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Kenny Burrell


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1 hour ago, bresna said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/a-jazz-legend-said-he-was-in-desperate-need-of-money-his-friends-had-questions/2019/07/10/440e76ec-99b6-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html?utm_term=.75733296cd34

I am not feeling so good about donating to this fund. I am most upset at the Jazz Foundation for not doing their homework before issuing their statement confirming the Burrell's financial situation. Oh well, live & learn.

Read the Jazztimes link before drawing conclusions.

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I had a feeling.

In 2017 KB's pay and benefits package from UCLA was in excess of $200K, no reason to believe it was not close to the same in 2018. No doubt the initial gofundme goal of $100K was passed in a rather short time. Why would you continue to take donations? Why didn't UCLA know of his situation?

Kenneth E Burrell
PROF-AY (2017)

Regular pay: $192,408.00
Overtime pay: $0.00
Other pay: $464.00
Total pay: $192,872.00
Benefits: $41,334.00
Total pay & benefits: $234,206.00

 

She is a much younger woman, no?

Nah, this shit was questionable from the beginning. It was the identity theft thing (both of them?) and the changing of the original statement, on top of health issues, on top of mold, on top of looming foreclosure, on top of lawsuits, on top of potential homelessness. Too much going on there. Maybe Kenny didn't or doesn't even now know what is going on, but to me it always seemed off. 

 

 

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30 minutes ago, catesta said:

I had a feeling.

In 2017 KB's pay and benefits package from UCLA was in excess of $200K, no reason to believe it was not close to the same in 2018. No doubt the initial gofundme goal of $100K was passed in a rather short time. Why would you continue to take donations? Why didn't UCLA know of his situation?

Kenneth E Burrell
PROF-AY (2017)

Regular pay: $192,408.00
Overtime pay: $0.00
Other pay: $464.00
Total pay: $192,872.00
Benefits: $41,334.00
Total pay & benefits: $234,206.00

 

She is a much younger woman, no?

Nah, this shit was questionable from the beginning. It was the identity theft thing (both of them?) and the changing of the original statement, on top of health issues, on top of mold, on top of looming foreclosure, on top of lawsuits, on top of potential homelessness. Too much going on there. Maybe Kenny didn't or doesn't even now know what is going on, but to me it always seemed off. 

 

 

Almost a 40 year difference between them...could be love, could be anything.

Could be that's she's milking him [and everyone who sent the money] dry before he goes to that jazz club up above.

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18 minutes ago, Dmitry said:

Almost a 40 year difference between them...could be love, could be anything.

Could be that's she's milking him [and everyone who sent the money] dry before he goes to that jazz club up above.

It certainly could be an exit plan.

And what the fuck is going on with all those boxes?

 

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Somebody who's become a germophobe, agoraphobe, hoarder, and just plain batshit crazy, that's what it looks like. And an elderly spouse who no doubt loves her but is ill-equipped to handle the real-world consequences of all that, especially now that there's, like, more than a quarter-million dollars on the table.

The authorities will be called in before this is all over, my money's on that, and then god knows what happens, elderly abuse, criminal insanity, just insanity period, god only knows what. I don't think any of us can attiribute "motive", but the reality appears to be pretty stark at this point.

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1 hour ago, david weiss said:

What do you consider investigative journalism here?

Well, JazzTimes just reprinted a possibly-dubious press release.  The newspaper reporter went to several sources and asked questions about the situation, got several points of view and presented the information, leading me to conclude that something's fishy here.  Unless that's considered 'fake news' nowadays.

Edited by Ted O'Reilly
corrected typo on a word.
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1 minute ago, JSngry said:

I think David's point might have been that this was journalism, period.

 

Okay, but isn't all proper journalism "investigative", in some way?  Certainly what JazzTimes did isn't journalism, nor is a lot of what I see and read today.  It's just repeating press releases and viewpoint-handouts.

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1 hour ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

Okay, but isn't all proper journalism "investigative", in some way?  Certainly what JazzTimes did isn't journalism, nor is a lot of what I see and read today.  It's just repeating press releases and viewpoint-handouts.

I thought they were printing unsubstantiated rumors without doing any investigating at all at first and it was very harmful to the process at the beginning of this campaign, casting doubt as to the  validity of the page and putting doubt into the minds of people who wanted to donate. I had an issue with that. They did recover and print a correction early on and have since published a long letter from Kenny going into all the details of their issues. I found it sad that Kenny had to take the time to go into such personal detail about his issues. That couldn't have been easy for him. I see the same doubts expressed here and are continuing. I find that unfortunate as well....

I know there is a hunger for content and not much budget to investigate things but to print articles where sources are pulled from the comments section on the gofundme page or going further back (and a personal issue for me) comments on this very board that were used as "news." It's troubling to me....

1 hour ago, Ted O'Reilly said:

Well, JazzTimes just reprinted a possibly-dubious press release.  The newspaper reporter went to several sources and asked questions about the situation, got several points of view and presented the information, leading me to conclude that something's fishy here.  Unless that's considered 'fake news' nowadays.

Sorry Ted, missed this one....

Exactly, no investigation though the post I had issue was the one where they expressed concern about the validity of the campaign and their source I believe was the doubt expressed in the comments section of the gofundme page and apparently nothing else. That is not journalism by any means...

