Online Video Guide

In retrospect, it's surprising that it took Chick Corea and vibraphone innovator Gary Burton so long to find their musical chemistry. Both came of age musically in early 60s Boston. Several years later, Chick replaced Burton in Stan Getz's band, and as the 60s proceeded, he worked occasionally with the vibraphonist's own quartet. But not until the 1973 duo album Crystal Silence was their rapport apparent. Burton once wrote, We discovered an immediate connection, like two people who speak the same obscure language. One expresses a musical thought; the other finishes it. As in the McFerrin tracks, this is jazz improvising refined to its very essence. Like a Beethoven string quartet in which the perspective of an entire orchestra is refracted into an ensemble of two violins, viola, and cello, Corea and Burton provide a complete overview of jazz improvisation via subtle combinations of inference and implication. Melodies are circled, then revisited, rhythms shift across each other, and the