These Burton albums precede his artistically successful amalgam of jazz and rock he initially introduced on Duster in 1967. It had been Chet Atkins, the guitarist and head of RCA's Nashville operation, who signed Burton to RCA at the age of 17, and when he went on to studies at Berklee College of Music in Boston, he continued his career on records for RCA in New York. It's fair to say that while they recognised his prodigious talent, they were unsure of what to do with him. Rather obvious attempts to get his ‘name’ across to the jazz public with New Vibe Man in Town and Who Is Gary Burton? were followed by the three rare albums on this BGO set; Something's Coming! follows the kind of ‘introducing Gary Burton’ theme of the previous two albums, and features the elegant Jim Hall on guitar. By now Burton had put in road time with the George Shearing Quintet (and recording with the group on Capitol) and his playing was assuming greater focus. It also introduces the first of many Mike Gibbs compositions he would feature in coming years with ‘Melanie’ (Gibbs had become a close friend during their Berklee days). The album's release coincided with George Shearing winding up his quintet at the end of 1963, and from there Burton gravitated to the Stan Getz group for three years. The Groovy Sound of Music follows in the ‘jazz-version-of-a-Broadway-musical’ then popular, Burton arranging three numbers and Gary McFarland four. The album, in jazz terms at least, was successful; McFarland was a fine arranger who two years earlier had done his own jazz version of the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. The final album The Time Machine follows an ambitious ‘Conversations With Myself’ theme using multi-tracking, and again is artistically successful, and like the Bill Evans album which inspired it, The Time Machine was ahead of its time.