Album Review

Greg Burk: Clean Spring

Read "Clean Spring" reviewed by Maurizio Zerbo

by Maurizio Zerbo
November 18, 2016

Con questo bel CD il pianista statunitense dimostra per l'ennesima volta la sua classe di compositore e improvvisatore. Probabilmente il fatto di risiedere in Italia ha arricchito di tinte più melodiche un ampio florilegio di tecnica pianistica, che spazia tra scansioni irregolari e rarefazioni improvvise. Composto da sole composizioni originarie, il repertorio proposto ha il merito di sottrarsi all'abusato stile evansiano, oggi acriticamente di moda tra i suoi colleghi. Clean Spring è un disco di profonda ricerca, con ...

Album Review

Greg Burk: Clean Spring

Read "Clean Spring" reviewed by Budd Kopman

by Budd Kopman
June 21, 2016

Pianist Greg Burk has built quite a discography as a leader, including solo albums and his latest, Clean Spring will only further burnish his reputation as a deep player and thinker. In a very real sense, this album is a homage to Burk's mentor Paul Bley, who had an obvious impact of Burk's musical attitude and playing, but who also helped Burk pick out the tracks for the album in the months between the actual recording sessions and his death ...

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Album Review

Greg Burk Trio: The Path Here

Read "The Path Here" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
November 22, 2011

The Path Here, pianist Greg Burk's fifth release for the adventurous 482 Music label, finds the Rome-based American expatriate revisiting and reinterpreting some of the most engaging compositions of his youthful career, aided by old friends Jonathan Robinson (bass) and Gerald Cleaver (drums). Previously heard together with tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi on Burk's 2004 quartet release Carpe Momentum (Soul Note), Robinson and Cleaver's shared history as the pianist's preferred accompanists dates back almost two decades; Burk met Robinson in 1989 ...

Recording

Greg Burk - Many Worlds (2010)

Source: Something Else!
August 29, 2011

By Mark Saleski Several years ago, I happened upon a book called A Pattern Language. It was an odd purchase for me, because I'm not really an architecture person, at least not in the grand “Oooh, majestic building!" sense of the word. No, I was drawn to the book because the architectural patterns drawn and discussed—layouts of rooms, alcoves, gathering places, neighborhoods, cities—made a lot of sense to me and seemed to somehow appeal to my music-loving side. Thinking about ...
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Recording

Greg Burk's "Ivy Trio" Now Available on 482 Music

Source: Improvised Communications
November 14, 2007

482 Music is proud to announce the November 13th release of Rome-based pianist/composer Greg Burk's latest CD, Ivy Trio (482-1038), featuring bassist Jonathan Robinson and drummer Luther Gray. This is Burk's third release on the label in as many years and the one he calls “the most complete expression of my ideas with regards to composition and group conception to date." Ivy Trio documents six Burk originals, including re-imaginings of four previously recorded tracks, plus an interpretation of Charlie Parker's ...
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Recording

Pianist Greg Burk's First Solo CD Coming in June on 482 Music

Source: All About Jazz
March 30, 2006

On June 6th, 482 Music will release Rome-based pianist/composer Greg Burk's solo piano debut, The Way In (482-1048).

Burk's fourth outing as a leader in as many years further documents his trademark synergy of freedom and structure. The all-original program features reinterpretations of previously composed works, organically developed free improvisations and explorations of the non-traditional sound potential of the piano.

“Burk's seemingly paradoxical ability to sound both considered and unfettered is a marvel," wrote AllAboutJazz.com Senior Editor John Kelman of ...
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Recording

482 Music To Release Greg Burk Trio's Nothing, Knowing August 23rd

Source: All About Jazz
June 17, 2005

AVON, CT -- 482 Music is proud to announce the August 23rd release of the Greg Burk Trio's Nothing, Knowing (482-1037), featuring the renowned rhythm section team of electric bassist Steve Swallow and drummer/percussionist Bob Moses. The Rome-based pianist/composer's 482 Music debut, and follow-up to his first two well-received recordings as a leader on Italy's legendary Soul Note label, continues his documentation of an increasingly personal sound forged by a penchant for memorable melodies as well as probing improvisation.

