Gary Burton

All Music Guide:

One of the two great vibraphonists to emerge in the 1960s (along with Bobby Hutcherson), Gary Burton's remarkable four-mallet technique (best displayed on an unaccompanied version of "No More Blues" from 1971) can make him sound like two or three players at once. He recorded in a wide variety of settings and always sounds distinctive. Self-taught on vibes, Burton made his recording debut with country guitarist Hank Garland when he was 17, started recording regularly for RCA in 1961, and toured with George Shearing's quintet in 1963. He gained some fame while with Stan Getz's piano-less quartet during 1964-1966, and then put together his own groups. In 1967, with guitarist Larry Coryell, he led one of the early "fusion" bands; Coryell would later be succeeded by Sam Brown, Mick Goodrick, John Scofield, Jerry Hahn, and Pat Metheny. Burton recorded duet sets with Chick Corea (they also toured extensively), Ralph Towner, Steve Swallow, and Paul Bley, and collaborated on an album apiece with Stéphane Grappelli and Keith Jarrett. Among his sidemen in the late '70s and '80s were Makoto Ozone, Tiger Okoshi, and Tommy Smith. Very active as an educator at Berklee since joining its faculty in 1971, Burton (who teamed up with Eddie Daniels in the early '90s for an interesting Benny Goodman/Lionel Hampton tribute tour and recording) remained a prominent stylist. He recorded during different periods of his career extensively for RCA, Atlantic, ECM, GRP, and Concord, releasing Like Minds through the latter in 1998. Two years later, Libertango, his tribute to tango master Astor Piazzolla, arrived. The very personal composition For Hamp, Red, Bags, and Cal was issued in 2001 and in 2002 he explored classical music with a duet album Virtuosi recorded with pianist Makoto Ozone. 2004 found Burton back on more familiar ground with the release of Generations a bop-influenced album featuring a quartet of younger musicians. Burton paired with the same group for 2005's Next Generation. In 2009, Burton released Quartet Live featuring guitarist Pat Metheny and bassist Gary Swallow on Concord.

Wikipedia:

Gary Burton (born January 23, 1943, Anderson, Indiana) is an American jazz vibraphonist.

A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the prevailing two-mallet technique. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated. He is also known for pioneering fusion jazz and popularizing the duet format in jazz, as well as being a major figure in jazz education due to his 30 years at the Berklee College of Music.

Biography

Beginning music at six years old, Burton for the most part taught himself to play marimba and vibraphone. He also began studying piano at age sixteen as he finished high school in Princeton, Indiana (56-60). Burton has cited jazz pianist Bill Evans as a main inspiration for his approach toward the vibraphone.

Burton attended Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1960-61. He studied with Herb Pomeroy and soon befriended the composer and arranger Michael Gibbs. After establishing his career during the 1960s, he returned to join the staff of Berklee from 1971–2004, serving first as Professor, then Dean and finally as Executive Vice President during his last decade at the college.

Early in his career, at the behest of noted Nashville saxophonist Boots Randolph, Burton moved to Nashville and recorded with several notable Nashville musicians including guitarist Hank Garland, pianist Floyd Cramer and guitarist Chet Atkins.

After touring both the U.S. and Japan with pianist George Shearing in 1963, Burton went on to play with saxophonist Stan Getz from 1964-1966. It was during this time with the Stan Getz Quartet that Burton appeared with the band in a feature film, "Get Yourself a College Girl", playing "Girl From Ipanema" with Astrud Gilberto. In 1967 he formed the Gary Burton Quartet along with guitarist Larry Coryell, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist Steve Swallow. Predating the jazz-rock fusion craze of the 1970s, the group's first record, Duster, combined jazz, country and rock and roll elements. However, some of Burton's previous albums (notably Tennessee Firebird and Time Machine, both from 1966) had already shown his inclination toward such experimentation with different genres of popular music. After Coryell left the quartet in the late-1960s, Burton hired a number of well-regarded guitarists: Jerry Hahn, David Pritchard, Mick Goodrick, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and most recently Julian Lage, who played guitar in Burton's group Next Generation.

Burton was named Down Beat magazine's 'Jazzman of the Year' in 1968 (the youngest ever to receive the title) and won his first Grammy award in 1972, Burton began a now 38 year-long collaboration with pianist Chick Corea, recognized for popularizing the format of jazz duet performance. Their half dozen recordings won the pair Grammy awards in years 1979, 1981, 1997, 1999, and most recently in 2009, for The New Crystal Silence.

Burton has played with a variety of jazz musicians, including Carla Bley, Hank Garland, Gato Barbieri, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Steve Lacy, Pat Metheny, Makoto Ozone, Adam Nussbaum, Tiger Okoshi, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Tommy Smith, Eberhard Weber, Stephane Grappelli and tango legend Ástor Piazzolla.

From 2004-2008 Burton hosted a weekly jazz radio show on Sirius Satellite Radio. From September 2006 - April 2008, Burton toured worldwide with Chick Corea celebrating 35 years of working together. Most recently Burton has toured and recorded with Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow, and Antonio Sanchez (The Gary Burton Quartet Revisited), reprising music from the Burton's 1970s group.

Burton's available recordings, as of 2010, are mainly those from Atlantic Records, ECM Records, GRP Records and the Concord Jazz label.

On Wednesday, February 23, Mack Avenue Records announced that they signed Burton. He plans to release his next project, entitled "Common Ground" featuring The New Gary Burton Quartet (featuring Julian Lage, Scott Colley, and Antonio Sanchez) on June 7.

Personal life

Following an early marriage in his 20's, Burton married for a second time in 1975 to Catherine Goldwyn, granddaughter of film producer Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974).

By the 1980s, Burton was in a homosexual relationship. He came out publicly in a 1994 radio interview with Terry Gross, making him one of rather few openly gay jazz musicians of prominence.

Awards

Over the years, Gary Burton has been nominated for 15 Grammy Awards and he has won 6: