- Sea Journey [9:00]
- Olhos de Gato [6:36]
- Falling Grace [7:18]
- Coral [6:23]
- Walter L [5:30]
- B and G (Midwestern Night's Dream) [6:53]
- Missouri Uncompromised [7:34]
- Fleurette Africaine (Little African Flower) [7:34]
- Hullo, Bolinas [4:48]
- Syndrome [ 4:42]
- Question and Answer [13:02]
Gary Burton (vibes); Pat Metheny (guitar); Steve Swallow (electric
bass); Antonio Sanchez (drums)
Recorded: Yoshi's Oakland CA 10-11 June 2007
Gary Burton has to be one of jazz's great collaborators. He has the
happy knack of recombining his quite unique jazz vibraphone skills
with musicians of differing jazz styles or even different genres yet
producing results that are more than the sum of their considerable
parts. Likewise, he seems to thrive in the live concert environment
- to my mind the resulting discs having an edge and improvisatory
brilliance that surpasses his studio work. Two of my all-time favourite
albums are Gary Burton and Chick Corea: In Concert, Zurich,
October 28, 1979 (ECM released 1980 - best jazz instrumental Grammy)
and New Tango - Astor Piazzolla & Gary Burton live at the Montreux
Jazz Festival (WEA 2292-55069-2).
His latest album here under review is in the very best sense a mix
of the old and new. It is very much a stellar line-up with Burton
joined by Pat Metheny on guitar and long-time bass collaborator Steve
Swallow. The new addition to the tried and tested quartet line-up
favoured by Burton early in his recording career is drummer Antonio
Sanchez. In the liner notes all of the players take turns to enthuse
about this reforming of the quartet but I think they are quite right
to draw attention to Sanchez's contribution. He is instrumental (no
pun intended) in driving the quartet with a funkier at times latin
feel to his drumming that clearly inspires the other players. Everything
about this album is literally masterly. Recorded in California live
over two nights in 2007 towards the end of a tour it oozes class.
Although some of the tracks are remakes of numbers from the 1970's
in no way are these tired reworkings of stale "favourites".
For example Burton's own Walter L which featured on the last
of the original quartet's albums from 1968 here becomes a strutting
funk-jazz number that is quite jaw-dropping in the ease with which
the players toss off mind twistingly complex riffs. Metheny, in his
share of the liner notes says "these concerts were pure joy".
I think that corporate pleasure is tangible - it's almost as is you
can feel four musicians at the very peak of their talents jousting
with each other good naturedly in a "beat that if you can"
kind of way. Given the length of the association between Burton and
Swallow I was surprised to read that this sequence of concerts is
the first time they have played live together since the original quartet
disbanded some twenty years previously. The almost telepathic oneness
is remarkable. Less demonstrably than Sanchez, but every bit as vitally,
Swallow's bass underpins the group allowing Burton and Metheny to
fly.
The album does not have the instantly gratifying ear-tickling melodies
of some of Burton's other albums. I'm loath to say this is an album
for the connoisseur because that implies a kind of jazz-snobbery that
I don't intend but this is an album that repays repeated and intent
listening. The layers of musicianship on display here both technical
and compositional are truly remarkable. Solos are endlessly inventive
and sympathetic - I love the variety of sonorities Metheny achieves
always matching the feel of the number to perfection. Likewise Burton
is as brilliant when taking a solo or filling an accompaniment with
riffs and chords as apt as they are imaginative. Metheny's own Missouri
Uncompromised is probably a favourite track for me embodying all
the fluent brilliance that I so enjoy from these musicians. The following
number; Ellington's Fleurette Africaine is given a cooler,
almost bluesy feel with an underlying latin groove that is as fresh
as it is effective.
This is an excellently recorded and generously filled live album
too. The engineers have achieved an close and detailed balance between
instruments (perhaps Swallow's bass is a shade distant in a perfect
world) in a warm and natural acoustic which allows the appreciation
of the audience to register - underlining the live nature of the recording
- without ever coming between the listener and the music. One tiny
quibble - possibly the worst album cover of recent years - if readers
remember the children's TV series Rhubarb & Custard it seems to
have come from the same design stable but under the influence of psychedelic
drugs with head and shoulders shots of the quartet on the back cover
which look like they have been coloured in by a four year old. Clearly
I just don't get that but frankly that matters not an iota (I enjoyed
the comments from the four players very much once I'd opened the notes!)
when you are in the presence of jazz greatness such as this. Now I've
got third all-time favourite album.
Freshly inventive stunningly performed disc by a truly great quartet.
Nick Barnard
CD Reviews
Concord Jazz CJA-31303-02
