While in town for the Basin Street gig, the Brubeck quartet slipped into the studio and knocked out the bulk of this affable album. Not an essential acquisition, but anyone with a passing interest in Desmond will enjoy most of the tracks. (Some cymbals have “wash” this one is a rainstorm.) The two bonus tracks on the 2001 CD issue don’t add much, and “Closing Time Blues” disrupts the sensitivity that Brubeck had cultivated in his playing during the main program. The recorded mono sound is intimate in a 1954 kind of way, the only fault being the hiss that on one occasion resonates from one of Dodge’s cymbals. “Indiana” stands out as an example of cool-bop at its best, and Brubeck’s original “The Duke” makes a brief appearance. He tempers the clever-clever moments with dashes of lyricism and real blues. Brubeck hints at future experiments with rhythmic counterpoint and the occasional classical tidbit, but for the most part, a lot of his playing is fairly soft, which should surprise those who think of him as a brick-fingered, china shop bull. He creates more sequences than usual, even getting into some question/answer exchanges with himself. Desmond thrives on the steady grooves and his solos are consistently inviting. After that comes a selection of standard material. “Lover” is the most interesting track Brubeck and bassist Bob Bates play one pulse, drummer Joe Dodge states another, and Desmond ultimately sides with the drums to deliver a double-timed gem. Brubeck and altoist Paul Desmond had produced a few live titles already, and this one captures quartet appearances at Basin Street in NYC. Here’s a fraction of his vast catalog:Įrring on the side of Cool. Now, I’m not trying to equate Brubeck and Monk, but if the latter did some great work in relative isolation, why can’t we say the former did as well? Monk did his own thing, and he surrounded himself with people who could help him do it. Yet he was as inflexible (and probably much more so) than anyone you could name.
And Monk is the consummate classic jazz artist in my mind. To get back to the point, I sometimes wonder why Brubeck wasn’t a part of that game, maybe that’s what folks hold against him, but hey, Thelonious Monk wasn’t either. He called his own shots and did not, for money or art, need to be a versatile sideman. Regardless, he had his own working bands and creative say within his recording contracts. Was it because he was unwelcome, or incapable? Maybe, I don’t know. You wouldn’t expect to find his name on any Blue Note jam sessions or whatever.
One reasonable objection is that he wasn’t part of jazz’s general incest. If he took it to college and Carnegie, is that not a good thing? Inasmuch as “Vive le difference” is the credo of any open-minded listener, Brubeck was and is unassailable as a dedicated jazz force. He did these things in his own way - his solos incorporate everything from blues licks to bizarro chord clusters to bar line tricks his writing is as internally clever as it is outwardly appealing. The truth is that he swung and he was a distinguished improviser and writer. He studied composition with Milhaud, but his practical piano know-how came on jazz jobs. The pianist has always been somewhat suspect when it comes to the critical game of guessing who’s a trueblood jazzer and who’s a lightweight, mainly because he’s white, popular, and associated with “cool jazz.” Not to mention that he occasionally drops in classical allusions and doesn’t swing his single lines in the Bud Powell manner.įor the record, Brubeck never had any classical piano training. It’s incumbent upon Brubeck fans to occasionally defend their position.
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