Jazz Articles about Paul Desmond

About Paul Desmond

Album Review

The Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes

Read "Time OutTakes" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
December 2, 2020

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 ...

Album Review

Dave Brubeck Quartet: Time OutTakes

Read "Time OutTakes" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
November 23, 2020

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 ...

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Mix Tape

Desmond After Dark (With the Dave Brubeck Quartet)

by Michael Ricci
December 15, 2011

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 ...

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Forgotten Finds

Great Sidemen - Great Leaders

by Greg Simmons
April 7, 2011

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 ...

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Album Review

Jim Hall: Concierto

Read "Concierto" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 3, 2011

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 ...

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Album Review

Paul Desmond: Pure Desmond

Read "Pure Desmond" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
February 2, 2011

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 ...

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Book Excerpts

Paul Desmond: Take Ten

by Doug Ramsey
December 3, 2008

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 ...