Dave Brubeck - RIP

[BillF]

Some facts

I saw the Dave Brubeck Quartet three times.

I have a thousand discs in my collection.

Ten are by Paul Desmond.

None are by Dave Brubeck.

No further comment.

I have twenty times as many discs with Louis Jordan leader dates than I have John Coltrane leader dates.

So what?

One man's meat is another man's poison.

Thanks a lot for sharing that story, Chuck!

Now I have "Hey Pete, Let's Eat More Meat" in my head and can't get rid of it

Did Brubeck cover that?

(Seems like we cannot get away from "meat" right now anyway. )

You're right about meat and poison - your figures for Coltrane and Jordan are reversed in my case. Re "Hey Pete ...", I've only ever heard it by Dizzy's big band. Is there a story behind that tune? I mean Handy's "Loveless Love" with its lyric about "meatless meat" was to do with First World War food shortages IIRC.

[alankin]

New York Times obit:

http://www.nytimes.c...dies-at-91.html

Remembrance on NPR:

http://www.npr.org/b...st-dave-brubeck

90th birthday program on NPR's "Fresh Air" with interview:

http://www.npr.org/2...s-90th-birthday

Edited December 6, 2012 by alankin

[Milestones]

Desmond had his thing, though I've never been much drawn to his work outside of Brubeck. I like hearing Dave with tenor or baritone, with guys who provide more bite on the sax.

[John Tapscott]

Some facts

I saw the Dave Brubeck Quartet three times.

I have a thousand discs in my collection.

Ten are by Paul Desmond.

None are by Dave Brubeck.

No further comment.

Bill: You really need to try this one:

[colinmce]

Known about, but never heard this record until today, looking on YouTube...got some certain edge to it, yeah. Just ordered, hope it's all this good.

Anybody know the other Fantasy album with Smith? How's it?

It's good. Modern clarinet in the 50s is in pretty short supply, so I'll take it.

[brownie]

When I started getting interested in jazz back in the '50s, Brubeck was not a very big name in France. Many critics here dismissed what he was doing.

I caught the value of his music through Miles Davis. Miles interpretations of 'In Your Own Sweet Way' and 'The Duke' proved Brubeck's music was really worth exploring.

Been a fan ever since...

[Hot Ptah]

I saw the Dave Brubeck quartet live three times in the 1995--2005 period. I was surprised that Brubeck's piano playing was uniformly excellent to me. He did not do the clunky pounding that the critics have written of. His playing was swinging, creative and quite subtle. It was often quite beautiful. I found his piano soloing to be very compelling on each occasion. His group was excellent too, genuinely exciting.

[medjuck]

Jazz Red Hot and Cool was one of the first Lps I bought as a teenager. I was haunted by Little Girl Blue. Bought several other Lps up to and including Time Out but by that time I thought I was too hip for him. I still think Balcony Rock rocks.

I saw the quartet in the early '60s. Woman behind me complained that she'd paid $8 and there were only 4 of them. I asked her how many people she thought would be in The Dave Brubeck Quartet?

Saw him again a couple of years ago. (He played Santa Barbara every year.) Though he played Take 5 and Blue Rondo he mainly played standards and sounded more like a conventional Jazz pianist without much of the percusive chording I had expected.

[Big Beat Steve]

I saw the quartet in the early '60s. Woman behind me complained that she'd paid $8 and there were only 4 of them. I asked her how many people she thought would be in The Dave Brubeck Quartet?

:rofl: :tup

Gotta remember that one!

[BillF]

I liked the quartet before I learned it was not hip.

No, they certainly weren't hip. In 1962 in one of my first jobs at the age of 22, a colleague who was 30 years older but clearly aimed to be hip, said to me, "My son likes Brubeck. I should try to get him on to Monk, shouldn't I."

In 1959 I saw a package show with the Brubeck quartet, the Gillespie quintet with Les Spann, Junior Mance and Sam Jones and the Buck Clayton All Stars with Emmett Berry, Buddy Tate, Dicky Wells and Earl Warren. The majority opinion afterwards was that Brubeck was "fabulous", but the others were "rubbish". Brubeck, like the MJQ, drew audiences in those days who were pretty distant from jazz listeners, as we now know them.

[BillF]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/05/dave-brubeck

[flat5]

I sent a link to a You-Tube video to the wife of a friend (sax-clarinet player) who is an elementry school teacher.

She wrote back to me:

"Did you know that my class of third graders wrote Dave Brubeck two years ago for his 90th? He replied with the most thoughtful responses to each and every student! Sent a deluxe DVD/CD set of Take Five, post cards of a photo of himself for EACH child, with his signature, answered everyone of their questions in his letter! It was so great..."

[Matt]

Yes, this one:

This is the last Brubeck that I ever bought.

