I haven't said anything on here in awhile, but I would hate myself if I didn't take advantage of this opportunity, for me, of a lifetime. With having the legendary Gary Burton here, Tony, you must be beside yourself. All these great players in one cyberplace.
Anyway, I came to first know Mr. Burton's work as an eight year-old kid, when I was introduced the music of Dick Schory, of whom I've spoken about on this site in the past. Mr. Burton appears on several of Dick Schory's LPs, both studio and in live concerts. His solo work even then was a hint as to what was to come. He was one of the percussionists, working along side the legendary Bobby Christian and other great Chicago percussionists.
My brother got me an LP for my 8th birthday titled "Wild Percussion and Horns a-Plenty." Tony's familiar with the amazing blues ride on a set of orchestra chimes on a tune called "Chimed I'm Sure." I have since replaced my original LP, and several other LPs by Schory and his Percussion Pops Orchestra with pristine copies from memorylanerecords.com and when on my honeymoon in San Francisco, found more Schory LPs at a vintage LP store in the Haight-Ashbury district.
Mr. Burton doesn't play on the Wild Percussion and Horns A-Plenty, but he's on Politely Percussive, Dick Schory On Tour, Supercussion, and is a guest on Schory Live at Carnegie Hall, in which he played his original piece Sunset Bell with Steve Swallow on acoustic bass. I think it's on the album with Chega, Alone at Last. In college, I can't tell you how many hours I practiced that piece, along with Open Your Eyes You Can Fly and Coral, a Keith Jarrett tune, from one of the ECM albums featuring the Burton Quartet
I spent more time on that, sometimes more so than piano, even with being a classical piano major and percussion minor. I was interested mainly in orchestral percussion, including timpani, but loved the vibes and listened to Hamp, Bags, Gary Burton, Eddie Costa and any recording with Larry Bunker, Emil Richards, Tommy Vig and Victor Feldman on it.
I would humbly ask Mr. Burton if he would comment about his time working with Dick Schory and what is like working alongside guys like Bobby Christian. I would be eternally grateful. Also, could he comment on the influence of Bill Evans in his conception?
I also really dig the RCA live Carnegie Hall concert with Bob Moses, Steve Swallow and
Larry Coryell, which I have, along with the Reunion album, with Pat Metheny, Will Lee,
Mitch Forman and Peter Erskine.
Again, I've been a huge fan of Mr. Burton for many years and am grateful for his insight on this site.
Comments
this is great paul
tonymiceli Fri, 03/13/2009 - 20:52
Yeah man, you're so knowledgeable about all this!
i am besides myself! this is pretty cool to have all these guys on the site.
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Tony Miceli
s k y p e: tjazzvibe
i c h a t: tonymiceli
tony@tonymiceli.com
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Dick Schory, etc
Gary Burton Sat, 03/14/2009 - 08:07
That's two pretty diverse influences to comment on: Dick Schory and Bill Evans! I haven't thought much about my Dick Schory experiences in a long while, it was such a long time ago. I met Schory through his role at the Ludwig/Musser companies, since that was my brand of instrument. Dick organized these orchestra projects featuring a lot of percussion, usually three or four of us percussionists employing every known percussion instrument (specifically every instrument marketed by Ludwig/Musser, naturally). The writing was high quality, though certainly commercial in intent. I was in school at Berklee when this all was taking place, so it was a welcome gig for me, even if it wasn't a well-known jazz band, which would have been my first choice. Every few months, I would fly out to Chicago and record or play some concerts with Schory's musicians. I wasn't all that interested in being a generalist percussion player, but I did enjoy getting a close-up view of the excellent players, such as Bobby Christian, that were in the orchestra. In those days, if not currently, Chicago was the leading city in the USA for percussionists (I think LA probably holds that title now, just a guess.) All said, it was a nice opportunity for me, at age 18, to have some new musical experiences, meet some great players, and make some extra money while I was going to school. By the time I made my final recording with Schory (the Carnegie Hall date), I was probably 21 or 22, and touring with Stan Getz.
Bill Evans was my hero during my formative years as an improvisor. I still remember the first time I heard Portraits In Jazz, at the end of my first year at Berklee, 1961. Bill's playing seemed to represent the approach to soloing that I had been trying to imagine, but hadn't quite managed to crystallize. Bill broke several barriers: he escaped from the rigidity of playing in two and four bar melodic phrases to "play across the bar lines," as it was then described. He also used a classical touch on the piano, using more nuance and variety of dynamics than was typical of jazz pianists before his time. His ability to re-harmonize and re-conceive standard songs was also something to admire. Once Bill recorded a song, you felt like his version was the only way to play it. He became a major influence for me because I wanted to overcome the limitations of the vibraphone just as he had done with the piano. Both instruments are very much on the mechanical end of the scale, compared to horns and string instruments which are by nature, more naturally expressive. I saw how Bill could make the piano, with its limited variety of tone color, the dying out of sound as soon as you hit the note, etc., into a very expressive instrument. He used dynamic variety, interesting voicings, and the piano's extended range all to his advantage as a player. I figured if he could do it on piano, I could do it on vibes somehow. That led me to my use of pedaling techniques, dampening, greater use of dynamic variety, more use of four mallets for voicings, etc. Lucky for me, although I was at first imitating Bill's melodic style fairly closely, most people didn't notice it and criticize me for it because I was doing it on vibes instead of piano.
