Jazz Articles about Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck at the Chicago Jazz Festival August 31, 2001

by Ken Dryden
April 29, 2005

Over the past half century, the Dave Brubeck Quartet has undoubtedly been featured on numerous broadcasts on several continents, few of which have ever been issued by legitimate record labels. But this Labor Day weekend set from the 2001 Chicago Jazz Festival is rather special, as it not only includes his current quartet but also revisits some of the arrangements he wrote for his octet of the late 1940s.

Brubeck kicks off the festival with a favorite opener, ...

Dave Brubeck & Marian McPartland Joy

by AAJ Staff
March 20, 2005

Two octogenarian, piano-playing jazz legends, Dave Brubeck and Marian McPartland, brought jazz Joy to the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia March 16.

MARIAN MCPARTLAND'S TRIO performance follows the release of the two-CD 85 Candles: Live in New York celebrating her 85th birthday at Birdland. The only problem with the title at this time is that as Ms McPartland explained to me, laughing, was that she is really going to be 87 years old on March 20. She is internationally known for ...

Dave Brubeck: For All Time

by George Harris
March 4, 2005

Time has been kind to Dave Brubeck. Still active, touring and prodigiously writing new material, he has never looked back and rested on his laurels. For those who missed what the fuss was about the first time around, this five-CD box set is a great place to start. This is a band that was breaking barriers all around. It was one of the few integrated touring bands. It featured one of the few alto saxophonists not influenced by Charlie Parker. ...

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz at the College of the Pacific

by David Rickert
December 1, 2004

Before he hit it big with Time Out, Dave Brubeck found a niche market with the college crowd. The tweed coat and horn-rimmed glasses set were eager to soak in all that he had to offer, and Brubeck can take part of the credit for turning jazz into a more academic pursuit than it was previously held to be.

His earliest recordings, such as this one from 1953, were mostly standards recorded in various live venues at colleges around the ...

Dave Brubeck: Private Brubeck Remembers

by Tod Smith
May 22, 2004

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Telarc International's release of Private Brubeck Remembers is the timing. From a historical standpoint, the 60th anniversary of D-Day--the Allied Invasion of Normandy Beach in France--coincides closely with the scheduled May 25th release date of this introspective and beautiful interpretation of songs from that historic period in world history. But from a contemporary view, as our nation finds itself in the midst of another war, loved ones again are faced with the heavy burden ...

For All Time

by Joshua Weiner
February 25, 2004

Popularity is double-edged, and perhaps no jazz artist exemplifies this better than Dave Brubeck. The unparalleled success of his classic quartets with Paul Desmond, which expanded the market for jazz into colleges and the homes of suburbia, often obscured his very real musical innovations. The ever-increasing professional sheen of Brubeck's '60s albums for Columbia, his interest in writing for orchestras, the quartet's base in traditional swing rather than bop, and their largely white, middle-class fan base have all led some ...

Dave Brubeck: For All Time

by Jim Santella
October 19, 2003

The Dave Brubeck Quartet of the early 1960s created the five albums reissued here with a cool head and a steady hand. The foursome gave its audience something to think about, something to enjoy, and something to remember.

Along with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Brubeck's group brought a special quality to the jazz forum that contained a variety of echoes from the classical music arena. The clarity of Paul Desmond’s dry alto, the walking foundation of Senator ...