Abraham Burton

Abraham Burton is a New York tenor saxophonist known for a big, muscular sound rooted in the hard bop and post bop tradition. A fixture of the Charles Mingus repertory groups since 1998, he has played in the Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, and Mingus Orchestra, and earlier came up in drummer Art Taylor's Wailers in the early 1990s. Born in New York City in 1971 and raised in Greenwich Village, he studied at the Hartt School, where Jackie McLean and Michael Carvin were among his teachers. He made his debut as a leader with Closest to the Sun on Enja in 1994, later moving from alto to tenor as his primary horn, and has kept a long musical partnership with drummer Eric McPherson. Burton is also an educator, serving on the faculty of the Hartt School and Rutgers University.