GARY BURTON — Gary Burton / Chick Corea ‎: Crystal Silence (review)

GARY BURTON — Gary Burton / Chick Corea ‎: Crystal Silence album cover Album · 1973 · Post Bop Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Steve Wyzard
VISCERAL PASTORALISM?!?

While earlier albums would go on to be highly acclaimed and sought after (such as Keith Jarrett's Facing You and the first Terje Rypdal album), Crystal Silence is the album that brought ECM Records to the attention of a much wider audience, especially in the USA. It was Gary Burton's first album for the label, and in 45 years since has never been out of print. Bringing together a wide variety of moods and atmospheres, the performances are masterly and the album is to this day a very high point in both performers' discographies. There are no classic standards, and surprisingly for a duo setting, all 9 songs have never sounded better, even though most have appeared in vastly different contexts and arrangements elsewhere.

If you enjoy jazz piano and vibraphone, what's not to like about Crystal Silence? Detractors are quick to point to this album as "Exhibit A" of the much-discussed mythological "ECM sound", or to dismiss it as the direct ancestor of Wyndham Hill pastoralism. In reality, Corea and Burton are exerting far too much energy keeping the music moving (in every sense of the term), so any claims of "haunted melancholy" can't really be taken seriously. "Senor Mouse", soporific? "Falling Grace", otherworldly? Yes, there are slower, quieter tunes, but again, this album is the complete package.

As ECM's first legitimate masterpiece, it's hard to imagine today how this album was first received upon release in 1973. Both players' very distinctive styles are immaculately served by the recording. I'll close by saying that the title track is one of their greatest performances EVER, and that the album cover remains one of ECM's best in a very crowded field.
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