Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

Page nine of Lewis Buzbee?s new memoir/history of bookstores, The Yellow Lighted Bookshop, was where he had me hooked. It is where he begins to describe one of his visits to a bookstore, a visit brought on by nothing more than the want of a new book. He calls it ?book lust.? The next two pages guide the reader from shelf to shelf, book to book, to touch the spines and eyeball the titles, until on page twelve he finds the target of the day, a process that seems to be equal parts serendipity and perseverance. Oh, and lust, too.

I shop for books in the same way. Books and CDs. Last week I had ?CD lust? and drove to Rasputin?s in Pleasant Hill during my lunch hour, which is actually thirty minutes. I had ten minutes of power browsing, fifteen if I chose a pedal-to-the-metal return trip to my office and risk a possible speeding ticket. Fifteen it was. I began my well-practiced index fingers? shuffling of CDs in the racks, quickly glancing at covers and titles, rejecting all choices in the rock and world music sections. I quickly stepped over to the used jazz section of the store, a man on a mission, not wanting to be shut out during this visit. I touched a few jewel boxes in the miscellaneous A-B section, and there it was:

[tag]New Vibe Man in Town[/tag] by [tag]Gary Burton[/tag].

This RCA recording from 1961 was Burton?s first as a leader. The cover art has the title in a yellow bold serif font, with Burton?s name in white below it, both in all upper case letters and positioned in the upper left corner of the cover. In the middle of the cover is someone ? Burton? ? wearing a red cap, holding percussionist mallets in his left hand and a xylophone?s equivalent of a piano?s white keys in his right hand, slung over his right shoulder. To this person?s right is a stop sign with a ?One Way? arrow sign pointing at the mallet- and keyboard-carrying figure, who is heading toward a brick building with the RCA logo, the 1960s one with a lightning bolt underscoring the ?C? in ?RCA,? superimposed over a window in the upper right corner.

Burton?s band on this recording was bare-bones, a drummer and bassist, and two of the best in the jazz world. The drummer was Joe Morello. Morello is best known as being the drummer in the Dave Brubeck Quartet. He played the brilliant sculpting-with-sound solo in Paul Desmond?s ?Take Five,? not only this band?s best-known song but one of the best-known compositions in music from the previous century. The bass player was Gene Cherico. Cherico may not be one of the marquee names of jazz, but he recorded and gigged with many of jazz?s greats, including vibist Red Norvo, Desmond (although not with Morello), Jim Hall, Stan Getz, and some singer named Sinatra.

The eight songs on the CD are all well-known standards. Among them are ?Over The Rainbow,? ?Like Someone In Love,? and ?You Stepped Out OF A Dream.? Burton?s playing is confident and mature on each piece. His sound is not quite the ringing ethereal tone that he would later use on recordings with Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Ralph Towner, and his own bands on ECM Records: the quick decay of the notes is similar to Norvo?s style, the difference being what Burton plays while using that sound.

The term ?angular? has become a cliche in describing a soloist?s phrasing; Burton?s playing on this recording is one of the reasons this term came into prominence. His lines jump from stating the melody to quick flourishes and back again, never sounding anything less than beautiful. Not only are his solos inventive and precise, he uses up to three mallets in his left hand to play chords like a pianist. This is not a Lionel Hampton one-mallet-in-each-hand vibes record. Nor is it a gimmicky jazz record (Stanley Jordan?s mid-1980s Blue Note recordings come to mind) where the technique tends to overshadow what is being played. No. This is music. The good stuff.

I grabbed the CD, paid for it at the counter, and checked the clock on the wall on my way out the front door. I had five minutes to spare for the ride back to the office.

To find this CD, check various Internet used items websites like ebay.com or half.com, try the all-encompassing amazon.com, or spend some time rummaging through racks at used record stores. You may or may not find it. You may find something else and take it home. It?s all part of CD lust.

For ordering and additional information regarding Lewis Buzbee?s The Yellow Lighted Bookshop, visit www.graywolfpress.org. It goes well with both Gary Burton and silence.

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