01 – Truth

02 – Unknown Woman

03 – Koto Song

04 – Take Five

05 – Rotterdam Blues & Sweet Georgia Brown

Great album. This is the first jazz album I ever got.

[gmonahan]

I wonder if Brubeck's passing will motivate Sony to issue the live Brubeck set on Popmarket we've discussed elsewhere on the Board.

[Big Al]

I sent a link to a You-Tube video to the wife of a friend (sax-clarinet player) who is an elementry school teacher.

She wrote back to me:

"Did you know that my class of third graders wrote Dave Brubeck two years ago for his 90th? He replied with the most thoughtful responses to each and every student! Sent a deluxe DVD/CD set of Take Five, post cards of a photo of himself for EACH child, with his signature, answered everyone of their questions in his letter! It was so great..."

What a great story! Thanks for sharing that!

[sidewinder]

In 1959 I saw a package show with the Brubeck quartet, the Gillespie quintet with Les Spann, Junior Mance and Sam Jones and the Buck Clayton All Stars with Emmett Berry, Buddy Tate, Dicky Wells and Earl Warren. The majority opinion afterwards was that Brubeck was "fabulous", but the others were "rubbish". Brubeck, like the MJQ, drew audiences in those days who were pretty distant from jazz listeners, as we now know them.

Bradford St George's Hall?

[BillF]

In 1959 I saw a package show with the Brubeck quartet, the Gillespie quintet with Les Spann, Junior Mance and Sam Jones and the Buck Clayton All Stars with Emmett Berry, Buddy Tate, Dicky Wells and Earl Warren. The majority opinion afterwards was that Brubeck was "fabulous", but the others were "rubbish". Brubeck, like the MJQ, drew audiences in those days who were pretty distant from jazz listeners, as we now know them.

Bradford St George's Hall?

Indeed it was!

[GA Russell]

On the one hand...

To me Brubeck was like Starbuck's. I love everything about Starbuck's except their coffee. And I love everything about Brubeck except his piano playing.

The most boring jazz concert I've ever attended was a Brubeck quartet at The Cellar Door about 1970 which featured his son on clarinet as I recall.

On the other hand...

It was decided quite some time ago that I would receive for Christmas his 5-CD Original Album Classics odd time signatures box, and I've been looking forward to it! I'm sure I'll enjoy it.

RIP. As posts here affirm, he was a very decent man. And I don't think that he is properly recognized (if what I am about to say is in fact true) for introducing jazz to college campuses. It's my understanding that he with Desmond were the first to make the campus rounds.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

blue rondo a la turk, there is nothing like it. completely ahead of its time. it is fusion before there was fusion. it has more in common with Brand X or Weather Report than what was going on in 1959

[A Lark Ascending]

When I first started listening to jazz one of the earliest things that caught my ear on Jazz Record Requests was the mid 50s 'The Way You Look Tonight' but it was Desmond who got my attention. A bought an album with two of those 'College' records included but couldn't really connect with Dave's playing - always sounded like he was playing with mittens on. I think I was also guilty of shunning the DBQ because they seemed too populist ('I was so much older then....).

Over time I've come to enjoy the DBQ recordings much more and to appreciate DB as a composer.

Anyone with a curious ear should give this recent record a listen:

Unlike most 'tribute' discs it does much more than revisit the hits; it takes some of Brubecks tunes and reconstructs them. The version of Blue Rondo is amazing. Brubeck heard the disc and was as gracious as many of the other comments mentioned in this thread. “This CD will be an inspiration for me. I’ve never gone so far into the unknown as you three, but I have opened the door and peaked in. Your CD is an invitation to enter.”

Edited December 8, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[sgcim]

I never knew he wrote a musical called "The Ambassadors" starring Satch.

Phil Schaap just played Satch singing "The Duke"- surrealistic.

RIP DB

[GregK]

I sent a link to a You-Tube video to the wife of a friend (sax-clarinet player) who is an elementry school teacher.

She wrote back to me:

"Did you know that my class of third graders wrote Dave Brubeck two years ago for his 90th? He replied with the most thoughtful responses to each and every student! Sent a deluxe DVD/CD set of Take Five, post cards of a photo of himself for EACH child, with his signature, answered everyone of their questions in his letter! It was so great..."

WOW! Hard to think of anyone else who would do that.

[clifford_thornton]

Whoa! That's really great.

[Teasing the Korean]

I just heard Fresh Air interview circa two years ago (90th birthday). It's interesting that he talks about being able to write music but not read it so well. That exactly mirrors my abilities/inabilities. He is the only other musician that I've heard describe this.

[Milestones]

I may have missed this, but any comments on the "Time" records? For instance, what is the best one to get after Time Out? I imagine some would say that is not necessarily the best of the series. It is, however, the only one I own.