I was told by both people I went with, independently and together, what excellent acoustics the Esplanade complex (picture right) has. Presumably this applies to all the parts of it, but the concert hall was definitely sounding pretty good this evening. We arrived to be informed that we were moved from the circle to the second row in the stalls. "Excellent" we thought, "$150 seats for $60 a piece". Sadly the nearly-front-row seats just meant we wouldn't be able to see Chick and Gaty's hands, and the aforementioned acoustics (some of the best in the world) meant we weren't gaining anything even on the "worst" seats in terms of sound quality. We moved to the dress circle in the interval, helped by the friendly staff.
I have never seen someone play the vibraphone before, but something tells me I won' see it played like that again. Gary Burton had some spectacular solos, improvisations over complex and innovative (well done Chick) chord progressions in a variety of styles from flamenco and tango to chinstrokey jazz and just good fun bluesy jazz, and didn't break a sweat (thanks in part to air-conditioning, I can tell you). Chick, as Michelle said, made some very challenging piano playing look effortless. The sound they made got a bit tired for me halfway through, though the hardcore fans cheered every piece at start and finished and applauded every exceptional solo (all of them actually, even though good grammar probably doesn't allow that). But some life was injected into it at the end - one piece involved percussion introduction (both performers tapping the piano) and another started with the audience clicking their fingers. The last number involved both performers on the vibraphone (Chick unsurprisingly competent - if it's laid out a bit like a keyboard, he can play it), and had the crowd cheering from the start. A standing ovation for a duo who hadn't recorded an album for 13 years, from an audience crying out for the next one, at a venue I'm looking forward to visiting again on Sunday.
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