Dave Brubeck Music

I first received this album [an lp] as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 16. Fort-seven years later I still consider it to be one of the greatet jazz recordings of all time.The music is just incredible. Not to overlook, Joe Dodge's drumming...sensational. This is a must for anyone who loves music.

No wonder Dave played so well. College of the Pacific was where he gained his musical education. It was J. Russell Bodley, his harmony and theory professor, who convinced him that his great talent was more important than his difficulty with these theoretical subjects.

Brubeck and Desmond work their special magic here and produce their finest live recording. This is sophisticated improv to tame the beast. I have listened to these tracks uncountable times and I never get tired of them. This is truely a wistful soundtrack to transport one to a higher realm. Try this the next time you are caught in heavy traffic on a rainy afternoon. You won't mind the delay. It never fails.

Even before its musical experiments with `time' the Brubeck Quartet was already one of the most popular groups in jazz and as an improvising jazz group it was arguably more interesting and more innovative in the early 1950s. It drew a new young audience to jazz by playing concerts at university campuses, and three albums in particular (`Jazz at Pacific College'; `Jazz at Oberlin' and `Jazz Goes to College') show how inspired the quartet's playing in that kind of live setting could be.

The Pacific College album demonstrates Brubeck's individual approach to piano improvisation and his close musical rapport with altoist Paul Desmond. Mainly bypassing the influence of Bud Powell and other `Be-Bop' piano stylists, he combined influences of pre-modern jazz pianists with elements from classical composers. The result was a style which was `mainstream' in some aspects and original in others, a style with a wider emotional range than most jazz pianists encompassed and which lent itself to dramatic effects which made it particularly compelling in live concerts. "All the Things You Are" is a classic example. Desmond opens with an excellent, melodically inventive solo, towards the end of which he hits upon a `baroque' theme. Brubeck in his solo picks up that theme and develops from it a J.S. Bach-style fugal idea which he sustains and builds to a powerful climax. It would have been an interesting treatment of Jerome Kern's theme if it had been worked out in advance but is even more striking for having been improvised on the spot. Although his music has sometimes been scorned as not being `real' jazz, the importance of improvisation has long been an article of faith with Brubeck, and "All the Things You Are" is a good example of the spontaneity and adventurousness of his playing at its best. It also reveals a key quality in both soloists: a gift for sustained melodic invention.

This ability to improvise genuinely tuneful lines was a strength of the quartet's music which Desmond never lost sight of, even if Brubeck in his work in the 1960s occasionally did. It is well in evidence in the ballad, "For All We Know". Here they improvise a sequence of melodic ideas no less memorable than the original tune. Brubeck's solo is more overtly passionate than Desmond's, apparently influenced by the musical language of Romantic pianist-composers such as Chopin and perhaps Rachmaninov. But it's also interesting how Brubeck's melodic lines seem to grow out of and build upon Desmond's so that the whole piece, if it were to be orchestrated, would sound like the invention of one composing mind. Desmond plays with a touching lyrical grace and sense of stillness, his tone remarkably light, sweet and pure but with subtle emotional inflection. It compares interestingly with his superb solo on the 1960s Carnegie Hall concert version of this tune.

The other slow ballad on this CD, "Laura", introduces a further ingredient into the mixture, in that Brubeck adds to the `Romantic' influences some echoes of the `impressionism' of Debussy (for example of "Reflets d'ans l'Eau" - from his piano suite `Images'). One can understand why purist jazz critics might object that this isn't `real' jazz; but in its own terms it's an imaginative piece of music-making, and its attention to beauty of sound and delicate tone-colouring contrasts interestingly with Brubeck's more extrovert, excitable manner. It also shows skill and subtlety in the way it combines within one piece the different approaches to rhythm of `classical' music and jazz.

Those three pieces are my favourites. There are good things on the other tracks, in Brubeck's more `ruminative' style. You could object that he doesn't string his ideas together and `follow through' as effectively as on the three tracks described; but I like the spontaneous and unpredictable way that he moves between different approaches to the tune during the course of a solo. He does some original things with harmony, makes imaginative use of variations of tone and dynamics and even at this early stage shows his fascination with the effects of playing a different time signature (2/4 or 3/4) against the basic 4/4 pulse. Paul Desmond is in consistently good form, seemingly in touch with a stream of fresh invention throughout the session, and that's also true of the companion album `Jazz at Pacific College, Volume 2' (further performances from the same concert) which I also recommend. One aspect of the quartet's music which you might find less than endearing is Desmond's, and to a lesser extent Brubeck's, crowd-pleasing device of occasionally inserting quotations from other tunes into their solos. However, it has never particularly bothered me, maybe partly because of the skill with which the quotations are stitched into the fabric of the solo: for example, on "I Remember You" Desmond quotes the main motif from the tune "Undecided" but devotes about half a chorus to exploring some ingenious variations on it.

I can't guarantee that anyone who comes from an interest in the quartet's "greatest hits" ("Take Five", "Unsquare Dance", etc.) will find this music, as I do, superior to `Time Out' and its sequels (Being an early `fifties live concert album in mono, it certainly doesn't have their quality of recorded sound). But there is a lot of interesting, enjoyable music preserved here of a kind which you won't find anywhere else and which for me has not dated since I first heard it nearly 40 years ago. If you do like it you should also like the even more exciting `Jazz at Oberlin'. I would also recommend the less exciting but no less inventive Storyville Club sessions, particularly the performances of "Over the Rainbow", "You Go To My Head" and "Give a Little Whistle/Lady be Good" (available on a CD titled `Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond' on the Fantasy label). All of the albums I've recommended in this review have an atmosphere of freshness and new discovery which is capable of communicating as eloquently now as it did to its original audiences.

I first received this album [an lp] as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 16. Fort-seven years later I still consider it to be one of the greatet jazz recordings of all time.The music is just incredible. Not to overlook, Joe Dodge's drumming...sensational. This is a must for anyone who loves music.

No wonder Dave played so well. College of the Pacific was where he gained his musical education. It was J. Russell Bodley, his harmony and theory professor, who convinced him that his great talent was more important than his difficulty with these theoretical subjects.

Brubeck and Desmond work their special magic here and produce their finest live recording. This is sophisticated improv to tame the beast. I have listened to these tracks uncountable times and I never get tired of them. This is truely a wistful soundtrack to transport one to a higher realm. Try this the next time you are caught in heavy traffic on a rainy afternoon. You won't mind the delay. It never fails.

Even before its musical experiments with `time' the Brubeck Quartet was already one of the most popular groups in jazz and as an improvising jazz group it was arguably more interesting and more innovative in the early 1950s. It drew a new young audience to jazz by playing concerts at university campuses, and three albums in particular (`Jazz at Pacific College'; `Jazz at Oberlin' and `Jazz Goes to College') show how inspired the quartet's playing in that kind of live setting could be.

The Pacific College album demonstrates Brubeck's individual approach to piano improvisation and his close musical rapport with altoist Paul Desmond. Mainly bypassing the influence of Bud Powell and other `Be-Bop' piano stylists, he combined influences of pre-modern jazz pianists with elements from classical composers. The result was a style which was `mainstream' in some aspects and original in others, a style with a wider emotional range than most jazz pianists encompassed and which lent itself to dramatic effects which made it particularly compelling in live concerts. "All the Things You Are" is a classic example. Desmond opens with an excellent, melodically inventive solo, towards the end of which he hits upon a `baroque' theme. Brubeck in his solo picks up that theme and develops from it a J.S. Bach-style fugal idea which he sustains and builds to a powerful climax. It would have been an interesting treatment of Jerome Kern's theme if it had been worked out in advance but is even more striking for having been improvised on the spot. Although his music has sometimes been scorned as not being `real' jazz, the importance of improvisation has long been an article of faith with Brubeck, and "All the Things You Are" is a good example of the spontaneity and adventurousness of his playing at its best. It also reveals a key quality in both soloists: a gift for sustained melodic invention.

This ability to improvise genuinely tuneful lines was a strength of the quartet's music which Desmond never lost sight of, even if Brubeck in his work in the 1960s occasionally did. It is well in evidence in the ballad, "For All We Know". Here they improvise a sequence of melodic ideas no less memorable than the original tune. Brubeck's solo is more overtly passionate than Desmond's, apparently influenced by the musical language of Romantic pianist-composers such as Chopin and perhaps Rachmaninov. But it's also interesting how Brubeck's melodic lines seem to grow out of and build upon Desmond's so that the whole piece, if it were to be orchestrated, would sound like the invention of one composing mind. Desmond plays with a touching lyrical grace and sense of stillness, his tone remarkably light, sweet and pure but with subtle emotional inflection. It compares interestingly with his superb solo on the 1960s Carnegie Hall concert version of this tune.

