Several labels have chimed-in during recent times with reissues of Burton's precocious work as a teenager when contracted to RCA Victor at the tender age of 17 and his work as a sideman with drummer Joe Morrello and Hank Garland. Now in Conception, a two CD anthology, we have his debut as a leader on RCA, Who Is Gary Burton? (previously available on Essential Jazz Classics in 2013), his second album as a leader New Vibe Man in Town (previously available on American Jazz Classics in 2012) plus his work as a sideman with Hank Garland, Jazz Winds from a New Direction (included on the American Jazz Classics set), The Nashville All-Stars' After the Riot in Newport, which makes its debut on CD, and as a bonus track, Burton's appearance on the Floyd Cramer single ‘Last Date’ from 1960 which made it to Number 2 on the pop chart. Since the albums under Burton's name have only been recently reviewed, it is worth reiterating that his work with Hank Garland is a revelation – not only because the country & western guitarist was also equally at home (and as accomplished) in jazz, but for Burton's playing a matter of months before he entered Berklee College when he brought new meaning to the word prodigy. Famously in 1960 there was a ‘riot’ at the Newport Jazz Festival, when a band comprising country & western musicians plus Burton was booked to play a jazz set. They didn't make the festival stage because of the ruckus, but not to be outdone RCA hired a house nearby where the band performed in front of a live audience to create the album they had planned. After the Riot at Newport is a fascinating historical document that presaged Burton's own Tennessee Firebird – a fascinating amalgam of Western Swing, country & western and jazz – recorded in 1966. This was a period when Burton was contemplating forming a set working band (rather than ad hoc sessions that characterised his recordings while studying at Berklee). In the end he settled for a fusion of jazz and rock, plus a bit of country thrown in for good measure. The debut of his new quartet was marked by Duster, recorded in 1967 (for the record, In a Silent Way was recorded in 1969) and has enormous historical significance (if not universally acknowledged) as a precursor of the jazz-rock era about to break when Miles Davis gave it its legitimacy. It contains two jazz classics, the Mike Gibbs composition ‘Sweet Rain’ (given its ‘classic’ status by an album of the same name by Stan Getz in 1967) and Carla Bley's ‘Sing Me Softly of the Blues’. Even today, there is a sense of breakthrough in this album, that something new was on the way, heralded by ‘General Mojo's Well Laid Plan’. Burton's final quartet album for RCA was Country Roads & Other Places from 1969. It is by, er, a country mile the best representation of the Burton quartet of this period, firstly because the group had found its collective voice (which Coryell replacement Jerry Hahn fell easily into) and secondly because of the increasing maturity of Mike Gibbs as a composer, a close friend of Burton since their Berklee days together, whose compositions helped define the Burton group sound. Although the liner notes say this is the first appearance of Country Roads in digital format, it was in fact re-released by Koch/BMG Special Products in 1998. Highlights are the title track by Burton and bassist Steve Swallow, and Mike Gibbs' ‘A Family Joy’ and ‘And on the Third Day’ – the latter recorded by the Gibbs big band in 1972 and used as the signature tune for the long running Sounds of Jazz.