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Take 90! Nonagenarian Dave Brubeck is still ticklin’ the ivories... by G r e g Cahill
M
emo to self: Listen to more Brubeck, lots more Brubeck. I was teetering last week on a stepladder, packing soundproofing materials between the rafters of my garage—part of the “Peace in the Neighborhood Project” (news flash: not everyone shares the joys of a garage band)—and I was on the lookout for black widow spiders and other crawly things. My back ached, the spider webs were creeping me out and my mood was turning dark. Then on the iPod came the cool-jazz sounds of the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s 1959 blues-soaked ballad “Everybody’s Jumpin’,” which opens with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond’s lyrical clarion call. For four minutes and 25 seconds, all was right in the world. During the next couple of weeks, much of the jazz world will be turning its attention to the music of Brubeck, a Concord native who celebrates his 90th birthday on Dec. 6. On that day, the cable channel Turner Classic Movies will premiere Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way, a new documentary by jazz buff Clint Eastwood.
Of course, Brubeck is no stranger to accolades. A gifted pianist and composer, who after World War II studied classical music at Mills College in Oakland with the adventurous composer Darius Milhaud, Brubeck made significant strides experimenting with poly-rhy thms and polytonality. Teaming up in 1951 with the ultra-cool saxophonist Desmond, Brubeck and his band scored a major hit eight years later with Desmond’s quirkily 5/4 timed “Take Five.” In its wake, the affable Brubeck has enjoyed a celebrated career. He has earned a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Kennedy Center Honor and a Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy for spreading “a vision of hope, opportunity and freedom”
The Dave Brubeck Quartet circa the ‘Take Five’ era, inset, and Dave and the boys today.
through his music. He is a member of the California Hall of Fame and has been named a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress. Brubeck, who last month underwent an operation to install a pacemaker, still performs 50 concerts a year and operates a music institute at the University of the Pacific. His most recent album—a collection of original choral sacred works recorded at Skywalker Ranch in San Rafael and conducted by North Bay educator Lynn Morrow—was released earlier this year.
This month, a raft of CD reissues and anthologies arrives to mark the anniversary of his birth. The Definitive Dave Brubeck on Fantasy, Concord Jazz and Telarc (Concord Music Group) is a two-disc compilation that includes material controlled by the Concord Music Group, including Brubeck’s early and woefully underappreciated trio recordings for the Fantasy label and featuring the late, great Latin percussionist Cal Tjader. On such tracks as “Laura,” Brubeck sometimes displays an aggressive stride style reminiscent of Art Tatum or even Duke Ellington, but clearly in search of his own voice. It does not include Brubeck’s Columbia material (though there is a brisk live version of “Take Five,” recorded in Moscow in 1987 with his son Chris on electric bass). It also includes the splendid “Variations on Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Brubeck’s signature years at Columbia are represented on a trio of new compilations from Sony/Legacy (packaged in individual sleeves featuring the original cover art). The five-CD TIME box set includes the classic 1959 album Time Out (with the original studio version of “Take Five”) as well as the four other quartet recordings it inspired: Time Further Out, Time Changes, Time In and Countdown: Time in Outer Space. The five-disc Dave Brubeck box features four quartet and one solo album, all of which had been out-of-print: Jazz Goes to College, Brubeck Plays Brubeck, Gone with the Wind, Brandenburg Gate: Revisited and Jazz Impressions of New York. On the new two-disc compilation, Dave Brubeck: Legacy of a Legend, the pianist himself has selected 21 tracks culled from his 17 Columbia albums recorded between 19541970. Among the special guests are vocalists Carmen McRae and Jimmy Rushing, and baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan. Conspicuously absent: “Everybody’s Jumpin’.” ✹ Groove with Greg at gcahill51@gmail.com. Tune up to the Marin music scene at
›› pacificsun.com/music 32 PACIFIC SUN NOVEMBER 26 - DECEMBER 2, 2010