VIBRAPHONE MASTERCLASS
WITH Vic Firth Artist: GARY BURTON
As a five-time Grammy Award-winning
musician, Gary Burton is one of the most
commercially successful mallet players in history.
For the better part of his professional career, Burton
has used his position to help educate and mentor the
next generation of musical talent, teaching at institutions
around the world.
We are excited to present Gary's 8-part
Vibraphone Masterclass series to you, recorded backstage
in Boston's Symphony Hall. In this series, Burton covers
the full gamut of common questions on the instrument
– from it's history to his famous 4 mallet grip.
An Overview of the Vibraphone and History
of the Instrument
WATCH GARY PERFORM A VIBE SOLO Featuring Gary performing a medley of two tunes by bassist
and composer Steve Swallow entitled "I'm Your Pal" (originally
recorded with Chick Corea on “Crystal Silence”) and “Hullo
Bolinas” (from “Alone At Last”).
Born in 1943 and raised in Indiana, Gary Burton
taught himself to play the vibraphone and, at the age of
17, made his recording debut in Nashville, Tennessee, with
guitarists Hank Garland and Chet Atkins. Two years later,
Burton left his studies at Berklee College of Music to join
George Shearing and subsequently Stan Getz, with whom he
worked from 1964-1966.
As a member of Getz's quartet, Burton won Down Beat magazine's
Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition award in 1965. By the
time he left Getz to form his own quartet in 1967, Burton
had also recorded three albums under his name for RCA. Borrowing
rhythms and sonorities from rock music, while maintaining
jazz's emphasis on improvisation and harmonic complexity,
Burton's first quartet attracted large audiences from both
sides of the jazz-rock spectrum. Such albums as Duster and
Lofty Fake Anagram established Burton and his band as progenitors
of the jazz fusion phenomenon. Burton's burgeoning popularity
was quickly validated by Down Beat magazine, which awarded
him its Jazzman of the Year award in 1968. During his subsequent
association with the label (1973-1988) the Burton Quartet
expanded to include the young Pat Metheny on guitar, and
the band began to explore a repertoire of modern compositions.
In the '70s, Burton also began to focus on more intimate
contexts for his music. His 1971 album Alone at Last, a solo
vibraphone concert recorded at the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival,
was honored with a Grammy Award. Burton also turned to the
rarely heard duo format, recording with bassist Steve Swallow,
guitarist Ralph Towner, and most notably with pianist Chick
Corea, thus cementing a long personal and professional relationship
that has garnered an additional two Grammy Awards.
Also in the '70s, Burton began his career with Berklee College
of Music in Boston. Burton began as a teacher of percussion
and improvisation classes at Berklee in 1971. In 1985 he
was named Dean of Curriculum. In 1989, he received an honorary
doctorate of music from the college, and in 1996, he was
appointed Executive Vice President.
Burton began recording for GRP records in the '80s and '90s.
In 1990, he paired up again with his former protege Metheny
for Reunion, which landed him the top spot on Billboard magazine's
jazz chart. Burton is now recording for Concord Records.
Departure (Gary Burton & Friends) was released in 1997
by Concord Records as well as Native Sense, a new duet collaboration
with Chick Corea, which garnered a Grammy Award in 1998.
Also in 1997, Burton recorded his second collection of tango
music, Astor Piazzolla Reunion, featuring the top tango musicians
of Argentina, followed by Libertango in 2000, another collection
of Piazzolla music. His 1998 Concord release, Like Minds,
an all-star hit featuring his frequent collaborators Chick
Corea, Pat Metheny, Roy Haynes, and Dave Holland, was honored
with a Grammy win, Burton's fifth. Gary's vibraphone tribute
CD, For Hamp, Red, Bags and Cal, was released in March 2001
on Concord and garnered Gary's 12th Grammy nomination. His
most recent release in 2002 is a unique project with Makoto
Ozone, his pianist collaborator of the past twenty years.
In Virtuosi the pair explore the improvisational possibilities
of classical themes including works by Brahms, Scarlatti,
Ravel, Barber and others. In an unusual move, the Recording
Academy nominated Virtuosi in the classical category of the
Grammy awards, a unique honor for Gary.
Next came a new band that Gary formed in 2003 as he announced
his retirement from Berklee College of Music after 33 years
in music education. The GENERATIONS band featured a line-up
of young talented musicians including then sixteen-year old
guitarist Julian Lage and Russian-born pianist Vadim Nevelovskyi.
Gary recorded two CDs with the group titled GENERATION and
NEXT GENERATION and the band toured steadily from 2003 through
mid-2006.
Since then, Gary has focused his recording and performing
efforts on collaborations, with old friends and new, including
tours and recordings with Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Makoto
Ozone, Spanish pianist/composer Polo Orti, and French accordionist
Richard Galliano. L¹hymne a L¹amour with Richard
Galliano was released on the Camjazz label in August 2007.
Armistad Suite with Polo Orti and the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra
was released in spring 2007. A live concert recording with
Chick Corea will be released in 2008, followed by a CD titled
The Gary Burton Quartet Revisted featuring performances by
Gary with Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow and Antonio Sanchez.
