By Charles J. Gans
Dave Brubeck turned back the clock at a JVC Jazz Festival concert, belatedly celebrating his 85th birthday with the N.Y. debut of his big band.
Years before the pianist formed his legendary quartet with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond in 1951, Brubeck began his musical career as a teenager playing in big bands in dance halls in Sierra Nevada towns near the northern California cattle ranch where he grew up.
At Wednesday night's concert at Carnegie Hall, Brubeck recalled the music of his youth from the Swing Era with his composition “The Basie Band Is Back in Town," in which he played some stride piano and his big band incorporated some characteristic Count Basie riffs. For an encore, the Brubeck big band played the Duke Ellington Orchestra's theme, “Take the A Train."
The highlight of the big-band segment of the program was a rare live performance of “Elementals," a composition Brubeck wrote in 1963 for orchestra and jazz quartet that interweaves fundamental elements of Western music: Gregorian chants, a Bach chorale, a Viennese waltz, jazz swing, polyrhythms, and 12 tone. Last fall, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company premiered a ballet in New York, “Elemental Brubeck," choreographed to music from “Elementals."
The big band which incorporated Brubeck's quartet at its core added a whole rich palette of orchestral colors from the trumpet, trombone and sax sections to two famed odd-metered tunes from his groundbreaking 1959 “Time Out" album: “Blue Rondo a la Turk," based on the 9/8 rhythms the pianist heard Turkish street musicians play in Istanbul during a State Department tour, and Desmond's “Take Five" with its compelling 5/4 rhythm.
Comedian Bill Cosby, an avid jazz fan who plays the drums, hosted the concert and recalled the first time he shared a bill with Brubeck back in the early 1960s at the Concord Pavilion in northern California. Cosby urged the audience to savor the moment because we can't act “as though our geniuses will always be alongside us."
Continue...
Dave Brubeck turned back the clock at a JVC Jazz Festival concert, belatedly celebrating his 85th birthday with the N.Y. debut of his big band.
Years before the pianist formed his legendary quartet with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond in 1951, Brubeck began his musical career as a teenager playing in big bands in dance halls in Sierra Nevada towns near the northern California cattle ranch where he grew up.
At Wednesday night's concert at Carnegie Hall, Brubeck recalled the music of his youth from the Swing Era with his composition “The Basie Band Is Back in Town," in which he played some stride piano and his big band incorporated some characteristic Count Basie riffs. For an encore, the Brubeck big band played the Duke Ellington Orchestra's theme, “Take the A Train."
The highlight of the big-band segment of the program was a rare live performance of “Elementals," a composition Brubeck wrote in 1963 for orchestra and jazz quartet that interweaves fundamental elements of Western music: Gregorian chants, a Bach chorale, a Viennese waltz, jazz swing, polyrhythms, and 12 tone. Last fall, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company premiered a ballet in New York, “Elemental Brubeck," choreographed to music from “Elementals."
The big band which incorporated Brubeck's quartet at its core added a whole rich palette of orchestral colors from the trumpet, trombone and sax sections to two famed odd-metered tunes from his groundbreaking 1959 “Time Out" album: “Blue Rondo a la Turk," based on the 9/8 rhythms the pianist heard Turkish street musicians play in Istanbul during a State Department tour, and Desmond's “Take Five" with its compelling 5/4 rhythm.
Comedian Bill Cosby, an avid jazz fan who plays the drums, hosted the concert and recalled the first time he shared a bill with Brubeck back in the early 1960s at the Concord Pavilion in northern California. Cosby urged the audience to savor the moment because we can't act “as though our geniuses will always be alongside us."
Continue...
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