Pioneering double bassist Charles Burrell — the first Black member of the San Francisco Symphony — died on June 17 in his longtime hometown of Denver at the age of 104.
Along with fellow double bassist Henry Lewis of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and cellist Donald White of The Cleveland Orchestra, Burrell joined a microscopic fraternity of Black musicians who performed with major American orchestras starting in the mid-20th century. His tenure with the SF Symphony (1959–1965) was bookended by his time with the Denver Symphony Orchestra. He was a member of that ensemble first from 1949 to 1959 and again from 1965 to 1989, when the orchestra reformed as the Colorado Symphony, with which he would play for another decade before retiring from the classical world and returning to jazz.
In the Bay Area, Burrell was celebrated on June 20 by his niece, singer Dianne Reeves, during her duo concert with guitarist Romero Lubambo at Bacchus Landing as part of the 2025 Healdsburg Jazz Festival. Reeves spoke of Burrell’s time in San Francisco and Marin County and shared her most recent memories of him:
“In his last days, he was as clear as a bell. He remembered every story,” she said between songs.
Born in Ohio and raised in Detroit, Burrell encountered classical music as a child when, playing around with a crystal radio, he caught an SF Symphony performance of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony conducted by Pierre Monteux. “At that moment, I fell in love with it. I said, ‘That’s what I want to do. I want to play with that band,’” he recalled in a 2019 video interview produced by the SF Symphony. “I didn’t know it was an orchestra.”
“He and I had lots of long conversations,” said Adrienne Storey, an archivist for the SF Symphony from 2017 to 2023 and the driving force behind that video. “The major impression that I got was that he just had really positive memories of his time in San Francisco.”
“They treated me with such respect that I never had in my life,” Burrell recounted during the interview. “It was not ‘Charlie.’ It was ‘Mr. Burrell.’” He spoke of being in tears after receiving a standing ovation during his first performance as a member of the SF Symphony bass section.
“Music is my first love. I’ve seen it as a unifying force and a force for people to be better people, period,” he concluded. “That was my whole ambition: to make it much, much better for people to get along together. … Don’t be prejudiced, and life will be divine.”
