The album’s repertoire is a showcase of jazz’s evolving language, with compositions by Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Carla Bley, Michael Gibbs, Gordon Beck, and Burton himself. From the exhilarating opener “Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly” (Corea) to the atmospheric “Olhos De Gato” (Bley), the group’s interplay is both free and precise, blending jazz-rock fusion, post-bop, and lyrical balladry. Critics have praised the album’s “wall-of-sound” rhythm section, with Laboriel’s astonishing bass work driving the music’s pace and energy, and Goodrick’s guitar solos hailed as inventive and genre-defying.
Burton’s leadership and the quartet’s chemistry result in music that feels effortlessly fresh, even five decades later. The sound is full of life, clarity, and melodic invention, with each player contributing to a dynamic yet airy ensemble texture. The New Quartet is not just a highlight in Burton’s discography but a testament to ECM’s commitment to timeless, forward-thinking jazz.
"Burton possessed complete mastery of his instrument and had a profound understanding of harmony – and that’s saying nothing of his remarkable technique, which brought the four-mallet method into the mainstream. In live performance he could be stunning and was a source of huge fascination to a young Pat Metheny, whom Burton mentored. His playing here contains no high-tempo fireworks, but refined, almost perfect lyrical expressionism, use of dynamics, and a technique that effortlessly embraces the four-octave span of his instrument. He had a special affinity for Carla Bley’s penchant for unusual harmonic movement, and on her single representation on the album, ‘Olhos De Gato,’ Mike Goodrick clearly shares his outlook. Chick Corea’s joyous ‘Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly’ shows Burton has not divested himself of jazz-rock influences, but elided them into a more free-flowing interpretation than his 1960s work, as the romping ‘Mallet Man’ and the harmonically arresting ‘Tying Up Loose Ends,’ both by Gordon Beck, reveal. Jarrett’s profound ’Coral’ sees Burton responding with an intense lyricism that makes this a slow burn highlight; while Mike Gibbs’ ‘Four or Less’ reveals Laboriel well on the way to becoming the in-demand bassist he would become while Gibbs’ ‘Nonsequence’ is a highlight in a much-overlooked album that remains a classy offering 50 years after it was recorded." Jazzwise
