Burt Eckofft began playing piano at age 5, turning professional as a teen at Providence, RI's Celebrity Club before moving to Boston and then New York City to study music. Between the mid 1960's and the mid 1990's, he played regularly with an impressive list of prominent jazzmen , including Howard McGhee, Art Blakey, Roy Eldridge, Sonny Stitt, Archie Shepp, Maynard Ferguson and such outstanding vocalists as Dionne Warwick, Dakota Staton and the Drifters.

His first recording as a leader was released in Japan in 1994, and he has since appeared frequently as a soloist and as leader of his own trio in the New York area and in the West Indies.