Dreams So Real is a full album of compositions by Carla Bley, recorded by the quintet of vibraphonist Gary Burton in December 1975. Burton had already devoted an earlier record to her music, A Genuine Tong Funeral, the 1968 RCA album built entirely on her pieces. On that record Bley conducted a larger ensemble that included Steve Lacy and Gato Barbieri. Here he returns to her songbook with one of the strongest groups he led in the 1970s, with two guitarists in the front line.
Burton plays vibraphone, Pat Metheny electric 12-string guitar and Mick Goodrick guitar, with Steve Swallow on bass and Bob Moses on drums. Swallow had played bass on that 1968 album too. The session took place at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, with Manfred Eicher producing and Martin Wieland as engineer. In the same month and the same studio Metheny recorded his own ECM debut, Bright Size Life, with Moses on drums. Dreams So Real followed it into the shops in June 1976.
All six pieces are Bley's, and the title track opens the album. The ten-minute Ictus / Syndrome / Wrong Key Donkey runs three of her themes together, with Metheny's 12-string adding sharp accents to Burton's darting lines. Jesus Maria is a short feature for tender solo vibraphone. Doctor gives Metheny room to swing, while Vox Humana and the closing Intermission Music turn to the more lyrical side of her writing.
Much of the interest lies in how the two guitars share the space without crowding Burton. In his ECM Reviews essay, Tyran Grillo described Metheny and Goodrick as "two leaves on the same stalk, each bowing to the wind to let sunlight peek through". On AllMusic, Michael G. Nastos wrote that it is "generally regarded as one of Burton's top three recorded dates" and "has stood the test of time". Metheny was then a member of Burton's working band, and Swallow had recorded the duo album Hotel Hello with Burton for ECM in 1975.
This CD (ECM 1072) is part of Touchstones, the series of 40 classic ECM albums reissued in card sleeves in 2008. The album was first released in 1976.
