In the early 1940s, a Detroit kid wanted to play the saxophone, but wartime rationing of brass and copper made horns nearly impossible to buy. He settled for a $10 acoustic guitar and figured out how to make a decaying string sing like a sustaining breath. That supply-chain accident produced Kenny Burrell, the guitarist Duke Ellington called his absolute favorite. This episode explores how grief, material limitation, and rigorous study combined into one of the most prolific careers in jazz.

We look at a childhood marked by the deaths of three sisters and his father, the Charlie Christian records that pulled him toward music at 12, and the models he studied, from Oscar Moore and Django Reinhardt to T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters. The conversation explains why his classical guitar studies and theory training gave his improvisation an architec ...