Dave Brubeck - "A life in time."

[Ian Thumwood]

The Sunday Telegraph had a glowing review of the new biography of Dave Brubeck "A life in time" by Philip Clark. The publicity also cites very favourable comments by the likes of Joe Lovano and Mike Westbrook. Brubeck is someone I would admit to overlooking having been put off his music by negative comments from the people who got me in to jazz in the first place. I have always felt that Brubeck's music became more interesting as he got older although it has always been noticeable that fellow musicians as diverse as Cecil Taylor, John Zorn and Andrew Hill held his music in really high esteem. It is certainly the case that he was more appreciated by his fellow jazz musicians than jazz fans who mistrusted the popular appeal of his music by a wider, non-jazz audience. In this respect, this book seems particularly timely.

The book would appear to be aimed at sceptics like myself as it dissects the music analytically and, putting the music in to it's political and social context with the result the truth worth of his music becomes apparent. The Telegraph was extremely complimentary about this book which offers in depth assessment of his playing as well as the influence of his teacher, Darius Milhaud. Just reading the review has made me very curious and my interest is very much piqued by what I have read on line. There is the suggestion that book is raising the bar for critical appraisal of jazz musicians which had hitherto be limited to major players like Duke or Miles or the more thorough overviews of Gunther Schuller. The other comments I have read also suggest that the book is not only informative and insightful but a very good read too. I generally read a lot of history and archaeology books and tend to find that the kind of analysis they favour makes you susceptible to a similar forensic approach to other things I appreciate such as music and football. This book looks just the ticket! It is something that I will be looking out for and given the recent comments on this board regarding jazz being appraised with care and attention, I would have thought that this books would appeal to several people posting here.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

The Sunday Telegraph had a glowing review of the new biography of Dave Brubeck "A life in time" by Philip Clark. The publicity also cites very favourable comments by the likes of Joe Lovano and Mike Westbrook. Brubeck is someone I would admit to overlooking having been put off his music by negative comments from the people who got me in to jazz in the first place. I have always felt that Brubeck's music became more interesting as he got older although it has always been noticeable that fellow musicians as diverse as Cecil Taylor, John Zorn and Andrew Hill held his music in really high esteem. It is certainly the case that he was more appreciated by his fellow jazz musicians than jazz fans who mistrusted the popular appeal of his music by a wider, non-jazz audience. In this respect, this book seems particularly timely.

The book would appear to be aimed at sceptics like myself as it dissects the music analytically and, putting the music in to it's political and social context with the result the truth worth of his music becomes apparent. The Telegraph was extremely complimentary about this book which offers in depth assessment of his playing as well as the influence of his teacher, Darius Milhaud. Just reading the review has made me very curious and my interest is very much piqued by what I have read on line. There is the suggestion that book is raising the bar for critical appraisal of jazz musicians which had hitherto be limited to major players like Duke or Miles or the more thorough overviews of Gunther Schuller. The other comments I have read also suggest that the book is not only informative and insightful but a very good read too. I generally read a lot of history and archaeology books and tend to find that the kind of analysis they favour makes you susceptible to a similar forensic approach to other things I appreciate such as music and football. This book looks just the ticket! It is something that I will be looking out for and given the recent comments on this board regarding jazz being appraised with care and attention, I would have thought that this books would appeal to several people posting here.

This is "Lost Waltz" from Brubeck's "Time in" album, from 1966, the last of his "Time" series (Time out, Time further out, Times Crossword, Time you went home, etc). I really like the piano on this album which is one I only discovered a couple of years ago. It's not the relentless & empty hammering he sometimes got into, but the touch is still strong...it's almost "New York" in feel. I'm no real fan of Brubeck but in amonst the (vast) output there is some surprising stuff. And "Audrey", the Desmond tribute/homage to Ms Hepburn is a wonderfully achieved thing.

http://youtu.be/q2jxu7mxfik

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Audrey" - Dave Brubeck Quartet.

http://youtu.be/eP8Y9cxGS80

[Alyn_Shipton]

I have been an advocate for Brubeck's work for a long time - including some of his large scale liturgical pieces. I have yet to read more than a chapter or two of Clark's book, but I can recommend Stephen Crist's "Time Out" (OUP 2019) a musicological study of Brubeck's work up to 1959. Or you can take the short cut: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008drnd

[Ian Thumwood]

I have been listening a bit to "Time out" today. I am not too sure what to make of it. The liner notes are intriguing as they allude to the failure of jazz to record music is anything but common time. The example of Max Roach is cited yet the 6/8 material recorded by Charles Mingus on Columbia is overlooked. I appreciate that Brubeck made a real effort to experiment with different meters but Herbie Nichols was also doing much the same thing at the same time with compositions like "Some urban bushmen." The difference here is that Nichols' compositions never got recorded in his lifetime.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have been listening a bit to "Time out" today. I am not too sure what to make of it. The liner notes are intriguing as they allude to the failure of jazz to record music is anything but common time. The example of Max Roach is cited yet the 6/8 material recorded by Charles Mingus on Columbia is overlooked. I appreciate that Brubeck made a real effort to experiment with different meters but Herbie Nichols was also doing much the same thing at the same time with compositions like "Some urban bushmen." The difference here is that Nichols' compositions never got recorded in his lifetime.

