New York based trombonist James Burton III is quickly earning a reputation as one of the most sought after performers/educators in the jazz community. Mentored by jazz luminaries Jackie McLean and Curtis Fuller, James Burton III has lent his sound to Grammy Award-winning albums and Tony Award-winning Broadway productions. Burton has been a member of the jazz faculty at Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music.
A student of jazz legends, Jackie McLean and Curtis Fuller, Burton has gone on to perform and record with artists including Illinois Jacquet, Gerald Wilson, James Moody, Frank Wess, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, Slide Hampton, Ron Carter, Joe Chambers, and Christian McBride. He has also performed with the Ray Charles Orchestra, Duke Ellington Orchestra, Count Basie Orchestra, Lionel Hampton Orchestra, Dizzy Gillespie All-Stars, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and Roy Hargrove Big Band.
An avid educator, Burton is currently professor of jazz theory at the Juilliard School as well as conductor of the renowned Juilliard Jazz Orchestra. He has served as trombonist/associate conductor for the Jazz at Lincoln Center All Star Orchestra in the Tony Award-winning production After Midnight and played trombone/tuba in the pit orchestra of Broadway’s Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed.
Currently, Burton can be heard alongside bandmates Jeremy Pelt, Wayne Escoffery, Xavier Davis, Vicente Archer & Jonathan Blake on a new release for the Sunnyside Record label entitled Black Art Jazz Collective: Presented by the Side Door Jazz Club.