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Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

Book: Gary Burton

September 13, 2013 by Doug Ramsey

Gary Burton, Learning To Listen (Berklee Press)

Gary Burton LearningToListenAt the outset of his autobiography, as he turns 70 Burton makes it official again (the first time was in 1994): he’s gay. The vibraphonist then delivers an entertaining, informative and well-written account of his career, returning occasionally but not obsessively to his gayness. He isGary Burton Guided tour even-handed about the difficulties and rewards of working with Stan Getz, full of admiration for Duke Ellington, generous but clear-eyed in discussing colleagues including Chick Corea and Pat Metheny. An invaluable chapter discusses the conscious and unconscious processes of making improvised music. Burton’s superb new quartet CD Guided Tour, with guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Antonio Sanchez, is a fine companion to the book.

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Comments

  1. John Pickworth says

    September 13, 2013 at 7:52 pm

    Have just bought the kindle version of this & looking forward to reading it.
    Am leaving Boston on Sunday so will miss his gig at Scullers

    Doug! I enjoyed enjoyed the Take Five book immensely.

  2. Terence Smith says

    September 15, 2013 at 2:28 pm

    If it’s not off the subject:

    George Shearing was always one of Gary Burton’s biggest fans, as well as an early employer. Shearing seemed to take every opportunity to promote Gary Burton’s concepts.

    In the Shearing autobiography, LULLABY OF BIRDLAND, which has about 6 pages devoted to Burton, Shearing says that “you have to grow old enough to appreciate …the depth and simplicity of J.S Bach,” and then goes on to describe his “collaboration with Gary Burton on (the Capitol LP) OUT OF THE WOODS, which brought elements of Bach’s baroque style to the Quintet ( plus woodwinds).”

    In an interview in Len Lyons’ THE GREAT JAZZ PIANISTS ( circa 1980), Shearing was quoted as saying, ” I love Gary Burton’s musical mind so much that I fought with my record company to let me record an album composed and arranged by him ( OUT OF THE WOODS, Capitol LP)….Gary and I …did a two-piano piece on it, partly written and partly improvised…” When Len Lyons asked, “Gary Burton plays piano?” Shearing replied,
    ” Oh, boy, does Gary play piano!”

    I myself don’t have the Out of the Woods LP ( some of it is on you-tube), but I have always loved the way Burton played with the Shearing Quintet, as on the 1963 JAZZ CONCERT LP. And when George Shearing thinks someone has a well- organized musical mind, it’s quite a compliment.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

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Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

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Monday Recommendation: Gerard Kubik, Jazz Transatlantic

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Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

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