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A Dave Brubeck Memorial Service

 

St John The DivineAt the very moment that last evening’s memorial service for Dave Brubeck got underway, the rumble of thunder penetrated the massive Gothic walls of New York City’s Cathedral of St. John The Divine. A murmur ran through the throng filling the 120-year-old church.

With dignity and a commanding presence, Iola Brubeck read Langston Hughes’ poem Iola-Brubeck “I Dream a World.” She said that it echoes the core of her husband’s belief in the equality of all peoples. An excerpt:

 

A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free…

 

Recalling one of the last times her husband played in the cathedral, Mrs. Brubeck said, “The 5/4 is still echoing somewhere in here.”

5/4, 9/8 and assorted other time signatures sounded through the cathedral as combinations of musicians remembering Brubeck Cathy and Dave Brubeckplayed a dozen of his compositions. Catherine Brubeck, pictured here with her dad, told of the time in the 1950s that her father came off the road to their home in the Oakland hills above San Francisco Bay and initiated a jam session with his very young sons. She was two years old. Inspired by the family musicale, she slipped into her tiny tutu and danced around the room. That, in turn, inspired Brubeck to write “Cathy’s Waltz.” After she told the story, Catherine introduced her brothersDanny Brubeck Darius, piano; Chris,bass; Danny, drums (pictured); and Matthew, cello; who played her song. That initiated a succession of performances by musicians young and old, from the Brubeck Institute Alumni Quintet in their early twenties to bassist Eugene Wright (pictured), the surviving member of the classic Brubeck quartet of the 1950s and ‘60s. Two weeks short of his 90th birthday, Wright joined Darius to play “King For a Day,” his feature from Brubeck’s musical The Real Ambassadors.

Eugene Wright

A full rundown of the memorial program, including names of speakers, players and compositions, is posted here.

Among the highlights of the evening were husband and wife pianists Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes in a four-handed duet on “The Duke” and Roberta Gambarini singing an impassioned “Travelin’ Blues” accompanied by pianist Andy Laverne, bassist Chris Smith and drummer Cory Cox, with clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera, and Roy Hargrove playing flugelhorn.

Gambarini, D'Rivera, Hargrove

 

The Brubeck Brothers backed alto saxophonist Paul Winter and flutist Deepak Ram in “Koto Song.

Chris B, Winter, Ram, Danny

 

Laverne, Dan Brubeck and Chris Brubeck were the rhythm section for Branford Marsalis in his stunning exploration of “For Iola.”

B. Marsalis, C. Brubeck

 

Chick Corea followed with “Strange Meadowlark.” He played it unaccompanied, investing the piece with harmonic and metric riches that all but illuminated the huge cathedral space.

Chick Corea

Those were a few of the memorable moments in an occasion dedicated to a man who had an enduring impact on the music, culture and social conscience of his and our time.

Dave Brubeck Is Gone

Dave Brubeck died this morning. He would have celebrated his 92nd birthday tomorrow. Russell Gloyd, Brubeck’s manager and conductor of the pianist and composer’s extended orchestral works, said that Brubeck suffered cardiac arrest. In fragile health for several years, he was being driven from his home in Wilton Connecticut to an appointment with his heart doctor in nearby Norwalk.

For a comprehensive obituary tracing the career that made Brubeck one of the few jazz artists to achieve mass popular acceptance, go to Ben Ratliff’s article in The New York Times.

Later, I will post thoughts about Dave during the 57 years of our acquaintance.

Dave Brubeck At 90: Was He Cool Or What?

With Dave Brubeck’s 90th birthday five days away, anticipation of the event is materializing in news stories, interviews, radio airplay, web tributes and accolades from colleagues and admirers. Marc Myers’ piece in The Wall Street Journal includes this paragraph:

Clean living, a happy marriage and global popularity have made Mr. Brubeck a media darling–and a target of envy. “Even in the ’50s I’d hear critics and musicians say, ‘Oh, Brubeck, he’s different’–meaning separate from the rest,” Mr. Brubeck said. “Others described my music as West Coast cool or light. Listen to our version of ‘Look for the Silver Lining’ from 1952. Tell me, what’s cool about that?”

You be the judge. The recording is from 1951, not ’52, but 59 years later, it’s understandable that anyone could lose track of a year. This was an NBC Radio live remote from the Surf Club in Hollywood. The record label lists ony Brubeck, Paul Desmond and bassist Wyatt Ruther. The drummer is Herb Barman.

Cool? Please use the comment link at the bottom of this post.

A Dave Brubeck Concert

Bob Coughlin, a longtime Dave Brubeck aficionado, attended a concert by the Brubeck quartet the other night, took notes, and posted his review on the Brubeck e-mail listserve. I thought it deserved wider dissemination. The quartet has the same musicians it has had for years—Brubeck, alto saxophonist Bobby Militello, bassist Michael Moore and drummer Randy Jones. “Russell” in Mr. Couglin’s report is Russell Gloyd, Brubeck’s manager, a musical collaborator who often arranges and conducts on large-scale Brubeck projects. “Iola” is Mrs. Brubeck.
I am frequently asked how Dave is doing at eighty-five. I usually say that he’s being careful, but touring and playing as if he were twenty-five. Mr. Coughlin’s report helps bear that out. The Rifftides staff thanks him for permitting us to share it with you.

Asheville, North Carolina, Grove Park Inn–Sat., January 28

Despite what I’ve heard about Dave being exhausted, he looks great and well rested backstage. Eager to talk, same twinkle in his eyes, but the traditional fingertip handshake has been replaced by an even more prudent extended left elbow and a gentle hello bump.

Dave being carefully attended to—Russell sets up a chair with two cushions backstage and Dave tries it out—wants the same arrangement onstage.

Onstage—Dave introduces the group and says that the dicey weather has
inspired his choice of tunes.

”Gone With The Wind”—Dave opens, Bobby solos, Dave solos—solid swinging
solos but they are just warming up.

”Stormy Weather”—bluesy intro by Dave, and then Bobby opens with long, mournful notes, deliciously stretching every note for all the anguish he can find. Super solo by Michael. Iola points out that we can watch Michael’s fingering on the bigscreen TV over to the left–amazing to watch, but makes me wish the cameramen could get equally good shots of Dave’s hands.

”On the Sunny Side of the Street”—smooth, swinging intro by Dave; Bobby’s first line is a blistering uote, “Standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by,” so fast I have to question whether I heard it.

”Thank You”—Dave starts slowly–the tune is disguised in rich, classical lines. Then the main theme emerges, followed by quite a few choruses of lovely variations. But then he pauses–not sure for how many beats. 3? 4? 6? 8? The silence is striking. And Dave seems to hunch over the keyboard, pulling his hands tightly together. Ba-boom! Da-da-da-dumm! (like the explosions in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring) Tight little volleys of gorgeous chords, amazing stuff, dazzling choruses, finally leading into sweeping lines, and then several choruses that settle down into the final theme. There was no way this could have moved into the cue for Bobby, Michael, and Randy to jump in. It had to remain a solo. (Wow—this is why we go to concerts.)

”London Flat, London Sharp”—excellent version with Bobby and Dave both blasting and then a long solo by Michael—amazingly, he keeps the energy going, despite the limitations of the bass.

”Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” / “These Foolish Things”—Dave plays “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” more slowly than I’ve ever heard, reflective and sad, conjuring memories of Paul Desmond’s quiet solos. Beautiful. Segues into “These Foolish Things” and a happier mood. Great work by Bobby too, and then Michael wraps it up with a long, mesmerizing solo.

”Take Five”—Dave kicks it off, but is looking tired. Bobby carries the tune, building it up and up, and then handing it over to Randy for an extraordinary drum solo–the usual complexities but perhaps a bit more accessible than usual, culminating with several distinct rhythms chugging together and then the addition of one more pattern, which at this point seems impossible.

Abruptly, it’s over. The emcee interrupts the applause by having a birthday cake brought in and leading “Happy Birthday”—which would be what?—53 days too late?

Crud. It’s over.

—Bob Coughlin

Dave Brubeck, Gone Four Years

This is the fourth anniversary of Dave Brubeck’s death at age 91. Under the heading, “Always remembered, never forgotten,” John Bolger sent a message that included this photograph of Brubeck as listeners remember him from countless occasions—fully committed.
image002

Here he is in 1964 in Belgium with the group long known as the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet. Paul Desmond, alto saxophone; Eugene Wright, bass; Joe Morello, drums. The piece is Brubeck’s “Koto Song.”

Dave Brubeck, 1920-2012.

To visit John Bolger’s website devoted to Brubeck’s life and music, go here. The official Dave Brubeck website is here.

Dave Brubeck: One Year

1. Today, a year following Dave Brubeck’s death, a new website celebrates his life and music.

2. We relay an announcement that one of the finest jazz repertory orchestras will broadcast a program of Brubeck compositions.

As John Bolger’s Dave Brubeck Jazz.com debuts, the Irish Brubeck maven has unveiled an impressive site. In the “About” section, he outlines his ambitious goal:

The primary purpose was to detail the entire catalogue of Dave‘s music, recorded over eight Brubeck-akimbo1decades, so that fans, music lovers, collectors, musicians and historians would have a database of all of his music, in one site.

The secondary purpose was to complement the Brubeck Collection, Holt Atherton Collections, at The University Of The Pacific, by providing biographical, image, media, video and memorabilia databases outlining Dave’s musical life, based on what was in my own collection and those gathered from other sources. I also hoped to highlight Dave Brubeck the person, who was intolerant of prejudice and used his music to advocate for civil rights and racial unity.

The site has extensive sections of Brubeck biography, news, photographs and links to blogs, books, academic collections and interviews. I found in browsing the sections devoted to recordings and videos, that a great deal more time had passed that I planned to spend. Consider yourself warned—or encouraged.

Bolger offers assurance that his is not the official Brubeck website, which can be found here.

 

SRJO wide shot

As for that broadcast of Brubeck’s music, it will feature the consistently impressive Seattle Jazz Repertory Orchestra and be streamed live on the web this coming Sunday. Here is the announcement from Jim Wilke:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet was one of the primary groups moving jazz from the dance hall to the concert hall in the 50s. The cooler, more intellectual style of music found great success on college campuses and music departments (which previously discouraged it) started adding jazz to the curriculum.

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra, co-directed by Clarence Acox and Michael Brockman recently presented a concert of big-band arrangements of music by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond and highlights from that concert will air on Jazz Northwest on Sunday, December 8 at 2 PM (Pacific). Music includes

In Your Own Sweet Way,
Three to Get Ready
Take Five
A Paul Desmond tribute medley featuring all five saxophonists from the SRJO
Blue Rondo a la Turk
The Duke
Theme from Mr.Broadway
plus an encore tribute to the late Frank Wess

Jazz Northwest is recorded and produced by Jim Wilke exclusively for 88.5 KPLU. The program airs on Sundays at 2 PM Pacific Standard Time and is available as a podcast at kplu.org following the broadcast.

The Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s next performance will be the 25th annual presentation of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music Concert at Seattle’s Town Hall on December 28.

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.

Other Places: Lucky Thompson & Dave Brubeck

In his Jazz Profiles blog, Steve Cerra’s stock in trade is—logically enough— profiles of musicians. He copiously illustrates them with photographs, album covers and sound clips and often adds personal reflections or anecdotes to enrich the mix. The lead story that Steve put up today is about the late tenor and soprano saxophonist Lucky Thompson.

Thompson worked in the 1940s and ‘50s in Dizzy Gillespie’s sextet and with the big bands of Billy Eckstine, Tom Talbert and Count Basie. Hank Jones, Oscar Pettiford and Milt Jackson were among the colleagues who cherished their relationship with Thompson. He made a notable impact on Benny Golson in the early 1950s as Golson formed his style. Half a century later, the young saxophonist Chris Byars adopted Thompson as his model. Go here for the Jazz Profiles post, which includes Steve’s album cover photo essay to the tune of a gorgeous Thompson ballad. It also has Bob Porter’s informative notes about Thompson.

While you’re visiting Cerraville, if you scroll down the left-hand column you will eventually come to Steve’s recent posting of an essay I wrote some time ago to accompany the Time Signatures box of CDs tracing Dave Brubeck’s career from his college days to the 1990s. It has a lot of reading and a lot of pictures.

For video of Lucky Thompson in action in Paris in the late 1950s, see this Rifftides archive piece.

