Brubeck Review

[Dr. Rat]

March 24, 2004

MUSIC REVIEW | DAVE BRUBECK

A New Look at an Old View of Music's Polytonal Future

By KELEFA SANNEH

"I never expected to be here playing this, or to ever hear this music again," Dave Brubeck said. He was addressing a full house at Avery Fisher Hall on Monday night, and the grandfatherly twinkle in his eye made it plain that he took pleasure in adding another unlikely chapter to an unlikely career.

The concert resurrected his 1946 octet, a group he formed at Mills College while studying with the composer Darius Milhaud. Mr. Brubeck, and his bandmates explored unusual forms and rhythms, and their experiments anticipated some of the directions jazz would take in the decades that followed. But the music was nearly lost: as Mr. Brubeck explained, the scores were destroyed in a flood, and so on Monday night the musicians worked from transcriptions of an old recording.

So this was a night of cheerful reversals. The venerable master, now 83, reprised the role of eager student, wistfully recalling Milhaud's influence. The group played music that had gone from the printed page to the stage and — painstakingly — back again. And the audience got a chance to hear old avant-garde compositions that prefigured a future now past.

Nine musicians and a conductor were required to recreate the complicated arrangements, including the four members of the Dave Brubeck quartet (which played a nimble, spirited set to open the show) and William O. Smith, the adventurous clarinetist who was a key member of the original octet.

One of the most appealing pieces was Mr. Brubeck's densely interwoven setting of "The Way You Look Tonight." He warned the audience that it was "very complicated," sometimes shifting harmony with every beat, but the group scampered through the changes as if the whole thing were merely a lark.

A brief composition called "Rondo" resembled a homework assignment, and for good reason: "We experimented with different forms, because Milhaud wanted us to," Mr. Brubeck said. Of course he eventually found other uses for the hybrid jazz-rondo form. A decade later Milhaud's challenge inspired one of Mr. Brubeck's best-known compositions, "Blue Rondo a la Turk."

Another hybrid, "Fugue on Bop Themes," still sounded weird and witty all these years later. The theme included a pair of syncopated rhythmic figures, which had a slightly different effect each time they cycled around: sometimes they were a sharp interruption, sometimes just a gentle ripple.

The night ended with a crowd-pleasing run through "Take Five" (enlivened by Mr. Smith's deliciously irreverent solo), but the most memorable part of the concert was Mr. Brubeck's I-told-you-so smile. At one point he remembered, "In those days polytonal chords were looked on as mistakes." And then, with more than a hint of glee: "I'm going to play those mistakes tonight."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Guest ariceffron]

thats fucking awsome brubeck performed his octet pieces again. who were the new musicians he used???

[Dr. Rat]

thats fucking awsome brubeck performed his octet pieces again.  who were the new musicians he used???

Well, here the JALC announcement.

Glad to see Bill Smith amongst the group. I have a soft spot for him having enjoyed some of his work on the live in Russia cd.

Anyhow,

THE LEGENDARY DAVE BRUBECK OCTET

MAKES HISTORIC NEW YORK PREMIERE

AT AVERY FISHER HALL ON MARCH 22

Group to Perform Selections From Original 1946 Self-Titled

Fantasy Records Recording For Only the Second Time in History

Featuring Original Dave Brubeck Octet Member Bill Smith

New York, NY (February 24, 2004) Jazz at Lincoln Center (JALC) presents an evening of historic proportions. For the first time, piano and modern jazz icon Dave Brubeck will perform the music of his vanguard octet in New York City's Avery Fisher Hall. Scheduled for Monday, March 22 at 8 PM, An Evening with the Legendary Dave Brubeck Octet is one of the most anticipated shows of the 2003-2004 JALC season.

Formed in 1946, the Dave Brubeck Octet was Brubeck's first group and was a precursor to the seminal Birth of the Cool . For one night only, The Dave Brubeck Octet will be re-created featuring some of the finest jazz performers to date: Bobby Militello (alto saxophone), Charles Pillow (tenor saxophone), Gary Smulyan (baritone saxophone), Lew Soloff (trumpet), Jim Pugh (trombone), Michael Moore (bass) and Randy Jones (drums). This evening marks a special reunion, as original octet member Bill Smith (clarinet) will join Brubeck onstage.

For over 50 years, pianist, composer and bandleader Dave Brubeck has been revered for experimenting with time signatures unusual in jazz, such as 5/4, 9/8 and 11/4.   The first jazz figure to grace the cover of Time magazine, Dave Brubeck brings his integration of irregular meters and jazz forms that brought him much critical and popular success to New York.   For the second half of the concert and for the first time ever on the East Coast, the octet will perform selections dating from 1946.   The first half will feature a performance by The Dave Brubeck Quartet.

"When Brubeck steps out on a local college campus, in a packed concert auditorium, or to some distant land, he carries more than a mere night's entertainment with him," – Jim Santella, All About Jazz. "As an ambassador of modern jazz, Dave Brubeck is a prizewinner."

Tickets for An Evening with the Legendary Dave Brubeck Octet , priced at $50, $55, $65, $75, $100, are available at the Alice Tully Hall box office, by calling CenterCharge at (212) 721-6500, or via www.jazzatlincolncenter.org.   This performance is sponsored by Cadillac.

Dave Brubeck's importance in jazz history is unmistakable: the Quartet, headlined by Brubeck, helped to re-awaken public interest in jazz after World War II.   He studied music at the College of the Pacific from 1938-1942. During World War II, Brubeck led a service band in General Patton's Army then in 1946, he studied at Mills College with the classical composer, Darius Milhaud, who encouraged his students to play jazz.

From 1946-1949, Brubeck led a group mostly consisting of fellow classmates, and recorded as the Dave Brubeck Octet; their music (released on Fantasy in 1951) still sounds advanced today, with complex time signatures and some polytonality. The octet was too radical to get much work, so Brubeck formed a trio with drummer Cal Tjader (who doubled on vibes) and bassist Ron Crotty. The trio's Fantasy recordings of 1949-1951 were quite popular in the Bay Area, but the group came to an end when Brubeck hurt his back during a serious swimming accident and was put out of action for months. Upon his return in 1951, Brubeck was persuaded by altoist Paul Desmond to make the group a quartet. Within two years, the band had become surprisingly popular.

The innovative Time Out , released in 1959, spawned not only the first million-selling jazz record in modern jazz history with the singles "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk," but also a slew of albums by other artists also experimenting in nontraditional time signatures. In 1954, Brubeck became the first jazz musician to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, which heralded Brubeck as the leader of "the birth of a new kind of jazz age in the U.S." Between 1959 and 1965, the Quartet won Down Beat magazine's reader's poll five times; it garnered the top spot in the Billboard reader's poll in 1965 and 1966.

In the Quartet's tenth year, the New Yorker rightfully proclaimed that the group as "the world's best-paid, most widely traveled, most highly publicized and most popular small group now playing improvised syncopated music." Cloyed perhaps by the overwhelming popular acclaim, Brubeck left the Quartet in 1967 to develop his composing skills, already apparent in his jazz compositions, in the realms of ballet, operas, and scores.

Brubeck, whose compositions "In Your Own Sweet Way," "The Duke," and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" have become standards, remained very busy into the 2000s. He persists as a grand old man of jazz, however, by both participating in periodic reunions or forays into popular jazz and by suffusing his compositions with jazz influences.   In 2003, the Library of Congress declared Brubeck a "living legend."

Edited March 24, 2004 by Dr. Rat