Chick Corea and Gary Burton
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
10 May
Marrying jazz and classical music has been on the agenda since jazz was born. Success has been rare, however, because of inherent problems. How do improvisers and non-improvisers relate? How do they blend sonically, especially if the jazz instruments are amplified? How do you infuse an orchestra with jazz’s lifeblood, its rhythms?
The composer Chick Corea and orchestrator Tim Garland have raised the bar in integration and quality of orchestral writing in a jazz context. The 35th year of the collaboration between Corea (piano) and Gary Burton (vibraphone) was celebrated with Garland’s arrangements of five Corea favourites, performed by the duo with the Sydney Symphony under Jonathan Stockhammer. It was like strolling through a familiar garden which suddenly exploded in the luxuriance of its blooms and foliage.
Read the full review in The Sydney Morning Herald.