All that jazz leads to sizzling summer.

(From The Korea Herald)

By Warren Lee Several jazz concerts will be an appropriate kick-off for what meteorologists and fortunetellers have predicted to be the hottest summer in recent memory.

On June 6, the LG Arts Center will present the finest vibraphonist playing today, Gary Burton. Since his humble debut in a Nashville recording studio at the age of 17, Burton has revolutionized the way people play and hear the vibraphone, creating a whole new system of sounds through his simultaneous use of four mallets.

Alongside Burton will be his longtime collaborator, pianist Makoto Ozone. Burton, a teacher at the Berklee College of Music for nearly 30 years, recognized the talent of the young Japanese pianist when Ozone was a student there and they soon began a fruitful partnership of concerts and recordings that has lasted more than 10 years.

Their last album together, "Virtuosi," is a riff on well-known classical music themes by Brahms, Ravel, Scarlatti and Barber, among others. The record earned the unusual distinction of a Grammy nomination in the classical music category in 2002.

The upcoming program will feature Burton's take on a Scarlatti sonata and one of Rachmaninoff's Prelude alongside jazz standards by Thelonious Monk and Benny Goodman.

Burton was born in 1943 in a small farm town in Indiana and taught himself how to play the vibraphone. After a short stint with saxophonist Stan Getz, he formed in his own quartet in 1967. The five- time Grammy Award winner has since collaborated with the likes of pianist Chick Corea and guitarists Ralph Towner and Pat Metheny.