Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE (born 8 August 1928 in Sydney, Australia) is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute. His best-known group is the Don Burrows Quartet: Don Burrows (multiple woodwind), George Golla (guitar), Ed Gaston (bass) and Alan Turnbull (drums). Burrows has played with world-renowned musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, James Morrison, Tony Bennett, the Sydney Symphony, Stéphane Grappelli, and Cleo Laine.
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1973 was a watershed year for Burrows in which he received the first gold record won by an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning[1]; instigated the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and was awarded Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).[2] In 1979, he was appointed as chair of the jazz studies department at the conservatorium.
He was invited to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1972 [3] and later the Newport Jazz Festival.
He has performed to normally classical music audiences through tours with Musica Viva and Australian Broadcasting Corporation concert series.
Burrows fronted the nationally televised show The Don Burrows Collection for six years. He has an extensive recording career in his own right with his groups, and has performed on many more albums with other artists.
In the 1980s, he associated closely with the then young James Morrison.
In the 2000s, Burrow's public profile has receded somewhat as he performs less than he used to.
In 2005 he toured with a small band including renowned Australian jazz pianist Kevin Hunt,[4] Burrows is using his photographic images with his music, in a show called Stop, Look and Listen.
Burrows lives in Paynesville on the Gippsland Lakes of Victoria.
He has had a lifelong hobby of black-and-white photography, beginning in his 20s as an active participant in the Sans Souci and Caringbah camera clubs in Sydney. He sees the creativity of music and photography having significant similarities. He is also an avid fly fisherman.
Burrows has suffered from arthritis since age 38. In a 2008 interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Andrew Ford, celebrating his 80th birthday, he said "arthritis is not the greatest for playing a musical instrument. But playing a musical instrument is very, very good for arthritis"[8]
This is a partial discography of Don Burrows: