Winding through the Cascade Mountains today on the way to the new year.
Have a happy one.
From The Archive: Ciao, Chow
This bit of Rifftides revisited is from an earlier encounter with the mortality of someone close. When I posted it, I was executor of the estate of a lifelong friend and influence, the pianist Jack Brownlow, recently profiled by Steve Cerra.
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Respite
Seattle, Washington
November 10, 2007Preoccupied with death and its aftermath for two weeks, I decided to seek out life, so I went to Serafina.
Serafina is not a girl friend. It’s a restaurant. Arriving at 7:15, I asked the hostess for a table for one. Her eyes sparkled with amusement, but she refrained from saying, “In your dreams.”
“Maybe by 9:30,” she said, “but if you’d like to wait for something to open up at the bar, you can eat there. Full menu.” It was like being back in New York, even unto the fashionably hip, mostly young, crowd.
The bar has maybe ten stools. They were all occupied, and there was a phalanx three deep trying to find enough elbow room to hoist their aperitifs. Fat chance, I thought, but I ordered a glass of wine and stood chatting with a woman who lives in the neighborhood. She asked what I do. I told her. She asked what I’d written lately. “Ah,” she politely responded, and asked me to spell Poodie. “I read a lot,” she said. “Mysteries. Can’t get enough of them. Lately, it’s been James Lee Burke. I knew I should have come earlier. It’s like this on Saturdays.” She disappeared into the Eastlake Avenue night.
A man yielded his stool. The heftier bartender with the grey beard waved me forward. I indicated the rest of the waiting crowd. He shrugged. We shook hands and exchanged names. He was Matthew. His colleague, tall and lean, was Matthias. “Matt and Matt,” he said. There is little more satisfying than the pleasure of watching people do what they do well and enjoying it. These guys were craftsmen. Matthew’s creation of a chocolate martini, something I can’t imagine drinking, was bartender ballet.
I ordered the Trota al Tortufo, roasted trout stuffed with artichokes and truffles finished with a black truffle-butter sauce, served with sautéed spinach. Matthias suggested an Italian white wine, Vermentino Sardegna Pala Crabilis. It was an inspired pairing. For dessert, he recommended a pumpkin something or other, but I had a double espresso and the chocolate tort, or Torta di Cioccolata e Mandorla, as such things are called when they cost a lot.
“The pastry chef shows up every afternoon and does these incredible things,” Matthew said, “then she disappears. Her name is Mei.” With Mei’s tort and the espresso, I hit my second daily double of the meal.
Serafina was beyond crowded, pulsing with life, noise and happiness. Just what I needed.
This is quite likely the only restaurant review I will ever write. Grazie, Serafina.
From The Archive
As the year winds down and we attempt to catch up after a rough patch, Rifftides is revisiting posts from the past.
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THE POWER OF MUSIC
Posted December 22, 2005
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful—Plato
Any musical innovation is full of danger to the whole state, and ought to be prohibited . . . when modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state always change with them—Aristotle
From The Archive
While the Rifftides staff regroups and copes with family matters, we shall revisit a few posts from the past. This one appeared almost exactly four years ago. It concerns a recording that received far less general attention that it warranted.
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December 30, 2008
THE FILM MUSIC OF RALPH RAINGER
The release of a new CD, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger, is the occasion for my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal. Coupled with an article about the contemporary motion picture composer A.B. Rahman, it is headlined, Another Who Has Been Unjustly Forgotten and begins:Â
For years, Jack Benny opened his CBS radio and television broadcasts with “Love in Bloom.” The comedian’s violin butchery of his theme song became a running coast-to-coast Sunday night gag. As a result, the piece became even more famous than Bing Crosby had made it with his hit record in 1934. Generations of listeners and viewers heard Bob Hope close his NBC shows with “Thanks for the Memory,” which he introduced in a movie, “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” The song was inseparable from Hope’s career.Â
Ralph Rainger, the man who wrote those songs, was a pianist and recovering lawyer from Newark, N.J., who also composed such standards as “Easy Living,” “If I Should Lose You,” “Here Lies Love,” “Moanin’ Low,” “June in January,” “Please” and “Blue Hawaii,” most often with lyricist Leo Robin. Rainger and Robin turned out dozens of songs for Hollywood movies. They were frequently on the hit parade with Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter and the Gershwins. George Gershwin died at age 38, Rainger at 41. But while Gershwin’s fame increased after his death, Rainger’s name faded. With their beguiling melodies and challenging chord progressions, Rainger’s works are frequent vehicles for improvisation. Yet, in my experience, most musicians who play those songs respond with puzzled looks when asked who wrote them. That might have been the case with bassist Chuck Berghofer, pianist Jan Lundgren, drummer Joe La Barbera and the incomparable vocalist Sue Raney until producer Dick Bank recruited them to record the CD “The Film Music of Ralph Rainger” (Fresh Sound).Â
To read the whole thing, run out and buy a copy of the Journal or click here for the online version. The article praises the CD, but it concentrates on Rainger’s successful, grotesquely terminated career. The album demands greater attention, and gets it here.Â
The Chuck Berghofer Trio: Thanks For The Memory, The Film Music Of Ralph Rainger (Fresh Sound).