Edited by david weiss
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I've been very concerned over this situation and the Post article has just amplified my concerns.  None of this has seemed quite right from the start, especially given what we know about Kenny's status at UCLA.  I send some money to the Go Fund Me, of course, since even beyond his considerable contributions to music Kenny was an old friend of my parents and had been even closer in the old days with a number of our family's friends.  After all, when a friend comes to you for money your first reaction isn't 'what do you need it for?' or 'why do you need it?', but 'how much do you need?'  That doesn't mean you should suspend all critical thinking though.

I must say here that I am extremely disappointed in the Jazz Foundation, which is an organization I have trusted and contributed to going back to the involvement of another old family friend, Nat Hentoff.  If they had put out a more cautious or non-committal statement I might not be so disillusioned, but their statement about the story behind the Go Fund Me made it sound like they had actually confirmed the situation beyond just taking Katherine Burrell's word for it.  The Foundation's confirmation, repeated throughout almost all of the stories about Katherine Burrell's funding plea, was key in so many people suspending their skepticism and giving their money so generously.  This now seems to be a highly unfortunate black mark against an organization that has done so much; one that makes me wonder what else is going on over there now.

Unfortunately, this all sounds a lot like a case of mental illness running unchecked.  All of the germophobic paranoia and the zealously guarded secrecy and isolation lead me to the conclusion that others on this thread are probably correct that something is going very wrong here.  The reports of boxes constantly outside their apartment, and the unconfirmed accusations of "identity fraud", lead me to another troubling thought, that the problem here may be related to disordered and out of control spending. 

I've seen this happen in the lives of the mentally ill and/or elderly relatives of friends. The combination of credit cards, the internet, Amazon etc, and TV shopping like QVC make it all too easy for disordered spending and compulsive acquisition to take over one's life, empty bank accounts, and mire folks in crushing high interest debt.  All of this leaves me, as it seems to leave many of you, deeply concerned about what is going to be done with all of the Go Fund Me money, and even more concerned about the present status and the future of Kenny Burrell.

Edited by Al in NYC
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I just caught up on the latest details and as someone said here, it's a sad situation, no matter how you look at it. It's a cliche but it's no fun getting old.  Regarding the statement put out by KB, it sounds as if it was written by a lawyer.  In case anyone asks why I think it was written by an attorney, I just have a feeling it was.

Like Dmitry, I'm starting to question whether I should have made a donation. As he said, live and learn. 

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7 hours ago, Captain Howdy said:

The section in which KB lists all the people who have supposedly seen him is weird and sad. TBH it sounds like it was written by his wife to try to convince people that he's not dead/imprisoned/comatose. If KB did in fact write it, it indicates his mental state is so far gone that he can't even upload a video to Youtube to reassure the hundreds of people who have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to him.

Yes, sad and weird. Too many mentions of how great the care of Katherine has been and too much defense of the wife for me to believe she isn't the one that either wrote the statement in JazzTimes or worded it. It's also way too similar in style to the GoFundMe plea.

Edited by catesta
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2 hours ago, catesta said:

Yes, sad and weird. Too many mentions of how great the care of Katherine has been and too much defense of the wife for me to believe she isn't the one that either wrote the statement in JazzTimes or worded it. It's also way too similar in style to the GoFundMe plea.

I hate to say it, but I agree that the whole thing is just weird, weird, weird.

I'm not going to make any pronouncements, or level any charges (whether they're baseless, or not, who knows).

I will say that I'm glad the press is continuing to follow up on this, and presumably will further-continue to.

After all this drama, and all the weirdness, I do think the donors (at least) deserve more solid, verifiable information.  I'll continue to hold my tongue, and not engage in too much speculation (at least in print), until more facts are known.

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Umm, yeah, we really don't.

I'll admit I read the JT letter first before posting. Had to figure out which browser I could use to access it. ;)

I am not nearly as negative about this situation as many seem to be. I don't think its fraud. I do think they need the money but I also think that something "not right" is going on in that apartment. But is it elder abuse? Or two confused people living like hermits for whatever reason.

And I don't find the list of people who have seen Kenny to be sad or anything like that. A blanket statement was given in the Wapo article that no one there has seen him in literally years. So given that, I would want to wrack my brain and think of the people who have seen me leave the place for medical appointments or whatever.

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19 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

And I don't find the list of people who have seen Kenny to be sad or anything like that. A blanket statement was given in the Wapo article that no one there has seen him in literally years. So given that, I would want to wrack my brain and think of the people who have seen me leave the place for medical appointments or whatever.

This is what baffled me most when I read that part. Admittedly I am not familar with typical US suburban neigborhood manners ;) but what would anybody be doing and thinking if he told a story about how others (neighbors or the postman or whoever) saw him standing by the garage or nodding or waving at them from across the street or whatever? Would he able to know and say they SAW him anyway or would he, honestly, just be able to say they MUST HAVE SEEN him? Who would write something like that about HIMSELF? Wouldn't it have been much more normal to just be up and out and about and just talk to the neighbors every now and then, no matter how briefly, and then remember and point out THAT? Or was KB known to be that much of a recluse for so long? And if he is, it still sems very weird to me that ANYBODY would write about HIMSELF like that. To me, that just "don't fit".

Edited by Big Beat Steve
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