{"id":2424,"date":"2011-03-12T13:57:16","date_gmt":"2011-03-12T21:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=2424"},"modified":"2011-03-16T10:35:11","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T17:35:11","slug":"joe-morello-1928-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2011\/03\/joe-morello-1928-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Morello, 1928-2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Joe Morello, the drummer best known for his long tenure with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, died this morning at his home in New Jersey. Morello joined Brubeck in 1956, remained with the group until it disbanded in 1967 and later played with it in reunions. He joined\"\"<\/a> Brubeck after three years in Marian McPartland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trio.”\u00a0 Earlier in the 1950s he worked with Gil Melle, Johnny Smith and, briefly, with Stan Kenton. His eyesight, always troublesome, began to fail in the later Brubeck years and by 1976 was gone. He continued to teach. It was not unusual for students from far-flung parts of the world to come to him for lessons.<\/p>\n

When Brubeck offered him the drum chair after Joe Dodge left the quartet, Morello accepted on the condition that he be featured as a soloist. His solos became an attraction that, combined with Brubeck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s established fame, helped make the quartet one of the best-known groups in jazz. That came about despite strong objection from Desmond, who had recommended Morello for the job. Desmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s preference in drum accompaniment was for discreet time-keeping. At first, that is what Morello provided in rhythm partnership with bassist Norman Bates. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, it went fine,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Morello told me in 2003,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d then we went into the Blue Note for a week.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

From Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond<\/em><\/a>, here are excerpts from the longer account of what happened.<\/p>\n

That night at the club, Brubeck urged Morello to use sticks and assigned him a solo. Morello said that the solo got \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a little standing ovation.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Desmond left the stand for the dressing room. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At the end of the drum solo, he just took off,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Morello said. When Brubeck got there at the end of the set, Desmond wheeled on him and presented an ultimatum: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Morello goes or I go.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Brubeck said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not going.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

“Joe could do things I’d never heard anybody else do,” Brubeck said. “I wanted to feature him. Paul objected. He wanted a guy who played time and was unobtrusive. I discovered that Joe’s time concept was like mine, and I wanted to move in that direction. Paul said I had to get another drummer, I told him I wouldn’t. I didn’t know whether Paul and Norman would show up the next night. They came to a record session at Columbia in Chicago during the day, but they wouldn’t play. So Joe and I played for three hours. And they told me they were going to leave the group. And I said, ‘well, there’ll be a void on the stand tonight because Joe’s not leaving.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n

“So, I went to the job and, boy, was I relieved to see Paul and Norman. But I wasn’t going to be bluffed out of Joe. It was not discussed again. That was the end of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Brubeck described as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153armistice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d went into effect, holding Desmond and Morello at arm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s length and continuing after Eugene Wright replaced Bates.<\/p>\n

Brubeck was able to make the center hold through all the internecine battles over tempos, volume, and drum fills during Desmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s solos. Despite their powerful disagreements about how Morello’s skills should be deployed, Brubeck was able to take advantage of the respect Morello and Desmond had for one another’s abilities. The respect was ultimately to grow into genuine affection, but that was at the end of a rough road.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“For a while it was uncomfortable with Paul,” Morello told me. “But as time went on, it worked out. We became very close and used to hang out together. The last four or five years we hung out quite a lot, actually.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Morello\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s skill with unorthodox time signatures allowed Brubeck to undertake the explorations in rhythm that he had long wanted to initiate. They led to the 1959 Time Out<\/em> album and the group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enduring hit \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d written by Desmond, which featured a Morello solo in 5\/4 time. The piece became a concert feature for Morello, one that audiences demanded for the rest of the life of the quartet.<\/p>\n