Counterpoint (1967)

Agricola was already considered one of the 'old masters' soon after his death in 1506. His works were approached with veneration and, already in the early 16th century, regarded as examples of good and demanding counterpoint. As a member of the first generation of genuinely instrumental composers, he wrote not only the masses, motets and chansons that were customary during this period, but also a large number of works without text that were obviously created for instruments by virtue of their construction. As a result, his musical rhetoric went considerably farther than his otherwise congenial colleagues Josquin Desprez and Heinrich Isaac, and he composed instru¬mental works that were far ahead of his time.

The title of this two-CD compilation of the earliest commercial Dave Brubeck recordings does in fact document some of the early concepts that Brubeck was employing as a young artist in search of his own voice. The well-annotated information included by producer Joop Visser, using much of Ted Gioia’s West Coast Jazz as a reference, follows the progress of Brubeck’s artistic development, as indicated by the chronological recordings. And the liner notes include some little-known information, such as the poor prognosis, and possible paralysis, for Brubeck after a swimming accident in 1951, leading indirectly to the addition of Paul Desmond (then named "Paul Breitenfeld") to the group - which remained intact, becoming one of the legendary quartets in jazzdom, until 1967…