DVD: Dave Brubeck

Brubeck Moscow.jpgDave Brubeck, Brubeck Returns to Moscow (Koch Vision). This 2005 film about Brubeck’s 1997 visit to Russia for a performance of his mass To Hope is a beautifully crafted documentary. It incorporates Brubeck’s quartet with a symphony orchestra and chorus performing the mass and a rousing “Blue Rondo ala Turk.” We see Brubeck’s informal encounters with the Russians, including a spirited impromptu duet with a young violinist, and conductor Russell Gloyd amusingly overcoming the language difference to rehearse the dozens of musicians. There is also footage of Brubeck on a previous Moscow occasion, at the Reagan-Gorbachev summit of 1988, before the wall came down.

O Rare Dave Brubeck

In the past few days, three videos have materialized of a 1956 television performance by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. They show the group after Brubeck was elevated to general fame by way of a TIME magazine cover story but before Joe Morello and Eugene Wright replaced Joe Dodge and Norman Bates on drums and bass. As I wrote in Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond,
Brubeck Time.jpg

It may be difficult for anyone who grew up after the pervasive hype of television and the omnipresence of the internet diluted the impact of print, to understand the power of a cover story in TIME. It brought massive attention to the subject and made him, or her, an instant celebrity. Brubeck’s career had begun to show that it had the potential for steady, respectable growth. Now it took off. Sales of his records leaped, not only of the new Columbias with Desmond, Bates and Dodge, but the Fantasys as well. The Quartet’s bookings increased and its fees grew exponentially.

Dodge resigned and Morello came aboard in the fall of ’56, so the TV program was most likely in the spring or summer of that year. As too frustratingly often with You Tube, the person who posted the videos gives no information about the program – not the date, the name of the show, the name of the host, the call letters of the station or the name of the city. I am attempting to dig up those facts. Stay tuned.
Of course, the music is what matters. The importance of Bates and Dodge to the early quartet has been obscured by the attention given Wright and Morello in the “classic” Brubeck Quartet following the massive success of “Take Five” in the early sixties. This is a rare chance to see Bates and Dodge and hear what a well-integrated band this was. To eliminate the bother of following links to YouTube, the Rifftides public service department brings you all three segments, totaling nearly 25 minutes. Enjoy.

If anyone out there in the blogosphere knows the missing who, when and where of these clips, please use the Comments link below.

Dave Brubeck, 88 Keys, 88 Years, Another Honor

On Tuesday, Dave Brubeck was inducted into the California Hall of Fame along with elevenBrubeck.jpg others including actors Jane Fonda and Jack Nicholson, fitness maven Jack LaLanne, musician and producer Quincy Jones, chef Alice Waters and — posthumously — Theodore Geiss (Dr. Seuss), scientist Linus Pauling, architect Julia Morgan, and Dorothea Lange, the photographer best known for documenting the human toll of the Great Depression.

Brubeck turned eighty-eight on December 6. Paul Conley of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, California, spoke with him yesterday about the honor and about his plans. To hear the conversation and see Conley’s video of Brubeck, click here.

Correspondence: On Brubeck’s “Soothing” Indian Summer

Rifftides reader Orsolya Sarvari Bene recently wrote:

Years ago you recommended the album Indian Summer, with Dave Brubeck playing solo piano. I enjoyed this album a lot. The local library had it available for rent. It’s a hidden gem. He plays very quietly and soothingly and sounds different playing alone at an older age. I don’t know if he recorded it at his home. It sounded that way. It had an intimate feel.

Great reminder. Thanks. We’re jumping the seasonal gun, but let’s listen to the title tune.

Brubeck And Desmond Through Fresh Ears

A new Rifftides reader, Orsolya S., joined us recently. Now and then she sends comments, an activity we encourage among all readers. Her latest communique concerns a recording that has been exciting listeners for more than sixty years.

Thanks for recommending the album Dave Brubeck Quartet at Oberlin College a while back. One of my favorite albums, I’ve listened to it 8 or 9 times since buying it. All the tracks are great, but “Perdido” is my favorite. The quartet recorded the album in the early fifties at Oberlin College in a chapel there. According to the liner notes, jazz wasn’t performed very much on college campuses in those days. You can hear how excited the audience was to be hearing this kind of music. The members of the quartet can be heard cheering for each other and encouraging the others, which is very heartening. The music is bright and upbeat. You always feel better after hearing Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond play together.

Orsolya S’s enthusiasm gives us all a fine reason to listen to “Perdido” again.

A favorite line from one of my visits with Brubeck when I interviewed him for Desmond’s biography:

Boy, do I miss Paul Desmond.

Boy, do a lot of us miss them both.

Take Five: The Public And Private Lives Of Paul Desmond is rarely found in hard cover these days, except at exorbitant prices on the used-book market. It is available as an ebook at a non-exorbitant price. And, as Iola Brubeck observed when it emerged in that format, “It’s a lot easier to take it on an airplane that way.”

Weekend Listening Tip: The SRJO On Brubeck And Desmond

This Sunday, March 11, Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest broadcast will present highlights of the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra’s recent concert of music composed by Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond. Jim reports that the SRJO will play “Take Five,” “In Your Own Sweet Way, “The Duke,” “Wendy” and other pieces in new arrangements expanded for 17-piece band. During its seventeen years, the Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Desmond was consistently at or near the top of jazz groups in popularity and record sales. Pianist Randy Halberstadt (pictured left) will interpret Brubeck. Alto saxophonists Michael Brockman (center) and Sidney Hauser (right) will pay tribute to Desmond. Other members of the orchestra, including trumpeters Jay Thomas and Thomas Marriott,  will also solo.

(Photos: Jim Levitt)

Jazz Northwest airs at 2PM PST Sunday on KNKX-FM in the Seattle-Tacoma area. It streams online worldwide at knkx.org

Brubeck And Desmond: Can’t You Hear Them Calling?

I am running soon for a plane headed to Sweden. But first: I must tell you about a discovery by blogger, Rifftides reader and tune-detective-first-class Tarik Townsend. Mr. Townsend (pictured) writes that he has found a recording of one of the most elusive quotes that Paul Desmond ever worked into a solo. As evidence, his story incorporates three videos, one of which has the quote itself. It’s a valuable and entertaining discovery. I congratulate Mr. Townsend for his diligent pursuit of a piece of Desmond ephemera that might have remained obscure but for the Townsend determination. To read his report and hear the music, go to his blog, which he named, It’s A Raggy Waltz. Come back here after you listen, for a final thought

In the Townsend piece, you heard Dave Brubeck voicing his enthusiasm for his partner’s wit. The appreciation the two had for one another’s work was frequently on display. They did not hold back their admiration for humor and harmonic resourcefulness. When the enthusiasm surfaced it was one of the factors that drew audiences in and helped make them—as Brubeck put it—the fifth member of the quartet.

Dave loved to laugh. Paul was happy to help.

Recent Listening: New Old Brubeck

Dave Brubeck Quartet With Paul Desmond At The Sunset Center 1955 (Solar)

New music by the Dave Brubeck Quartet has surfaced on the European label Solar. Previously unissued, it finds the group brimming with the harmonic daring, contrapuntal interaction and humor that were beginning to make them famous. A 1954 TIME magazine cover story about the pianist, the success of the band’s Jazz Goes To College album and lots of radio airplay had them in the public eye and ear in an era when such prominence was possible for a jazz group. Eight of the tracks were taped at the Sunset Center in Carmel, California, in June of 1955 and one at New York’s Basin Street the following summer.

Comedian Mort Sahl’s introduction of the band is an audio blur, hard to understand. That’s too bad because whatever he said brought clearly audible chuckles from the quartet. Otherwise, sound quality of the location recording is adequate, perhaps adequate+. The instruments are distinct and in reasonable balance, although there are places where pitch correction in the remastering would have helped. The playlist is made up of familiar items in the quartet’s mid-fifties repertoire. Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond take approaches that make the content fresh and often surprising. They begin with “Gone With the Wind.” Nearly fifteen minutes long, it incorporates trademark aspects of the principal soloists; Desmond’s lyricism and Brubeck’s power, although there are tradeoffs in both areas. Desmond flows through “I’ll Never Smile Again,” fully engaging his ability to fit quotes into unlikely harmonic nooks and crannies. In his solo, Brubeck scatters quirky chord bouquets.

