Gary Burton has long divided his interests and efforts between the pursuit of a performing career and his commitment as a music professor at Berkeley School of Music in Boston. He is a self-taught vibraphonist - heavily inspired by the late Lionel Hampton - who has performed not only jazz, but rock and country as well. In his 40-plus-year career, he's worked as a soloist with his own quartet, and been a part of many historic duets, including Chick Corea and Larry Coryell. In the late 1960s, he was one of the early pioneers of the jazz-rock fusion movement, and over the years, he has participated in several successful tributes to Benny Goodman and Lionel Hampton.

Burton never quite reached the jazz superstar that Pat Methany, Herbie Hancock or Chick Corea ascended to, but he is one our national musical treasures nonetheless.