Producer Dick Bank swears that this is his last project. If that proves to be true, he is retiring a champion. He provides Berghofer with a classy repertoire, two superb sidemen and the first leader assignment in the bassist’s distinguished career. Berghofer gets the music underway by playing the melody of “Miss Brown to You.” The stentorian sound of his bass is beautifully captured by engineers Talley Sherwood and Bernie Grundman. La Barbera and Lundgren gently escort Berghofer into a chorus of improvisation. Lundgren follows with his first solo in a CD full of work that makes this the best recording so far by a remarkable pianist. In the Journal piece, I wrote:
…it is the first all-Rainger album since pianist Jack Fina managed to reduce Rainger’s tunes to dreary cocktail music in a 1950s LP. Mr. Lundgren, a brilliant Swedish pianist, plumbs the songs’ harmonic souls. He illuminates even the prosaic “Blue Hawaii,” which — to Rainger’s horror — became a huge hit in 1937. “It will disgrace us,” he told Robin. “It’s a cheap melody . . . a piece of c—-.”Â
(In a touch of irony that Rainger must have come to appreciate, sheet music sales of “Blue Hawaii” barely exceeded 40,000, but sales of Crosby’s recording of the song skyrocketed and it was on Your Hit Parade for six weeks.)Â
It is not only Lundgren’s harmonic ear and gift for chord voicings that elevate his work here, but also his unforced swing and an easy keyboard touch that puts him in a class with Jimmy Jones, Ellis Larkins, Tommy Flanagan and his countryman Bengt Hallberg. His tag ending on “Sweet is the Word for You,” with Berghofer walking him home and La Barbera nudging every fourth beat, is exhilarating. Lundgren’s wry interpolations are a significant part of the fun. They show deep familiarity with, among other sources, Lester Young, as In two quite different uses of a phrase from Young’s 1943 recording of “Sometimes I’m Happy.”Â
Throughout, La Barbera reminds listeners why, from his days with Bill Evans, he has been one of the most respected drummers in jazz. His touch with brushes equates to Lundgren’s at the piano, and he employs it to construct a full-chorus solo on “Blue Hawaii” proving that a drum set can be a melody instrument.
Sue Raney is the guest artist for two of Rainger’s best-known songs, “If I Should Lose You” and “Thanks for the Memory.” They are perfectly served by the richness of her voice and interpretations. The performances are among her best on record.
With his unaccompanied “Love in Bloom,” Lundgren banishes recollections of Jack Benny’s violin clowning. He finds harmonic treasure beneath the surface of that abused melody, as he does in another solo piece, “Faithful Forever.” Hugely popular in the 1930s, those songs are less known today than many of Rainger’s others. The jaunty “Havin’ Myself a Time,” which Lundgren and Berghofer perform as a duo, is nearly forgotten, but the harmonic possibilities Lundgren finds in it show that it is worthy of revival.Â
In addition to the trio music, the CD has a ten-minute final track that amounts to a little documentary. Lundgren introduces a 1937 interview with Rainger. Bank, the producer, introduces a segment of a1940 ceremony of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers in which Rainger plays the piano and his partner Leo Robin sings “Love in Bloom.” The 32-page CD booklet is packed with information and photographs. If I make all of this sound like an exercise in nostalgia, do not be misled. The musical material may be standard songs from the 1930s, but Lundgren, Berghofer and La Barbera constitute one of the hippest trios of our time. This album is on my top-ten list for 2008 and will be permanently installed in my CD player for a long time.