The other slow ballad on this CD, "Laura", introduces a further ingredient into the mixture, in that Brubeck adds to the `Romantic' influences some echoes of the `impressionism' of Debussy (for example of "Reflets d'ans l'Eau" - from his piano suite `Images'). One can understand why purist jazz critics might object that this isn't `real' jazz; but in its own terms it's an imaginative piece of music-making, and its attention to beauty of sound and delicate tone-colouring contrasts interestingly with Brubeck's more extrovert, excitable manner. It also shows skill and subtlety in the way it combines within one piece the different approaches to rhythm of `classical' music and jazz.

Those three pieces are my favourites. There are good things on the other tracks, in Brubeck's more `ruminative' style. You could object that he doesn't string his ideas together and `follow through' as effectively as on the three tracks described; but I like the spontaneous and unpredictable way that he moves between different approaches to the tune during the course of a solo. He does some original things with harmony, makes imaginative use of variations of tone and dynamics and even at this early stage shows his fascination with the effects of playing a different time signature (2/4 or 3/4) against the basic 4/4 pulse. Paul Desmond is in consistently good form, seemingly in touch with a stream of fresh invention throughout the session, and that's also true of the companion album `Jazz at Pacific College, Volume 2' (further performances from the same concert) which I also recommend. One aspect of the quartet's music which you might find less than endearing is Desmond's, and to a lesser extent Brubeck's, crowd-pleasing device of occasionally inserting quotations from other tunes into their solos. However, it has never particularly bothered me, maybe partly because of the skill with which the quotations are stitched into the fabric of the solo: for example, on "I Remember You" Desmond quotes the main motif from the tune "Undecided" but devotes about half a chorus to exploring some ingenious variations on it.

I can't guarantee that anyone who comes from an interest in the quartet's "greatest hits" ("Take Five", "Unsquare Dance", etc.) will find this music, as I do, superior to `Time Out' and its sequels (Being an early `fifties live concert album in mono, it certainly doesn't have their quality of recorded sound). But there is a lot of interesting, enjoyable music preserved here of a kind which you won't find anywhere else and which for me has not dated since I first heard it nearly 40 years ago. If you do like it you should also like the even more exciting `Jazz at Oberlin'. I would also recommend the less exciting but no less inventive Storyville Club sessions, particularly the performances of "Over the Rainbow", "You Go To My Head" and "Give a Little Whistle/Lady be Good" (available on a CD titled `Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond' on the Fantasy label). All of the albums I've recommended in this review have an atmosphere of freshness and new discovery which is capable of communicating as eloquently now as it did to its original audiences.

I first received this album [an lp] as a Christmas gift from my parents when I was 16. Fort-seven years later I still consider it to be one of the greatet jazz recordings of all time.The music is just incredible. Not to overlook, Joe Dodge's drumming...sensational. This is a must for anyone who loves music.

No wonder Dave played so well. College of the Pacific was where he gained his musical education. It was J. Russell Bodley, his harmony and theory professor, who convinced him that his great talent was more important than his difficulty with these theoretical subjects.

Brubeck and Desmond work their special magic here and produce their finest live recording. This is sophisticated improv to tame the beast. I have listened to these tracks uncountable times and I never get tired of them. This is truely a wistful soundtrack to transport one to a higher realm. Try this the next time you are caught in heavy traffic on a rainy afternoon. You won't mind the delay. It never fails.

Even before its musical experiments with `time' the Brubeck Quartet was already one of the most popular groups in jazz and as an improvising jazz group it was arguably more interesting and more innovative in the early 1950s. It drew a new young audience to jazz by playing concerts at university campuses, and three albums in particular (`Jazz at Pacific College'; `Jazz at Oberlin' and `Jazz Goes to College') show how inspired the quartet's playing in that kind of live setting could be.

The Pacific College album demonstrates Brubeck's individual approach to piano improvisation and his close musical rapport with altoist Paul Desmond. Mainly bypassing the influence of Bud Powell and other `Be-Bop' piano stylists, he combined influences of pre-modern jazz pianists with elements from classical composers. The result was a style which was `mainstream' in some aspects and original in others, a style with a wider emotional range than most jazz pianists encompassed and which lent itself to dramatic effects which made it particularly compelling in live concerts. "All the Things You Are" is a classic example. Desmond opens with an excellent, melodically inventive solo, towards the end of which he hits upon a `baroque' theme. Brubeck in his solo picks up that theme and develops from it a J.S. Bach-style fugal idea which he sustains and builds to a powerful climax. It would have been an interesting treatment of Jerome Kern's theme if it had been worked out in advance but is even more striking for having been improvised on the spot. Although his music has sometimes been scorned as not being `real' jazz, the importance of improvisation has long been an article of faith with Brubeck, and "All the Things You Are" is a good example of the spontaneity and adventurousness of his playing at its best. It also reveals a key quality in both soloists: a gift for sustained melodic invention.

