Vibraphonist Rusty Burge has amassed an impressive curriculum vitae over the past 20-plus years: professor of vibraphone and percussion at University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music, director of CCM’s Steel Drum Band, member of the university’s acclaimed Percussion Group Cincinnati, one-time principal percussionist with the West Virginia Symphony and a healthy session musician with a reputation that keeps him pathologically busy, resulting in an extensive Jazz discography.
Burge has also released four albums, including his new recording with pianist Steve Allee, the blissful and understated Faraway.
Burge met Allee back around 2007, brought together by drummer Steve Houghton for a gig. Recognizing each other’s immense talents, the pair made the oft-spoken musical vow to work together sometime, a tentative plan undone by scheduling conflicts and busy lives.
When they finally carved out time, Burge met Allee at his studio last June and they knocked out the songs for Faraway in a single recording session.
“(Allee) lives out in the country in Indiana, pretty close to Bloomington, and he has a separate dwelling that’s a little studio,” Burge says. “He’s done a lot of jingles over the years; he’s the music director for (nationally syndicated radio program) The Bob and Tom Show, so he’s got a long history of doing all kinds of sessions. I went over the night before, had dinner, hung out, we got up the next morning, got the piano tuned and we just played for six or seven hours. It was a beautiful thing. He’s a master accompanist, really so comfortable on every level.”
Burge’s last album, 2012’s Transitions, featured trumpeter/pianist Kim Pensyl and bassist Mike Sharfe and wound up being one of the most successful recordings of Burge’s career. The album’s drum-less soundscape paved the way for the piano/vibraphone setting on Faraway.
“(Transitions) was vibes, a little horn and bass, so no drums, and at first I was a little leery, but that was kind of their theme,” Burge says. “It spent 30 weeks on the Jazz charts. It was really nice because it was a different sound. There’s probably dozens of quartet/quintet albums coming out, so the fact that this was a little different instrumentation taught me something. Not that you have to be fringy or weird, but I think having a sound that is not being saturated is helpful.”
The sound that Burge and Allee concocted together on Faraway lives up to the title. Quietly evocative yet passionately intense, the tracks exude a laidback vibe while showcasing the glorious virtuosity of both players as their talents meld into an effortlessly complementary pas de deux.
“It’s not the most progressive album, and it could even be accused of being too mellow, certainly there are a lot of piano/vibes references to Gary (Burton) and Chick (Corea), but we just played,” Burge says. “I drove away (from the sessions) and had no idea what was there. I thought, ‘Well, that was pretty cool.’ Once I heard the initial tracks, then I was thinking, ‘That was really cool.’ ”
Faraway becomes even more impressive given the fact that Burge and Allee spent almost no time contemplating how to structure their recording session or the material.
“We had talked about some originals we were going to play,” Burge says. “It’s not like we’re in the same town. I’ll go up there a couple of times a year and play (Indianapolis’) Jazz Kitchen, and he’ll come down here. So we’ve played together enough, we traded originals, but it was pretty loose. When we got together, I had some ideas about a couple of my tunes. I wanted to split it around so it wasn’t one sonority, with the vibes always melody. So we talked about logistics. I’ve done that a lot in the studio and sometimes it’s overload, but one of the reasons I think this felt so comfortable was because it was so loose.”
While Burge lamented the lack of up-tempo tunes on Faraway, in the live arena the album bristles with energy and transcends its mellow studio birth. The chemistry between Burge and Allee catches fire in front of an audience.
“Steve can tear the walls down,” Burge says. “He’s got the McCoy Tyner/Herbie Hancock/modern thing, completely tasteful and always the right thing for the moment. But when we play live … we were laughing about this a couple of weeks ago. I said, ‘The album is pretty in, but when we play it live, it’s pretty out. We’re really stretching.’ He said, ‘Well, the next one’s going to be completely left.’ ”
For more on RUSTY BURGE, visit rustyburge.com. Faraway is available on iTunes here.
This article appears in Apr 8-14, 2015.