Other Places: Wilke To The World
It seemed for a few years that jazz on the radio was doomed to isolation on niche FM stations with weak signals and short wavelengths. As rock, pop, rap and hip-hop shouldered aside the attraction of jazz for mass audiences, the music all but disappeared from AM radio.
Then, the internet made it possible for radio stations to stream their programming around the globe. Jim Wilke, whose Jazz Northwest programs we sometimes tell you about 
in advance, is a veteran jazz broadcaster who long ago took to the air via satellite and reaches a huge international audience with Jazz After Hours. Erik Lacitis of The Seattle Times recently profiled Wilke. His story includes a little about Wilke’s modus operandi and a lot about the impact of his work on listeners in all parts of the US as well as in Tunis, Ankara and Paris, among other places. Lacitis takes us on a visit to the studio in Wilke’s house.
It is in this basement that Wilke — in a voice variously described as “butter smooth” and “sonorous” — records shows that run Friday and Saturday nights around the country on 70 radio stations, and with the Internet, throughout the world.
To read the whole thing, go here. For more about Wilke, including links to many of the stations that carry his show, visit the Jazz After Hours website.
Aftermath
Profound thanks to the dozens upon dozens of Rifftides readers who sent messages and comments following the death of my brother Dave. Your words are a great comfort. Please understand my failure to respond to you individually.
In the photograph, Dave is arriving at our house for Christmas a few years ago. His obituary is in the hometown newspaper. If you care to read it, click here. Again, thank you all.
Dave Ramsey, 3/28/38-12/23/12
The best of all brothers
Other Places: Brubeck Remembered & A Niles Christmas
Rifftides is on hold, as explained in the previous post. However, I’m taking a moment for a couple of timely alerts.
Chris Brubeck posted a memoir about life with his father, Dave. Chris’s article is packed with family anecdotes about the patriarch of American music who died on December 5 at age 91. Here’s a sample:
We were really poor in those early days. When we went on the road, we would stay in old hotels that had cavernous closets—most times the closets were the best thing going for them. My older brothers Darius and Mike traveled with sleeping bags for those closets, that was their part of the “suite.†My parents got the bed and when I was a baby apparently I fit nicely in the dresser drawer with some blankets piled underneath me. We thought it was fun—indoor camping! We saved money up as a family because dad had to start his own record company to get his music out there. Perhaps you have heard of it—Fantasy Records! His partners were sons of a man who owned a record pressing plant. Dave supplied the talent, and they manufactured the recordings. Critics noticed, and the vinyl started moving. Then his partners screwed him out of the company. He was thrown off his own label due to some legal shenanigans. But once he was forced out of Fantasy, Columbia Records signed him and with their mammoth distribution the rest is history.
To read all of the piece, go here.
Again this year, in addition to Christmas jazz around the clock Christmas Eve and Christmas day, the 
internet radio station known as The Jazz Knob will present several instances of the late radio host Chuck Niles’s reading of “‘Twas The Night Before Christmas.†Niles (pictured) was a Southern California jazz disc jockey from 1957 until his death in 2004. His presentation of the classic Christmas poem became a tradition in the Los Angeles area. For the schedule of readings and to listen to The Jazz Knob any time, go here.
My brother Dave is a tough guy. He is holding on.
Until…
The little valley where my brother and I grew up together is not green today. It is white and getting whiter, but when I think of it, this is how I remember it.
Rifftides will be largely inactive for a while. I don’t know how long. I will be spending time with Dave as he goes through a difficult period. I thank the readers who have expressed concern.
Jazz: Such A Flexible Category
With the following preamble, Rifftides reader and retired Toronto jazz broadcaster Ted O’Reilly called our attention to an innovation in his former profession.
…Hawkins, Basie, Gillespie, Ornette — all those old guys — later. Here’s important JAZZ to learn about.
This news release from a Canadian jazz radio station is what caught Mr. O’Reilly’s attention:
DECONSTRUCTING SGT. PEPPER WITH SCOTT FREIMANJAZZ.FM91 announces a new pop culture initiative, the “JAZZ.FM91 Thinkers Seriesâ€, a series of lectures presented for the first time in Toronto. On Thursday, January 31st, the series opens with Scott Freiman and his highly acclaimed lecture “Deconstructing Sgt. Pepper†at TIFF Bell Lightbox at 7:00 p.m. Freiman a composer, engineer and Beatles expert explores and dissects the music of what Rolling Stone calls “the most important rock & roll album ever made.â€
Scott Freiman taught a course at Yale about the Beatles. In Toronto, Freiman will tell the story of one of the most important albums of all time, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band†using rare audio and video with anecdotes about the recording sessions. He’ll draw on numerous first-hand sources and use detailed analyses of the song writing and production techniques used by the band in recording the album. Rolling Stone covered Freiman in “10 Things You Didn’t Know About Beatles Music†and if you’re a music lover, Freiman’s focus is “strictly†on the music. 