In the arrangement that Brubeck Octet trumpeter Dick Collins fashioned in pre-quartet days, “Jeepers Creepers” follows the routine familiar to listeners who know the Columbia Brubeck Time album. Soloing, Desmond applies an astringent tone and note substitutions that on manuscript paper would look “wrong.” When he plays them, they are right—and occasionally hilarious. “Yeah, Paul,” Brubeck says more than once. As usual when they played the piece, it gets a spoofy Dixieland tag ending. With some heat, Collins once told me that he didn’t understand why they “tacked that on,” but it became a permanent addition.

The minor harmonies of “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime” inspire Brubeck to meld a circle of fourths into his solo for a deeper statement than on the Brubeck Time version. Desmond’s wistfulness in “Little Girl Blue” takes a funky turn with a ferocious blues lick of his invention and a visit to “St. James Infirmary” before he soars into the horn’s altissimo register. Regrettably, he did less of that stratospheric soaring as the years went by. He also goes altissimo in “Take the ‘A’ Train,” but it is his minor-key Orientalism that grabs attention there before Brubeck launches his own series of quotes. Both soloists are full of vigor on the album’s final track, “Two-Part Contention,” recorded at Basin Street for an NBC Monitor radio broadcast that has a nostalgia-inducing signoff by announcer Bob Collins.

A final note: so much attention went to bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello in the Brubeck Quartet’s final decade that the memory of Norman Bates’ and Joe Dodge’s consistency and strength as a rhythm team may tend to fade. Among its other virtues, this album is a reminder of the sympathetic support and responsiveness that Bates and Dodge brought to the quartet during their tenure.

Brubeck Trio: Two “Indianas” Explained

Drummer, Rifftides reader and close listener Tarik Townsend expands here on his analysis of two 1949 Dave Brubeck Trio takes of “Indiana.” The discussion grew out of comments about differences between saxophonist Paul Desmond’s Brubeck Quartet solos on the later “The Way You Look Tonight” from the quartet’s Oberlin concert. Mr. Townsend explains

While the times, remarkably, are nearly the same, the two versions I posted are indeed two completely different takes of ‘Indiana’, recorded by Fantasy and their subsidiary label Cor0net. If you listen to the beginnings of both takes, you will notice a subtle difference. The recording in the first link begins with Dave modulating down as he states the opening bars, while the second link finds Dave modulating up as he states the opening bars. Again, it’s a subtle difference, but once the drums and bass come in, Brubeck’s ensuing solos are pretty different on the two takes. The trio sounds more energized and upbeat on the second link (and what I assume is the second take).

 

With that settled (I hope), we can move on to jazz and other matters that have developed later than the 1940s and ‘50s. Your suggestions are always welcome. Thanks to Mr. Townsend for his hard work  on this.

For the Desmond solo and quotes discussion, go here.

Dan Brubeck Quartet At The Seasons

Dan Brubeck, the drummer among Dave Brubeck’s five musician sons, took his own quartet into The Seasons Performance Hall in Yakima, Washington, last night. As did his band’s recent album, the concert paid tribute to his father and to his mother, Iola, who wrote memorable lyrics to a number of her husband’s melodies. The quartet includes pianist Tony Foster, alto and tenor saxophonist Steve Kaldestad and bassist Adam Thomas.

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Introducing the band, I mentioned Iola’s answer when I asked her years ago what Danny was like as a little boy. I recalled that she gazed into the distance, silent for a few seconds, then smiled and said, “Hell on wheels.” The audience saw and heard evidence in his solos on “Blue Rondo a la Turk,” “Jazzanians,” and especially on “Take Five,” that he retains that aspect of his personality. Playing to a substantial holiday weekend audience, the quartet poured energy and ebullience into those and other up-tempo pieces. On quieter numbers, Brubeck was lyrical in the use of wire brushes.

Bassist Thomas has a high, clear voice. Playing acoustic bass as he sang, he found the emotion in Iola’s words to “Weep No More,” the nostalgia in “Summer Song” and “Autumn in Our Town,” the razzle-dazzle in “It’s a Raggy Waltz,” the humor in “Ode to a Cowboy.” Foster’s keyboard technique and speed were impressive; so, too, his willingness to back off from technique and use expressive silence. On both of his horns, Kaldestad played with an original conception and, happily, moments when he seasoned his originality with references to the jazz canon. He made a double bow to Duke Ellington and John Coltrane with a quote from Ellington’s “Take The Coltrane.”

For a Rifftides review of the Dan Brubeck Quartet’s Live From The Cellar album, go here.