by Shelli Park If you want to add a higher dimension of cool to spice up your December entertainment be sure you are present at Black Zia Cantina on Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. starting Dec. 3. Historically, Burien hasn’t been known as a destination to hear live jazz. If you have the hankering to listen to a bit of jazz you have had travel to a place like Tula’s in Seattle, or the Royal Room in Columbia City, to catch a hot set. Not anymore! Burien resident Ryan Burns is working to change that. Burns has been a resident of Burien off and on for over 25 years. He is one of Burien’s most talented, yet most humble, residents, and if you listen, you’ll catch his wicked sense of humor. He graduated from Highline High School in 1990, then studied piano at Berklee School of Music in Boston. Burns has been teaching and playing music professionally for over 20 years. As a teacher, Burns spent time on faculty at University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University. In 2010 Burns opened Burien School of Music which offers private music lessons for all ages and experience levels. He currently offer piano, guitar and bass lessons, specializing in jazz, blues, rock and pop. Burns performs regularly with his own Ryan Burns Trio, and plays jazz piano and keyboards in Wayne Horvitz Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble, Electric Circus, HarryBu McCage, Matt Jorgensen +451, and others. Burns plays rock keyboards in Mike McCready’s Flight To Mars, and Zeppelin infused groups Urban Achievers and Black Vinyl All-Stars, often doubling on bass and guitar. Burns performed with the Tacoma Symphony, wrote music for the Food Network TV show “Food Nation with Bobby Flay,” and recorded dozens of CD’s, including six as a leader. You may be familiar with his side projects 3-Tree Point Blues Band and Permanent Record which are comprised of Burien natives, often appear at local events. Bringing his passion and talent for music to Burien, Burns has hosted different variations of the Ryan Burns Trio Wednesday nights at Black Zia Cantina since June. He took the month of November off but is gearing up to bring you more, and you should not miss out! He draws some of the most talented jazz musicians from Seattle to join him on the modest stage located on 6th Ave SW in the former location of the fabled Sal’s Deli. Burns knows how to create just the right mood with keyboard, MOOG, and sometimes the Hammond B-3. Here is what Burns has lined up for December!!

  • Dec 3: Ryan Burns Trio – https://www.facebook.com/events/268791213245342/
    The Ryan Burns Trio explores the classic piano trio format, much in the lineage of greats Ahmad Jamal, Oscar Peterson, and Bill Evans. RBT consists of fretless electric bassist Steve Kim and drummer Jacques Willis, and Burns experimenting with various analog keyboard sounds. The Seattle Weekly writes “Burns has a fantastically fertile brain, prodding the music with unexpected voicings and twisted runs; as with the best pianists, his comping is as intriguing as his solos.”
  • Dec 10: Eagle’s Idea – https://www.facebook.com/events/610270589083121/
    Eagle’s Idea is a twist on the classic Hammond organ trio, featuring the great Joe Doria (McTuff, Michael Shreive’s Spellbinder) – Hammond B-3, Ryan Burns (Flight To Mars, Bebop and Destruction) – Piano and Moog, and Eric Eagle (Jesse Sykes, Wayne Horvitz) – Drums.
  • Dec 17: Being John McLaughlin – https://www.facebook.com/events/296330930560484/
    Being John McLaughlin is the clever name for the local ad-hoc sextet tackling the phenomenally complex, combustible, and beautiful music of 1970s jazz-fusion deities Mahavishnu Orchestra. McLaughlin is, of course, MO’s superhumanly dexterous guitarist/leader and one of the catalysts in Miles Davis’s paradigm-shifting electric period. His group’s first two albums— 1971’s Inner Mounting Flame and 1973’s Birds of Fire—remain overwhelming sources of quicksilver inventiveness and spiritual profundity (go to “The Noonward Race” for instant proof) on the level of those early Tony Williams Lifetime LPs, Miles’s Dark Magus, and Return to Forever’s Romantic Warrior. – Dave Segal (The Stranger)
Members:
  • Tristan Gianola — Guitar
  • Mark Taylor – Sax
  • Alicia DeJoie — Violin
  • Ryan Burns — Keyboards
  • Geoff Harper — Bass
  • John Bishop — Drums
Black Zia Cantina is located at 15212 6th Ave SW in Burien – it’s where all the cool kids will be on Wednesdays in December!!]]>

Since 2007, The B-Town Blog is Burien’s multiple award-winning hyperlocal news/events website dedicated to independent journalism.

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