This ability to improvise genuinely tuneful lines was a strength of the quartet's music which Desmond never lost sight of, even if Brubeck in his work in the 1960s occasionally did. It is well in evidence in the ballad, "For All We Know". Here they improvise a sequence of melodic ideas no less memorable than the original tune. Brubeck's solo is more overtly passionate than Desmond's, apparently influenced by the musical language of Romantic pianist-composers such as Chopin and perhaps Rachmaninov. But it's also interesting how Brubeck's melodic lines seem to grow out of and build upon Desmond's so that the whole piece, if it were to be orchestrated, would sound like the invention of one composing mind. Desmond plays with a touching lyrical grace and sense of stillness, his tone remarkably light, sweet and pure but with subtle emotional inflection. It compares interestingly with his superb solo on the 1960s Carnegie Hall concert version of this tune.

The other slow ballad on this CD, "Laura", introduces a further ingredient into the mixture, in that Brubeck adds to the `Romantic' influences some echoes of the `impressionism' of Debussy (for example of "Reflets d'ans l'Eau" - from his piano suite `Images'). One can understand why purist jazz critics might object that this isn't `real' jazz; but in its own terms it's an imaginative piece of music-making, and its attention to beauty of sound and delicate tone-colouring contrasts interestingly with Brubeck's more extrovert, excitable manner. It also shows skill and subtlety in the way it combines within one piece the different approaches to rhythm of `classical' music and jazz.

Those three pieces are my favourites. There are good things on the other tracks, in Brubeck's more `ruminative' style. You could object that he doesn't string his ideas together and `follow through' as effectively as on the three tracks described; but I like the spontaneous and unpredictable way that he moves between different approaches to the tune during the course of a solo. He does some original things with harmony, makes imaginative use of variations of tone and dynamics and even at this early stage shows his fascination with the effects of playing a different time signature (2/4 or 3/4) against the basic 4/4 pulse. Paul Desmond is in consistently good form, seemingly in touch with a stream of fresh invention throughout the session, and that's also true of the companion album `Jazz at Pacific College, Volume 2' (further performances from the same concert) which I also recommend. One aspect of the quartet's music which you might find less than endearing is Desmond's, and to a lesser extent Brubeck's, crowd-pleasing device of occasionally inserting quotations from other tunes into their solos. However, it has never particularly bothered me, maybe partly because of the skill with which the quotations are stitched into the fabric of the solo: for example, on "I Remember You" Desmond quotes the main motif from the tune "Undecided" but devotes about half a chorus to exploring some ingenious variations on it.

I can't guarantee that anyone who comes from an interest in the quartet's "greatest hits" ("Take Five", "Unsquare Dance", etc.) will find this music, as I do, superior to `Time Out' and its sequels (Being an early `fifties live concert album in mono, it certainly doesn't have their quality of recorded sound). But there is a lot of interesting, enjoyable music preserved here of a kind which you won't find anywhere else and which for me has not dated since I first heard it nearly 40 years ago. If you do like it you should also like the even more exciting `Jazz at Oberlin'. I would also recommend the less exciting but no less inventive Storyville Club sessions, particularly the performances of "Over the Rainbow", "You Go To My Head" and "Give a Little Whistle/Lady be Good" (available on a CD titled `Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond' on the Fantasy label). All of the albums I've recommended in this review have an atmosphere of freshness and new discovery which is capable of communicating as eloquently now as it did to its original audiences.

Apparently chosen as the "lesser" half of the original "Jazz at the College of the Pacific" on the Fantasy label, these newly released tracks of the "original" DBQ are a treasure to Brubeck collectors. Are they better than the original release, now Volume 1? I think so. Desmond shines with his silky smooth tonal work, and Brubeck complements him with piano work both original and typical of his unique style.

