Passengers is an album by the Gary Burton Quartet with Pat Metheny on guitar, made with guest bassist Eberhard Weber in Oslo in November 1976. It catches the band shortly before Metheny left to lead his own group. Burton's lyrical vibraphone sits over two very different basses, and the young Metheny already supplies half the material. Within months Metheny, Weber and the drummer of this date would be recording together under Metheny's name.
Burton plays vibraharp, Metheny electric guitar, Steve Swallow bass guitar and Dan Gottlieb drums, with Weber on bass. Weber had already worked with Burton on Ring (1974), and the pairing of his bass with Swallow's gives the record its particular low end. The album was recorded at Talent Studio with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer and Manfred Eicher as producer, and ECM released it in 1977. In February 1977 Metheny recorded Watercolors in Oslo with Weber, Gottlieb and Lyle Mays, the first step towards the Pat Metheny Group.
The set opens with Sea Journey by Chick Corea, Burton's partner on Crystal Silence, the 1972 duo album that began his time on ECM. It is nine minutes of floating vibraphone over a strong groove from Weber. Metheny contributes three tunes. Nacada is a soft ballad with brushed drums, and The Whopper is brisker, with a light, agile guitar solo. B & G (Midwestern Nights Dream), which Metheny had recorded on Bright Size Life, keeps its broken rhythms and carries a long bass solo by Weber before Metheny's own. Weber's Yellow Fields gives Burton some of his best playing on the album, and Swallow's Claude and Betty closes it on a bittersweet note.
In his review for AllMusic, Scott Yanow recommended "the attractive sound of the post-bop unit and an opportunity to hear Pat Metheny in his formative period". On ECM Reviews in 2010, Tyran Grillo wrote that Weber "pulls out all the stops here, proving to be perfect complement to Burton's sound". In Burton's ECM discography the record sits between Dreams So Real (1976) and Times Square (1978).
This is the CD edition of ECM 1092 (catalogue 835 016-2), first released in 1977.
