Word: burtons
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...rather than individual. Sorting like musical pack rats through a patchwork of influences, they piece together witty collages that throb with asymmetrical rhythms and fierce intensity, yet never neglect an unashamed capacity for lyricism. "We are playing jazz that represents our particular generation, time of life and background," says Burton. "The people who have been the major influences for the past five to ten years are now getting to be over 40. We're less traditional than they are, but we're not out to destroy traditions like some avant-garde players. We have very little reservation about...
Hair Down. Burton's blithe eclecticism started when he began adapting violin and piano music to the vibes and marimba, which he had taken up at the age of six. At eleven, he organized his father, brother and sister into a band that performed around their home town of Princeton, Ind. Later he went on to absorb jazz in club dates at nearby Evansville, country music in recording sessions at Nashville, and classical composition at Boston's Berklee School of Music...
...sideman with George Shearing and Stan Getz, Burton looked and acted like an earnest graduate student. He had a polished vibes approach that was based on the flowing style of the Modern Jazz Quartet's Milt Jackson, but he still felt that his musical personality was as neatly buttoned down as his collar. So he went on his own, decked himself out in the Custer buckskins, and literally let his hair down. "I felt I should get my personality across to people," he says. "All short haircuts look the same, but no two long ones...
Musically, Burton plans next to experiment by combining a string quartet with his ensemble. And the other liberated spirits assembled by him have just as many odd new ideas as the leader. Coryell, who likes to incorporate the drone of amplifier feedback into his solos, is seeking new electronic effects such as "a very quiet fuzz tone that suggests a little radio turned up as far as it goes. I see a lot of beauty in distortion...
...hands of groups like Gary Burton's, it will...