# New book: Learning to Listen: The Jazz Journey of Gary Burton

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/10/04/new-book-learning-listen-jazz-journey-gary-burton/
- Published: 2017-10-04T22:07:00+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**In his introduction to _Learning to Listen_, master vibraphonist Gary Burton offers
readers the choice of absorbing his story as either that of “a gay jazz musician
or … a jazz-playing gay man, whichever you prefer.”**

This declaration might potentially put off jazz fans with no particular interest
in LGBT issues. But Burton’s book is a jazz story first and foremost, and his compelling
chronicle of his sexual-identity struggles in no way diminishes the musical material
that, for most readers, will be the book’s _raison d’être_.

Born into a typical Indiana household, Burton became a professional musician at 
an early age; the book’s photo section reproduces a business card from 1952, when
Burton was 9 years old. Eschewing formal music education for the life of a touring
musician, he made his mark in the bands of George Shearing and the maddeningly mercurial
Stan Getz before striking out on his own in the late ’60s. His bands of the era,
featuring electric guitars and basses, were the earliest examples of the fusion 
style later adopted by Miles Davis and other previously acoustic artists. Burton
provides richly detailed accounts of the frequently frantic touring life; his seminal
collaborations with Chick Corea, Pat Metheny and tango giant Astor Piazzolla; and
his longtime tenure as an instructor and administrator at the Berklee College of
Music, where he was responsible for integrating new musical technology and rock 
idioms into the school’s curriculum.

Along with this jazz-historical material, Burton adds to the ever-expanding LGBT
library with the story of his battle to come to terms with his sexuality within 
the overwhelmingly macho world of jazz. Beginning in his youth, Burton contended
with feelings for men that he couldn’t reconcile with his occasional attractions
to women, and he forthrightly acknowledges his fear of accepting the truth about
his sexual preference. He discusses his therapeutic contention with his gayness,
the recognition of “homosexual tendencies” that exempted him from the draft in the
early ’60s, and the two marriages that, while loving and genuine, negated the central
issue of Burton’s quest for self-definition. Burton came out in the early ’90s, 
and he now lives as a securely out-and-proud gay man, with a longtime partner, good
relations with his ex-wives and his children, and strong acceptance from his colleagues
in the jazz community.

Burton’s prose is as crisp and fluid as his playing. He is unafraid to call out 
musicians with whom he has had unpleasant personal or professional interactions,
and he shares a fascinatingly idiosyncratic philosophy on music and its performance.
Burton confesses that he is not one for much extensive practice; he is well known
among his peers for the “twenty-minute practice session,” and admits that unless
he’s touring, recording or preparing new music, his vibes rarely leave his garage.
Near the end of the book, Burton provides an in-depth discussion of his musical 
process, detailing the dialogue with his “inner player” and the musician’s responsibility
to “show the listener around the song.” This chapter, titled “Understanding the 
Creative Process,” is as cogent and intriguing an analysis of the musician’s method
as any I’ve read.

_Learning to Listen_ proves a strikingly apt title for Burton’s memoir. This compulsively
readable work gives us not only a man learning to listen to his inner artist, but
also to hear, understand and express the truth of who he is and how he is meant 
to love and live to his fullest. This is not only an essential jazz biography but
also a singular addition to the gay literary canon, one that deserves to find and
cultivate a strong LGBT readership.

![](https://i0.wp.com/jazztimes.com/images/content/books/Book_Learning-ToListen.
jpg?w=640)

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