{"id":6955,"date":"2015-09-18T12:49:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-18T19:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=6955"},"modified":"2015-09-19T11:50:52","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T18:50:52","slug":"paul-desmond-whimsy-at-monterey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2015\/09\/paul-desmond-whimsy-at-monterey\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Desmond: Whimsy At Monterey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;TDhbIPnOK5jOwmmL4ReTwyd0HIsEoDHh&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>How many times did the Dave Brubeck Quartet perform \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hundreds?  Maybe thousands. No one other than Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello would know for certain, and it&#8217;s unlikely that any of them kept a scorecard. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five&#8221; is the annuity that keeps on giving to the American Red Cross, Desmond&#8217;s legatee. Noel Silverman, the executor of Desmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s estate, informed me this morning that royalties, mostly from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d have given the Red Cross upwards of 7 million dollars since Desmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death in 1977.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DaveBrubeckQuartetMJF1966_11x17HiRescRayAvery_CTSIMAGES.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DaveBrubeckQuartetMJF1966_11x17HiRescRayAvery_CTSIMAGES.jpg\" alt=\"DaveBrubeckQuartetMJF1966_11x17HiRes(c)RayAvery_CTSIMAGES\" width=\"480\" height=\"305\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6956\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DaveBrubeckQuartetMJF1966_11x17HiRescRayAvery_CTSIMAGES.jpg 480w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DaveBrubeckQuartetMJF1966_11x17HiRescRayAvery_CTSIMAGES-300x191.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In listening to the quartet in person and on record and in doing research for my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2013\/06\/take-five-the-book-goes-digital.html\"target=\"_blank\">Desmond biography<\/a>, I have heard dozens of their performances of his most enduring composition. Still, I had never heard a Desmond \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d solo as unpredictable as the one he played at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966. Not wanting to be a repeater pencil&#8212;to borrow Lester Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s phrase&#8212;Paul varied his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d solos to prevent boredom, to entertain himself, the band and the audience, or to get a laugh out of Brubeck. For thirty years or so, surprising Brubeck gave Desmond enormous satisfaction. In this audio clip from the MJF website, we can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see Dave\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easy to imagine it.  <\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1hhYWU-nfrk?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><p>For an illustrated collection of information about Brubeck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and the quartet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s long history with the Monterey festival, see <a href=\"http:\/\/www.montereyjazzfestival.org\/exhibitions\/brubeck-monterey\/introduction\"target=\"_blank\">the MJF website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=&#8221;TDhbIPnOK5jOwmmL4ReTwyd0HIsEoDHh&#8221;] How many times did the Dave Brubeck Quartet perform \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hundreds? Maybe thousands. No one other than Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello would know for certain, and it&#8217;s unlikely that any of them kept a scorecard. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Take Five&#8221; is the annuity that keeps on giving to the American Red [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6956,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-6955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-main","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}