Dave Brubeck In His Own

For all those who have a big axe to grind with Brubeck, for all those who claim the band was only successful because they were predominantly white, or played pop-jazz, or catered to the exotica craze, or any of that, you are invited to have all of your preconceptions, tepid arguments, and false impressions hopelessly torn to shreds by one of the great live jazz albums of the 1960s…

Recorded late at night in his Oakland, California, home, it was Brubeck's first full solo-piano recording and also his first all-original record, and it illustrates his marvelously elegant fusion of classical and cocktail conceptions. Brubeck understands blues and swing, but he uses these elements as tools for effect, not as default settings. Brubeck instead offers a fuller palette of emotions and ideas - playful, sober, stern, happy, pensive, cerebral. While "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke" have become standards, the album includes obscure gems such as the minisuite "Two-Part Contention," with its many tempo, mood, and stylistic turns, and the discreetly swinging "Walkin' Line," although he lapses into melodrama with "Weep No More"…

This is a rather unique release by Dave Brubeck because it features the veteran pianist/composer with four of his sons, saxophonist Bobby Militello, and bassist Alec Dankworth, along with the London Symphony Orchestra in a concert played not long after his 80th birthday in December 2000. Unlike many jazz meets symphony affairs, this is a truly integrated effort that succeeds very well. Brubeck arranged "Chorale" (a powerful classical work primarily featuring the strings); Darius Brubeck, who is also featured on piano, contributed the arrangements for both "Summer Music" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk," demonstrating considerable skill in his writing for strings, as well as an original dedicated to his father, the tense and occasionally rockish "Four Score in Seven"…

This four-CD boxed set does a near-perfect job of summing up Dave Brubeck's extensive recorded legacy. Drawing its recordings from not only Columbia but Fantasy, Atlantic and Music Masters, the attractive package also includes an extensive booklet written by Doug Ramsey that can serve as a mini-biography.

David Warren Brubeck was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. Many of his compositions have become jazz standards including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke". Brubeck's style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting both his mother's classical training and his own improvisational skills. His music is known for employing unusual time signatures as well as superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities.

In 1961, Dave Brubeck put together a remarkable musical show. Using the talents of Louis Armstrong and his All-Stars, Carmen McRae, the innovative bop vocal group Lambert, Hendricks And Ross, and his own rhythm section, Brubeck and his wife, lyricist Iola, wrote a largely upbeat play full of anti-racism songs and tunes that celebrated human understanding. Although it had only one live performance (at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival), The Real Ambassadors was recorded for posterity and now, with its reissue on CD, the original 15 selections have been augmented by five more…

A generation ago Brubeck was largely dismissed as an unswinging pianist with a vulgar preoccupation with odd time-signatures. Now he is a senatorial figure whose work is celebrated as much as it used to be reviled. On this evidence the contemporary view is fair. Brubeck could be heavy-handed, and some of his 1960s work was undoubtedly pretentious; on the other hand, he had considerable harmonic imagination, constantly surprised with his delicate melodiousness, and could generate prodigious swing. Moreover, in Paul Desmond he enjoyed the services of a top-class alto saxophonist who was also a deeply sympathetic spirit. Here they are joined on all but one of the 15 tracks by Brubeck's finest rhythm section, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello, and the programme, in addition to memorialising old favourites, includes Brubeck's excellent compositions "The Duke", "Mr. Broadway" and "In Your Own Sweet Way"…