“It has been a dream of mine to create a series that recognizes pivotal moments in pop culture. I’m thrilled that Scott Freiman will join us for our very first installment of the JAZZ.FM91 Thinkers Series. Scott brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and I know music lovers and aficionados will not want to miss this presentation,†said Ross Porter, President and CEO of JAZZ.FM91. 

For more information on Scott Freiman and “Deconstructing Sgt. Pepper†and purchasing tickets, please visit HERE.
Ted O’Reilly invents a postscript and offers a final thought:
(Next lecture: “Michael Jackson: Most Important Musician of the 20th Century!!!â€)
And people wonder why I hang my head and whimper some days…
One Whom The Murderer Took Away
Following yesterday’s post, blogger Richard Kamins of Hartford, Connecticut, forwarded a Facebook message from one of his readers, whose name is Sarah Lee. The video that accompanies the message is of Ana Grace and her brother Isaiah. The 6-year-old daughter of saxophonist Jimmy Greene was one of 26 people shot and killed in Friday’s school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
♥RIP Ana Grace Márquez-Greene…Ana’s mom Nelba was part of my masters program. They just recently moved to the States. She has asked that this video be “Shared far and wide. Let the world know the victims – not the shooter.â€â™¥
Note: The Facebook video has been removed, apparently by the FB user.
DR, 11/30/14
Ana Grace
Among the 20 elementary school children killed in Friday’s mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, was Ana Greene, the 6-year-old daughter of saxophonist Jimmy Greene. She is on the right in the photograph with her father, her mother Nelba Marquez-Greene and her brother Isaiah, also a student at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Isaiah is reported unharmed. Six adults also died in the onslaught.
A relative said that the Greenes moved to Newtown last summer after Greene accepted a teaching position in the music program at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. A Connecticut native who grew up in Hartford, he had been teaching at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He is a veteran of the bands of Horace Silver, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard and Kenny Barron, among others. Greene has also led his own groups and recorded extensively. Here is a piece from his 2009 album Mission Statement. It is named for his daughter, “Ana Grace.â€
Today at the memorial service for the 26 victims of the murderous rampage, president Obama told their families and other members of the Newtown community,
No single law, no set of laws, can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,†he said. “But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.
But there must be laws, including those to restore official responsibility for the mentally ill. Will Newtown be the incident that, at last, gives politicians the courage to say no to the National Rifle Association and the rest of the gun lobby and pass laws to establish meaningful regulation over availability of firearms? “No single law, no set of laws,” perhaps, but we must start somewhere. Under our form of democracy, state legislatures and the congress are the starting places. Tell your elected representatives. If they won’t do the job, replace them with people who will. It’s going to be a tough fight.
Eddie Palmieri, Jazz Master
On January 14, the pioneering Latin jazz artist Eddie Palmieri will be among those honored by the National Endowment for the Arts as 2013 NEA Jazz Masters. The others are pianist, singer and songwriter Mose Allison; alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson; Owner Lorraine Gordon of New York’s Village Vanguard; and writer A. B. Spellman. Tonight and tomorrow night, Palmieri is being recognized by Jazz at Lincoln Center in concerts reprising the 76-year-old pianist’s career. From the JALC announcement:
On this evening, “El Rey de las Blancas y Las Negras†retrospects on his spectacular career with both The Eddie Palmieri Orchestra and his Afro-Caribbean Jazz Octet, coalescing his form-stretching salsa innovations with his sui generis brand of “jazz Latino.â€
Larry Rohter’s New York Times piece has details about this weekend’s events at Lincoln Center and a survey of Palmieri’s work, which has won nine Grammy awards.
Among the most enduring and engaging of Palmieri’s albums is El Sonido Nuevo, a 1966 collaboration with another major figure in Latin music and jazz, Cal Tjader. Here is Tito Puente’s “Picadillo,†arranged by Palmieri and Claus Ogerman.
