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The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes
by Mike Jurkovic
When, for the first and the millionth time Paul McCartney is queried by lazy savants and crazed fans about what he would have cut from epic double White Album (Apple, 1968) to make it the strongest of the strongest single disc ever, the cutely weathered one just replies “It's the Beatles' bleedin' White Album, man" and the discussion, at least for that moment, is done. The fans and essayists will go on and on and on while he pursues other ...
Continue ReadingDave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes
by Chris May
Few albums in jazz history are as giant as the Dave Brubeck Quartet's Time Out (Columbia, 1959). Deftly balancing experimentation with accessibility and containing amongst its many pleasures one of the most thrilling drum solos ever recorded, Time Out has become so familiar to us that the magnitude of its greatness has become near inaudible. So an album of previously unheard out-takes is an event. Even if all the tracks turned out to be dogs, the disc ...
Continue ReadingDesmond After Dark (With the Dave Brubeck Quartet)
by Michael Ricci
Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond's solos kept me connected to the Dave Brubeck Quartet's music. A perfect “dry martini" mix of boundless lyricism and musical excellence. The following tunes were selected from several albums included in the The Dave Brubeck Quartet: The Complete Columbia Studio Albums Collection 1954 to 1967 box set. TrackNameTimeArtistAlbum1The Night We Called it a Day6:11Dave BrubeckAngel Eyes2Take Five5:27The Dave Brubeck QuartetTime Out3Georgia On My Mind6:42The Dave Brubeck QuartetGone With The Wind4Angel Eyes7:27Dave BrubeckAngel Eyes5Coracao ...
Continue ReadingGreat Sidemen - Great Leaders
by Greg Simmons
Being a sideman can be a thankless job. Sure, you might get to play regularly, but you rarely get to call the tune. If your boss is a big star, the gig might even pay pretty well, but if the band is going to Fargo, North Dakota in January, brother, so are you, and you weren't even consulted on travel arrangements.Of course, most jazz musicians--including the ones now thought of as great leaders--have to start out as sidemen ...
Continue ReadingJim Hall: Concierto
by John Kelman
Amongst the many CTI classics of the 1970s, few stand the test of time as well as guitarist Jim Hall's Concierto, an ambitious album that, in its original form, married one side of modern mainstream with a second taken up by a 19-minute version of Joaquin Rodrigo's 1939 piece for classical guitar and orchestra, “Concierto de Aranjuez." That Miles Davis and Gil Evans had already delivered what was considered the definitive jazz adaptation on the trumpeter's 1960 classic, Sketches of ...
Continue ReadingPaul Desmond: Pure Desmond
by John Kelman
With a dry tone, and unhurried phrasing definitive of the emergent West Coast Cool--a relaxed alternative to the edgier hard bop coming from New York--alto saxophonist Paul Desmond had already made a name for himself with pianist Dave Brubeck's quartet on the legendary Time Out (Columbia, 1959). Desmond also wrote the tune that became Brubeck's signature, “Take Five," and, while he passed away too young at the age of 52 from lung cancer, he's left behind a relatively small but ...
Continue ReadingPaul Desmond: Take Ten
by Doug Ramsey
This article appears in Chapter 28 of Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond by Doug Ramsey (Parkside Publications, 2005). When Desmond had time off from the Brubeck group, he was likely to be recording under his own name. Beginning with the first Desmond Blue session, he and Jim Hall were in RCA's famous studio A (shades of Toscanini, Horowitz and Heifitz) or studio B nineteen times from 1961 to 1965 for recording sessions ...
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