Jazz Articles about Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck: Jazz Legend

by AAJ Staff
May 9, 2003

Dave Brubeck has been playing jazz for almost seven decades. The Concord, California-born pianist who grew up on a cattle farm in Ione and managed to graduate from the College of Pacific music program without knowing how to read music. But he also studied with famed classical composer Darius Milhaud and recorded the first million-selling instrumental album in musical history in 1959 ' five years after he became the first jazz musician ever featured on the cover of Time magazine. ...

Dave Brubeck: The Essential Dave Brubeck

by Jim Santella
May 1, 2003

Dave Brubeck represents a generation of hard-working adults who followed World War II with ambition and success. At a time when retraining and advanced schooling helped millions to launch new careers, the pianist was adjusting to a new form of jazz. As the Modern Jazz Quartet formed its own distinctive air, Brubeck was coupling classical sounds with his interpretation of the bebop surprise. The late fifties and early sixties proved most fruitful for his vision. From that period come timeless ...

Dave Brubeck: Love Songs

by AAJ Staff
January 22, 2003

For over 50 years, Dave Brubeck has been sitting quietly behind the keys making some of the biggest sounds in jazz. He’s worked with Davis and Evans and played the music of Porter, Gillespie and even Disney. However, much if not most of his best work was with his trusted quartet, backed by the rhythms of drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright and balanced by the signature sax lines of Paul Desmond.

On this new collection, some of Brubeck’s ...

Dave Brubeck: Jazz at the College of the Pacific, Vol. 2

by David Rickert
December 3, 2002

Before he took a predilection with odd time signatures to the bank, Dave Brubeck worked the college circuit, playing to packed audiences at places such as The College of the Pacific. Even at this early stage Brubeck showed a fascination with rhythmic invention which, when coupled with Paul Desmond’s feathery alto, produced an entirely listenable sound. Brubeck had not yet gained confidence as a composer, and thus the entire program consists of standards. However, Brubeck and company were always more ...

Dave Brubeck Quartet: The Crossing

by Dave Nathan
November 1, 2001

Dave Brubeck's newest album is titled The Crossing. Whether there is some deep allegorical meaning here is unclear. God knows, at this stage of this man's career he needs neither metaphors nor affirmation. Having performed in each of the last seven decades, Brubeck has passed the greatest and sternest test of all, time. He's here with still another quartet from which he gets the most pleasing, mellifluous stream of musical outpouring. Often criticized and diminished by elitist critics and jealous ...

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz Impressions of Japan

by Wayne Zade
September 1, 2001

Like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and their groups, Dave Brubeck and his first great quartet were among the first jazz musicians after World War II to travel diplomatically in the service of peace throughout the world. Armstrong released Ambassador Satch in 1955, and Brubeck released The Real Ambassadors, with Armstrong, Carmen McRae, and others, seven years later—helping, maybe, to thaw the Cold War.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Jazz: Red Hot And Cool

by Jim Santella
June 1, 2001

The “red hot" in the title comes from this album's cover photograph. A lovely model with bright red attire worked with Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond to provide the visual nightclub perspective. The “cool," of course, comes from the quartet's music. Recorded at Basin Street in New York at three dates in 1954 and '55, The Dave Brubeck Quartet works through several programs that offered happy-go-lucky fare. It's the kind that had already led Brubeck and Desmond to success. This ...