El Sonido Nuevo was the first half of a trade agreement between Tjader’s label, Verve, and Palmieri’s, Tico. In 1967, Tjader recorded with Palmieri’s band. The resulting album was Bamboleate. The title track features the leaders, the vocal ensemble and the formidable Latin trombone section of Barry Rogers and Mark Weinstein in the days before Weinstein switched to flute.
Bamboleate is out of print, outrageously priced as a CD or an LP, but reasonable as an MP3 download. The digital revolution has its good points.
Other Places (2): Konitz On Bird
On his New England Public Radio blog, Tom Reney’s new post on Charlie Parker includes Lee Konitz material for which he credits Rifftides. I thank Tom, but I thank him more for including a clip of Lee Konitz talking about what it was like to work and travel with Bird in their mutual Stan Kenton days of the 1950s. To hear Konitz on Parker, go here. The clip is at the end of the piece.
Other Places (1): A Brubeck Radio Tribute
Journalist and occasional Rifftides commenter Ken Dryden (pictured) works nationally and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 
Among other activities, he conducts a radio program. Mr. Dryden sent an alert to a special edition of his show remembering Dave Brubeck. If you are one of the unfortunate millions who do not live within broadcast earshot of Chattanooga, there’s good news; Ken’s show will be streamed tomorrow evening on the web. Here is his announcement.
Please join me for Dziekuje, Dave: A Remembrance of Dave Brubeck, on Wednesday, Dec. 12th on WUTC-FM. The two hour special will begin approximately at 8:18 to 8:20 pm Eastern Time, following the local news feature “Round & About.†Drawn from my music library and archives, it will include a number of Brubeck’s recordings, interview excerpts and even a few performances that you’ve never before heard. It will be webcast live at www.wutc.org, go to the website then click on “Listen Live†in the top left corner.
The WUTC site has posted an article previewing Dryden’s show.
Brubeck: Things Ain’t What They Used To Be
With Dave Brubeck’s passing, interesting bits of arcana about his life and music are rising to the surface. BBC Radio 4 replayed a portion of an interview from 2000 on the network’s Front Row program with John Wilson. Brubeck tells Wilson about the role of vitamin B-6 in saving his hands and the unusual use of a bungee cord in his exercise routine. He illustrates polytonality 
by playing a bit of Duke Ellington’s “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be†in C and E-flat, simultaneously. To hear the six-minute conversation, go here and move the timer slide at the bottom of the screen to :24:05.
Then, see and hear an extended 1970 performance of “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be,†a blues staple in Brubeck’s repertoire, with Gerry Mulligan, baritone saxophone; Jack Six, bass; Alan Dawson, drums. It runs so long that YouTube had to present it in two installments.
Compatible Quotes: Dave Brubeck
There’s a way of playing safe, there’s a way of using tricks and there’s the way I like to play, which is dangerously, where you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before.
I’m always hoping for the nights that are inspired, where you almost have an out-of-body experience.
Damn it, when I’m bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it
(Photo of Dave Brubeck at the Stockholm Jazz Festival by Pavel Korbut)
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On Dave Brubeck
There is no guarantee that a great artist will be an admirable person. Many sublimely gifted musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and actors fail as human beings. Dave Brubeck was on the positive end of the scale. Among the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of obituaries and remembrances of Brubeck that have emerged since his death yesterday morning, a thread becomes clear: those who knew him emphasize that his extraordinary musicianship went hand in hand with kindness, generosity, humor and concern for the human condition.
I became aware of all of those facets of Brubeck’s makeup on our first encounter. His quartet played a concert at the University of Washington in Seattle in the winter of 1955. As recounted elsewhere, that is when I also met Paul Desmond. Their stars were on the rise. The year before, Brubeck was the subject of a TIME magazine cover story. In those days in the US that was the apogee of popular recognition. He was quickly becoming famous. After the concert, there was a party for the quartet at the home of an admirer.
For much of the evening Brubeck, the late pianist Patti Bown (pictured) and I sat and talked
about the section of the TIME profile that dealt with Dave’s attitude toward racial matters. Patti was a vital member of Seattle’s mixed and mostly tolerant jazz community. As we mulled over the absurdity and reality of race-based prejudice, the conversation varied between intensity, laughter and stretches of contemplative silence. This was years before the civil rights movement gained momentum. Dave recited a verse he wrote that became one of the most widely quoted parts of the TIME article.
