JAZZ

Nicole Zuraitis performs Oct. 4 in the intimate cabaret setting at Japanalia. (Handout / October 8, 2012)

By OWEN McNALLY, Special to The Courant
The Hartford Courant
September 1, 2013

GARY BURTON: Celebrating his remarkable new autobiography, his just released CD, his 70th birthday year and his more than 50 years in the music business, the legendary vibraphonist Gary Burton performs with The New Gary Burton Quartet on Sept. 26 at the University of Connecticut in what might well be the most significant and emotionally evocative of all jazz concerts in the 2013 fall season in Connecticut.

A major innovative figure in jazz history on an instrument that had often been relegated to a minor role, Burton performs at UConn's Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts, a familiar venue for him where he has created transcendent jazz chamber music in duets with his good friend and frequent collaborator, pianist Chick Corea. Always an uncanny discoverer and effective, sensitive nurturer of young talent —- as he was so famously with his early mentoring of future guitar mega-star Pat Metheny —- Burton today features yet another rising star protégé, Julian Lage, the gifted, young guitarist in this latest incarnation of the Gary Burton Quartet.

What makes the UConn gig the major jazz event of the season — or, for that matter, just about any other season —- is that it's part of a well-deserved celebration of the seven-time Grammy Award winner's life and art, both of which he candidly and eloquently chronicles in his excellent autobiography, "Learning to Listen" (Berklee Press).
READ MORE: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/music/hc-fall-arts-jazz-0901-20130901,0,7840105.story?track=rss