GARY BURTON

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. 

Having been self-taught on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique were widely imitated. He is also known for pioneering fusion jazz and popularizing the duet format in jazz.

Burton is notable as one of very few openly gay musicians in jazz history, and has stated that his coming out in his 40s had no adverse consequences for his career as he had feared

At six years old, Burton taught himself to play marimba and vibraphone and formally studied piano when in high school. Burton has cited jazz pianist Bill Evans as a main inspiration for his approach toward the vibraphone.

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

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 to 1966. In 1967 the Gary Burton Quartet was formed along with guitarist Larry Coryell, drummer Roy Haynes, and bassist Steve Swallow. Predating the jazz-rock fusion craze of the 1970s, Duster combined jazz, country and rock and roll elements, and has been cited as being among the first of its kind. However, some of Burton's previous albums (notably Tennessee Firebird and Time Machine, both from 1966) had already shown his inclination toward such experimentation. After Coryell left the quartet in the late-1960s, Burton hired guitarists: Jerry Hahn, David Pritchard, Mick Goodrick, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Julian Lage, who played guitar in the most recent Burton group, Next Generation.

After being named Downbeat Magazine's Jazzman of the Year in 1968 (the youngest ever to receive the title) and winning his first Grammy award in 1972, Burton began a now 36 year-long collaboration with pianist Chick Corea, recognized for popularizing the concept of jazz duet performance. Their half dozen recordings won the pair Grammy awards in years 1979, 1981, 1997, and 1999.

Burton has played with a variety of well-known jazz musicians, including Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Steve Lacy, Pat Metheny, Makoto Ozone, Adam Nussbaum, Tiger Okoshi, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, B.B. King, Larry Coryell, Tommy Smith, Eberhard Weber, Stephane Grappelli and tango legend Ástor Piazzolla, to name just a few.

Burton also hosts a radio show on the "Pure Jazz" station on Sirius Satellite Radio. In June of 2006, Burton performed with Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow, and Antonio Sanchez in The Gary Burton Quartet Revisited. From September 2006 - April 2008, Burton toured world-wide with Chick Corea celebrating their 35 years of working together.

His available recordings, as of 2008, are mainly those from Atlantic Records, ECM Records, GRP Records and the Concord Jazz label.

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.