“This ...
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Recording

Greg Burk Quartet's Carpe Momentum (Soul Note) Coming Oct. 12th

Source: All About Jazz
September 16, 2004

ROME, ITALY -- Pianist/composer Greg Burk is proud to announce the October 12th release of Carpe Momentum, the debut release from his quartet and his second as a leader on Italy's legendary Soul Note label. Burk's latest ensemble features him leading frequent collaborators, including renowned Boston-based tenor saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi and in-demand New York drummer Gerald Cleaver, through his trademark excursions between memorable original melodies and the spontaneity of free improvisation.

“You need to take the time to listen to ...
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Recording

Soul Note Releases Greg Burk Trio Debut "Checking In" September 17th

Source: All About Jazz
September 17, 2002

BOSTON, MA - On Tuesday, September 17th, the internationally renowned Soul Note label will release Boston-based pianist, composer and Berklee College of Music educator Greg Burk's first trio recording, Checking In, featuring New York bassist Jon Robinson and percussion legend Bob Moses. Checking In features ten original tracks that range from seductive melodies to free composed tone poems, all meant to utilize not only Burk's range of composing and playing experience, but the specific personalities and abilities of each musician ...
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Recording

Soul Note Releases Greg Burk Trio Debut September 17th

Source: All About Jazz

CONTACT: Scott Menhinick, Media Relations for Mr. Burk Improvised Communications (781) 893-9424 [email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: AUGUST 21, 2002

SOUL NOTE RELEASES GREG BURK TRIO DEBUT SEPTEMBER 17TH BOSTON, MA -- On Tuesday, September 17th, the internationally renowned Soul Note label will release Boston-based pianist, composer and Berklee College of Music educator Greg Burk's first trio recording, Checking In, featuring New York bassist Jon Robinson and percussion legend ...
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"...a pianist with a gift for melody and a generous touch that makes you want to like him..."
—LA Weekly

"Burk's touch on the piano remains confident and even, his statements being made with proficiency and concision and without overstatement."
—Cadence

"With this release, Burk displays a penchant for pursuing lushly melodic themes interspersed with a distinct sense of poise to complement his altogether laudable faculties. Simply put, there's a lot of goodness going on here, as the pianist bobs, weaves, and dances atop the rhythm section's bouncy swing grooves. Listeners can look forward to hearing more from this exceptional pianist/ composer."
—All Music Guide

"...a pianist with a gift for melody and a generous touch that makes you want to like him..."
—LA Weekly

"Burk's touch on the piano remains confident and even, his statements being made with proficiency and concision and without overstatement."
—Cadence

"Why don't more ensembles try to unite the spontaneity of free jazz with the discipline of straightahead, as the Greg Burk Quartet does on Carpe Momentum (Soul Note)? Probably because it's really hard. Nevertheless, pianist/composer Burk has found a way to write pieces that incorporate elements of both, and he and his bandmates Jerry Bergonzi (saxophones), Jonathan Robinson (bass), and Gerald Cleaver (drums) have found a way to play them brilliantly...Carpe Momentum is mesmerizing from the get-go."
—JazzTimes

"Greg Burk comes along for the third time as leader with Nothing, Knowing and proves beyond any shade of doubt that he has the distinct ability to turn a tune into an exciting and imaginative journey."
—All About Jazz

"This program definitely keeps one guessing, for Burk is difficult to easily categorize as anything but a creative jazz musician. His interplay with his sidemen is nearly telepathic at times (they all have big ears) and they consistently shift musical directions and share thoughts together. Listeners who enjoy explorative and passionate jazz improvising will definitely want this outing."
—All Music Guide

"Technically, Burk is a complete pianist, and he’s intellectually curious enough to exploit the instrument’s total sound-making capacity."
—Chris Kelsey, JazzTimes

"In the end, this very moving music compels introspection as we watch and listen while Burk brings us into intimate contact with his soul, both human and musical."
—All About Jazz

"Beauty remains at the top of his list, as Burk invents tone poems that cast impressions with connotations far and wide. The delicate touch of his keyboard and the care with which he operates the pedals allow Burk to communicate in a manner that we can all understand and enjoy."
—Cadence

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