Other Places: Desmond And Hall Examined

Marc Myers is devoting three days of his excellent Jazz Wax blog to a discussion of the Paul Desmond Quartet with Jim Hall. I have the honor of being his guest discusser. We talk about the RCA Victor recordings and the earlier Warner Bros album of the Desmond quartet. This is a link to the first installment.

I was surprised in searching the internet to see that although the individual RCA albums and single-CD compilations are generally available, the box set of the complete recordings is becoming hard to find. The Warner Bros album, originally titled First Place Again and once reissued as East Of The Sun, seems to be available only as a bootleg import CD. I suppose that is better than not having it available at all. Some recordings, like some books, should be in print forever.

A part of the Q & A with Myers concerns Desmond's musical relationship with Dave Brubeck. I tried to give some insight, but language is inadequate to describe music. The best understanding of music, and therefore of musical relationships, is gained through listening. In the case of Desmond and Brubeck, this 1959 performance in Rome takes us a long way. The piece is "These Foolish Things," whioh they transformed together for decades. It is a fine demonstration of Brubeck's skill as an ideal accompanist for Desmond. Desmond's solo is so good that when it ends even he seems pleased, a rare occurence.