Dave Brubeck Time

Dave Brubeck (piano) began his Columbia Records association on a second album of material that his quartet had cut during its spring of 1954 tour of North American college campuses, Paul and Dave's Jazz Interwoven (1954) being the first. Joining Brubeck are Paul Desmond (alto sax), Bob Bates (bass), and Joe Dodge (drums), whose support of Brubeck is uniformly flawless, ultimately producing what many consider as the most memorable music in the artist's cannon. "Balcony Rock" commences the platter from sides documented at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The heavily improvised tune is formed on an eight-bar blues as Desmond steers the combo via his inspired and lyrical leads. ~ AllMusic

More than any other improvising artist during the past 45 years,the pianist/composer/bandleader Dave Brubeck (b. 1920) has expanded the rhythmic boundaries of Jazz, while creating a body of work that is notable for its consistent levels of melodic content and harmonic invention. Recorded between 1959 and 1965, this five-disc set captures the Brubeck quartet, featuring the floating alto saxophone of Paul Desmond (composer of the million-selling "Take Five"), at the peak of their powers.

This 11-track collection of Dave Brubeck's tunes from his days on the Columbia label is about as solid top-to-bottom as one could ask for. There's absolutely no filler, no second-rate material, and contains all of – all of – the finest work Brubeck did in the late '50s and early '60s…

Dave Brubeck (piano) began his Columbia Records association on a second album of material that his quartet had cut during its spring of 1954 tour of North American college campuses, Paul and Dave's Jazz Interwoven (1954) being the first. Joining Brubeck are Paul Desmond (alto sax), Bob Bates (bass), and Joe Dodge (drums), whose support of Brubeck is uniformly flawless, ultimately producing what many consider as the most memorable music in the artist's cannon. "Balcony Rock" commences the platter from sides documented at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor…

While greatest-hits albums from jazz artists are sometimes dubious propositions, Dave Brubeck is the rare exception to the rule. Brubeck concentrated on the song as much as the performance, which is one of the reasons why he appealed to such a wide audience and it's also the reason why Greatest Hits is such an entertaining and effective sampler. Featuring such familiar items as "Take Five," "In Your Own Sweet Way," "The Duke," "Trolley Song," "Unsquare Dance," and "Blue Rondo à la Turk," the collection provides a fine introduction to Brubeck's collegiate jazz for the uninitiated.

Drummer Joe Dodge left the Dave Brubeck quartet in 1956 to spend more time with his wife and children. He was replaced by Joe Morello. Bassist Norman Bates also left the group the following year for the comforts of home and family. Brubeck chose Eugene Wright to take his place on bass. With Morello and Wright in the fold, the "Classic Quartet" was born. Although Brubeck and Desmond played with several musicians over the years, this group of Brubeck, Desmond, Wright and Morello would become the most famous of Brubeck's bands. The US State Department hired them for this "goodwill" tour of Europe including dates in England, Scotland, Germany, Denmark,Belgium, Holland, Turkey, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. This long unavailable concert appears here in its entirety for the first time ever - including two previously unissued tracks 'The Duke' and 'One Moment Worth Years'.

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, and with his emphasis on unusual time signatures and adventurous tonalities, Brubeck showed that ambitious and challenging music could still be accessible. And as rock & roll began to dominate the landscape of popular music at the dawn of the '60s, Brubeck enjoyed some of his greatest commercial and critical success, expanding the audience for jazz and making it hip with young adults and college students.