I don't have volume 1, but I dont't think I'll live without it for a long while anyway. This music is so great - there is more to it than meets the ear, considering that Brubeck and Desmond play themes of songs like "my heart belongs to daddy", "ding dong the witch is dead", "serenade in blue", all at unexpected places, but all sounding natural in the music's developments. Even some ideas from later Brubeck compositions are featured (I distinguished something from his Real Ambassadors, but maybe I'm too enthusiastic).
What do they mean, that this is an "all-standard" repertoire? There is as much genuine Brubeck here as on his albums with only originals (the "Time out/in/further out etc. recordings).

Noteworthy is that the bonus track (track 8) is Brubeck very first recording, from 1942. It lasts only 94 seconds and the sound quality is meagre, but still, for any fan, it is very nice to have, since it's available on no other Brubeck disc, as far as I'm aware of anyway.

I can't believe Brubeck's record company thought these tracks weren't worthy of release. As good as Volume One is (and it is great), this postively cooks until the lid blows off. You practically can "see" the excitment of the audience and the band feeding off each other. Brubeck and company are just over-flowing with joy and it comes out in their playing.

The recording quality is exceptional for its age. Both Brubeck and Desmond can be heard loud and clear. My only complaint is the dynamics of the drums sounds a little compressed to me and the bass is inaudible in places. But again given that these tapes were almost fifty years old I am more than grateful for what we have.

It was a mistake to keep these tapes unreleased and lost in a vault. If you have any doubts about why Brubeck created the excitment and acclaim he did in the face of the rise of rock and roll, give this CD a spin. Brubeck is proof that "real jazz" doesn't have to be dreary to touch real emotions.

After finally purchasing a video of my favorite jazz group I was satisfied...and yet disappointed. The group performed as well as ever but the quality of sound was so bad...but then it was forty years ago!!! Both Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond play interesting solos - Paul especially is excellent on Take Five and Dave gets in to some typical time changes in Its A Raggy Waltz. Didn't care at all for Ralph Gleason and was pleased he didn't waste any more interviewing. Poor Dave Brubeck seemed strained, or nervous, as he introduced the various pieces by the group. But I would pay the money again to watch the group that has given so many hours of pleasure over the past five decades.

I am a HUGE DBQ fan. I have been to dozens of concerts, own everything they've published, even studied with Joe Morello. The only reason you would want to buy this curious DVD is to see what they looked like in black and white in 1962 ... and remind yourself how lousy TV production was in those days. This cheesy production used 2 cameras (4 is more typical today) on clumsy pedestals that got pushed....no, bullied... around the floor as they go from Desmond to Brubeck. (Paul has to get out of the way on one such "smooth" move.)

Much of the coverage is a 3-shot, leaving out Morello, frustrating anyone who wants to see that genius. There are a few mikes around the studio and they are often "opened" late, causing some of Desmond's work to be heard only from a distant mike by Dave's piano. Blue Rondo is cut off about a minute in so the host can say goodbye. A very rough cut brings us back to the group, only to fade out for good after the 9/8 intro settles in to the 4/4 heart of the song. Dave's playing is brilliant and we see it for all of its glory. But he spends far too much time TALKING instead of playing.

Joe provides a couple of good (frankly, not great -- no cross sticking, high hat or up close work that would later define his genius) 5/4 solos on Take 5 and Castilian Blues. He uses two cymbals on stands... hadn't quite evolved to his classic set with a 20" bass-mounted ride, 18 and 16" crashes. He's on a lousy riser and his set jiggles like Jell-o the whole show.

So if you want to hear great playing, this ain't it. Want to take a bumpy ride down memory lane for about 25 min? Then that's what you're getting. Nothing more.

I'm not usually a jazz fan but this is a major exception. The musicianship is fantastic, and the tunes very compelling. I enjoyed Dave Brubeck's descriptions of the unusual time signatures. The sound quality is quite good, except for the bass which isn't loud enough. The highlights of the set for me are the 2 incredible drum solos by master drummer Joe Morello; they alone are worth the price of the video. Crank up the volume and Enjoy!

This edition of Jazz Casual is one of my three favorite, the others being Coltrane and Dizzy. Although Brubeck achieved some measure of popularity with the hit, "Take Five" in the 60's, his innovation and creativity never faltered.
I first saw this video at a friend's house, and I found myself either staring open mouthed or laughing uncontrollably at the sheer MADNESS of Dave's playing, not to mention Desmonds. "Time Out" became not only a song, but a concept. Brubeck uses time signature like no one ever has, playing different time signatures than his rhythm section, and even playing different time signatures with his left hand than he does with his right. It's pure brilliance. This video is totally worth the money.