They say I look like God,
Could God be black my God!
If both are made in the image of thee,
Could thou perchance a zebra be?
Seven years later, Louis Armstrong sang that verse in Dave and Iola Brubeck’s musical The Real Ambassadors, an extended paean to tolerance, cultural diplomacy and the power of music to unify people and nations. Brubeck, Armstrong, Carmen McRae and the vocal group Lambert, Hendricks and Ross recorded it in an album but performed it publicly only at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival. It is long past time for a full-scale revival.
After Eugene Wright became the group’s bassist in 1956, the DBQ played black-owned clubs and hotel lounges in the South, bookings of a racially mixed group, all but unheard of below the Mason-Dixon line. Brubeck’s stand against discrimination became even stronger as the decade wore on. Here’s a passage from my biography accompanying the Brubeck CD collection Time Signatures.
Wright was not the first black musician in the Brubeck quartet. Wyatt “Bull” Reuther was the bassist in 1951. Drummer Frank Butler also worked briefly with Brubeck in the early days. But Gene’s advent coincided with the upswing in popularity that increased the demand for the band and put it in high visibility. As a result, there were problems that disturbed Brubeck’s sense of fairness and his passionate belief in racial justice and equality.
He cancelled an extensive and lucrative tour of the South when promoters insisted that he replace Wright with a white bassist. He refused an appearance on the Bell Telephone Hour, a Sunday evening television program of immense prestige and huge audience, when the producers insisted on shooting the quartet so that Wright could be heard but not seen. The networks were convinced that the public was incapable of accepting the sight of black and white performers together. Brubeck found the hypocrisy unsupportable.
Four of Dave’s sons—Darius, Chris, Danny and Matthew—became professional jazz artists. He took time and made donations to also help scores of aspiring musicians, not least through his support of The Brubeck Institute based at his alma mater, the University of the Pacific in California. Stories of Brubeck’s generosity abound, not because he told them but because the recipients of his thoughtfulness did. I am one of them. During the two-and-a-half years that I researched and wrote my Paul Desmond biography, Dave and Iola allowed me to spend hours with them at their house on its 20 acres in Connecticut, which Desmond long ago named the
Wilton Hilton. Without their input and guidance, the book would have been impossible. When it was time for the book to come out, The Brubecks agreed to co-host the book party at Elaine’s restaurant, Paul’s cherished New York refuge. Without their involvement, publisher Malcolm Harris and I would not have had the turnout of prominent people who attended. What a night that was.
After the TIME magazine cover story and the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s elevation from obscurity and near-poverty, the sniping began. They had committed the sins, unpardonable in some quarters, of popular success and solvency. It’s an old story, familiar to Cannonball Adderley, for instance, and to The Modern Jazz Quartet and, more recently, to Diana Krall; if you are in demand and making money, you sold out. Many musicians once sought or invented reasons to dismiss Brubeck’s music: it didn’t swing, it wasn’t hip; he wrote some nice tunes but he wasn’t much of a pianist; he doesn’t deserve a great player like Desmond. On the other hand, “Desmond,†a prominent tenor saxophonist once told me, “sounds like a female alcoholic.†You don’t often hear jibes about Desmond anymore, or cracks about Brubeck’s piano playing. People seem to have started listening to the music and ignoring the societal effluvia. In Brubeck’s last couple of decades the resentments based in sociology, jealousy, clannishness and envy began to fall away. Young musicians of all stripes study his music, play his tunes, revere him as someone to emulate. Dave lived long enough to see the change. It must have been gratifying to him.
In the long run, it’s his music that matters. It will have a long run.
The Dave Brubeck website has a message from his surviving children (Michael died in 2009). It also has extensive information about his career, photographs spanning decades, and Dave playing Christmas music, beginning with a bluesy “Jingle Bells.”
Since Rifftides hit the web in early 2005, it has posted more than 200 items about Brubeck or touching on him and his music. If you care to browse them, carve out some time and click here.
Wall To Wall Brubeck
The Columbia University radio station WKCR is playing Brubeck recordings around the clock and will until 9:00 EST tonight. To hear the station, click here, then on one of the connecting links in the WKCR site’s upper right corner.
It is impossible to individually thank the Rifftides readers who have sent comments about Dave Brubeck’s passing; there are too many of you. As the comments come in, we post them with thanks to all.
More later on Brubeck.