Dave Brubeck In His Own

To celebrate his 75th birthday, Dave Brubeck recorded one number apiece with quite a variety of top jazz stars, both young and old. Some of the performances (which alternate duets with quartets) work better than others (eight are recent Brubeck compositions) but all of the musicians display mutual respect, and it is obvious that the guests are all fans of the still-masterful pianist. Trumpeter Roy Hargrove plays beautifully on his lyrical feature but Jon Hendricks, who sings "How High the Moon" as a ballad, takes it at such a slow tempo as to be dreary. Tenor-saxophonist Michael Brecker is fine on "Michael Brecker Waltz," although he sounds a bit restrained, the wittily-titled "Here Comes McBride" is a good-humored romp with bassist Christian McBride…

Hopefully, the reappearance of this revelatory 1956 record will force many critics and musicians to reconsider Brubeck's stature in the world of jazz piano. 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." Still, on "The Duke" (originally titled "The Duke Meets Darius Milhaud"), it's fascinating to hear how easily and smoothly he fits all 12 scale notes into his opening bass figure. As he himself points out in the brilliant original notes , the marriage of European music and American music dates back to New Orleans jazzmen such as King Oliver. And to dismiss any notions of intellectualism in jazz would be a great insult to everyone from Oliver to Charlie Parker to John Lewis to Bill Evans to Sun Ra. This is the jazz of Brubeck's own experience, and while it may sound too poised and polished for some tastes, it is honestly his and must be viewed as such.

Marc Greilsamer, Amazon.com

This set of classic Dave Brubeck is a must get if you are a fan of the cool jazz period of 1958 to the mid 1960s. Albums such as Time Out are featured on these CDs largely including many great Live songs and the all time classic Unsquare Dance, must be one of the catchiest songs ever produced. There are also some beautiful romantic jazz ballads such as Georgia On My Mind and Blue Shadows In The Night.
In the 1950s and '60s, few American jazz artists were as influential, and fewer still were as popular, as Dave Brubeck. At a time when the cooler sounds of West Coast jazz began to dominate the public face of the music, Brubeck proved there was an audience for the style far beyond the confines of the in-crowd…

This is part of the Columbia/Legacy Ken Burns JAZZ series.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Bossa Nova U.S.A. (1962) {Essential Jazz Classics EJC55578 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 426 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 185 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 30 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1962, 2013 Columbia / Essential Jazz Classics | EJC55578
Jazz / Cool / West Coast Jazz / Bossa Nova Jazz / Piano

With the popularization of bossa nova in the early '60s, practically every recording artist had to have at least one bossa nova album. This effort by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is better than most due to the high quality of the compositions, of which the title cut is best-known. The date's two standards ("This Can't Be Love" and "Trolley Song") also fare well on this upbeat session.

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"…