I got to know Bill during my 20's. We played together three times during the 80's, although none of those occasions went particularly well. It's funny to me that the two times I got to play with musicians I considered legendary, instead of being something really easy, it turned out to be awkward. That two occasions would be my attempts to jam a few tunes with the Bill Evans trio, and the time I subbbed for Milt Jackson with the Modern Jazz Quartet. I'll save those stories for another time.
Gary B.
Gary and Bill
ed saindon Sat, 03/14/2009 - 08:15
In reply to Dick Schory, etc by Gary Burton
Gary,
Just that paragraph alone where you are talking about Bill Evans and how it relates to your playing is a gem. Thanks.
Ed
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Ed Saindon
http://www.edsaindon.com
Check out my cds: http://micelimusic.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=24_4
great!
tonymiceli Sat, 03/14/2009 - 10:33
In reply to Dick Schory, etc by Gary Burton
gary this is such great material for us to read. i love it.
so when you hit college you already were making waves in the percussion world? did you really stand out at that point? i mean i think the answer is yes, just curious from your side.
and of course the not so good evans and MJQ stories i'd love to hear more about.
thanks for the history!
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Tony Miceli
s k y p e: tjazzvibe
i c h a t: tonymiceli
tony@tonymiceli.com
www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Miceli/604414578
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What a teaser
tifoo Sat, 03/14/2009 - 17:16
In reply to great! by tonymiceli
We want more stories... so great to read those lines of history.
Thank you pap for posting again, specially on Dick Schory I never heard of before.
The photo is also great !
paps knows his stuff
tonymiceli Sat, 03/14/2009 - 17:18
In reply to What a teaser by tifoo
paps is very very smart and knows a ton about music and groups. and he's a great pianist as well.
he wants to do an online concert of vibes in film music. that would be cool huh? we should plan it.
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Tony Miceli
s k y p e: tjazzvibe
i c h a t: tonymiceli
tony@tonymiceli.com
www.facebook.com/people/Tony-Miceli/604414578
www.myspace.com/tonymicelivibes
Dick Schory, etc.
pap4456 Sat, 03/14/2009 - 19:00
In reply to What a teaser by tifoo
Here's some links with more info about Dick Schory. He was one of my big influences for wanting to get into percussion in the first place.
http://spaceagepop.com/schory.htm
http://ameshistoricalsociety.org/
On the Ames, Iowa site, to the left, you'll see the homepage. Click "About Ames", then scroll down to where it says "Resident" and click "Dick Schory." This will take you to several pages of pics and info about this pioneer of percussion, who is a native of Ames.
About the online thing that Tony mentioned, I still want to do it sometime. Specifically, the focus would be on old TV crime shows which featured jazz-oriented scores such as Peter Gunn, Checkmate and Mannix. The scores made extensive use of vibes as part of the ensemble, and in improvised solos. Henry Mancini (Peter Gunn) was a pioneer in using jazz-oriented scores in the underscore music and featured great players such as Victor Feldman and Larry Bunker. John Williams was the pianist on a lot of this music and he was a great jazz player. He scored the series "Checkmate", which was very influenced by Mancini's innovations. Back in the 60's, he was known as "Johnny Williams" and scored a lot of tv shows. His father was Johnny Williams, Sr., who was the original drummer for the innovative Raymond Scott Quintette. Lalo Schifrin scored both "Mannix" and the famous 5/4 "Mission Impossible theme.
We will do this! There's a lot of s&@t that has been occupying my time lately, but we will do this!
Regards to everyone on vibesworkshop.com!
Paps (I love that name, makes me sound like an old burned-out wise sage!)
Beatles
tifoo Sun, 03/15/2009 - 05:05
In reply to Dick Schory, etc. by pap4456
Hey Paps,
thanks for the links.
In the second one, after the first scary photo, I love the one with the Beatles where Ringo seems quite pi$^ed off to carry Dick'Snare ;-)
Do you think the photo is a montage ?
I'll do an itunes search to listen to samples of his orchestra...
Dick Schory MySpace Link
pap4456 Sun, 03/15/2009 - 14:33
In reply to Beatles by tifoo
Here's a link to a tribute page to Dick Schory with six selections from the "Wild Percussion and Horns A-Plenty" album, the one my brother gave me for my 7th or 8th birthday and got me excited about percussion, even at that age. The album was released on RCA-Victor in 1960. Most of Schory's studio albums were recorded in Chicago's Orchestra Hall, home of the Chicago Symphony. Schory was a percussionist in the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner. Check 'em out.
Arrangements are by Dick Schory, Bobby Christian, Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal.
www.myspace.com/dickschory