One of the things I and others most disliked at the time about the 50s Brubeck quartet's use of unusual time signatures was the contrived feeling of most of it. That contrivance offered an excuse to reject anything beyond 4/4 or 3/4. When Ornette's free pulse came along people would likewise say, "Where's the downbeat?" It really wasn't until Guy Warren came over in the 60s and people started taking seriously and studying African and Latin rhythms theoretically in depth that they started to be treated and performed as familiarisable natural landmarks in the music.

[teamsaint]

Any recommendations for a good live video of Brubeck ?Don’t know his music in depth, but ( FWIW, which is not much) i thought he stole the show in the movie “ All Night Long”.

Nice cover on the new book.

[Serial_Apologist]

Any recommendations for a good live video of Brubeck ?Don’t know his music in depth, but ( FWIW, which is not much) i thought he stole the show in the movie “ All Night Long”.

Nice cover on the new book.

No but if you have (or can get) Ken Burns' well-known TV series on the history of jazz, Brubeck was really good on that, reminiscing about returning from WW2, where he had played in uniform in front of GIs, to the rural situation back home where a neighbouring farmer had branded the black workforce on his farm. My sympathies rose for Brubeck in that doc. Also, as Ian Thumwood and others have indicated here, the later Brubeck is more naturally swinging than the early. Probably best to dig out some Youtube from different periods and make your own mind up on which is preferred - there's sure to be lots of it - then seek out recordings from that period.

[Ian Thumwood]

One of the things I and others most disliked at the time about the 50s Brubeck quartet's use of unusual time signatures was the contrived feeling of most of it. That contrivance offered an excuse to reject anything beyond 4/4 or 3/4. When Ornette's free pulse came along people would likewise say, "Where's the downbeat?" It really wasn't until Guy Warren came over in the 60s and people started taking seriously and studying African and Latin rhythms theoretically in depth that they started to be treated and performed as familiarisable natural landmarks in the music.

I would have to admit that I have been caught out with "Time out" as I had never really listened to it before and it is not what I was expecting. My perceptions were that Brubeck's playing and Joe Morello's drumming would be the principle points of interest. Paul Desmond's tone on the alto is exceptional and I feel he is most an ease with play in 3/4 of all the musicians. I have always felt that the "cool" saxophonists from that era created a problem for themselves as the purity of their tone means that the music they produce has to be that much more creative to be interesting as the range in timbre has been diminished.

Two things strike about "Time out." The first is that Brubeck's writing ability is really good. The other is that I am not convinced that the quartet are necessarily up to the challenge of playing in 3/4. In 2020, this kind of music would be second nature and I think would be played much better. The thing that fascinates me is the fact that the tunes do not necessarily stick to the time signatures. This is done on "Ronda a la Turk" which mutates in to a 4/4 blues after a fascinating opening. There are other times where the pieces in 3/4 slip in to 4/4 for a few bars. It is also confusing because there are moments where I am sure some of the musicians are playing in 3 and others are in 4 at the same time. I was driving whilst I had this on but I was convinced that the two much culpable musicians were Brubeck and Morello. The bassist is so low in the mix it is difficult to hear what he is doing. I do not know if this was deliberate or something that developed organically when they improvised or even if these are mistakes. I don't really think it matters because the end result is really intriguing.

I can understand your argument and see the point if the music being contrived even if I think that it is a little bit harsh. You have to remember that no one had really explored this concept in depth and in the case of Nichols, had not really tested in on recordings although the title track on "Love, doo, cash, love" is a waltz. The band is more successful than 3/4 than Brubeck in my opinion although the tune is a bit sentimental despite the HN quirks. He also composed anther waltz called "Ida" which is in a similar vein. I think that Richmond's drumming sometimes goes in to four too in places.

[Serial_Apologist]

I would have to admit that I have been caught out with "Time out" as I had never really listened to it before and it is not what I was expecting. My perceptions were that Brubeck's playing and Joe Morello's drumming would be the principle points of interest. Paul Desmond's tone on the alto is exceptional and I feel he is most an ease with play in 3/4 of all the musicians. I have always felt that the "cool" saxophonists from that era created a problem for themselves as the purity of their tone means that the music they produce has to be that much more creative to be interesting as the range in timbre has been diminished.

Two things strike about "Time out." The first is that Brubeck's writing ability is really good. The other is that I am not convinced that the quartet are necessarily up to the challenge of playing in 3/4. In 2020, this kind of music would be second nature and I think would be played much better. The thing that fascinates me is the fact that the tunes do not necessarily stick to the time signatures. This is done on "Ronda a la Turk" which mutates in to a 4/4 blues after a fascinating opening. There are other times where the pieces in 3/4 slip in to 4/4 for a few bars. It is also confusing because there are moments where I am sure some of the musicians are playing in 3 and others are in 4 at the same time. I was driving whilst I had this on but I was convinced that the two much culpable musicians were Brubeck and Morello. The bassist is so low in the mix it is difficult to hear what he is doing. I do not know if this was deliberate or something that developed organically when they improvised or even if these are mistakes. I don't really think it matters because the end result is really intriguing.

I can understand your argument and see the point if the music being contrived even if I think that it is a little bit harsh. You have to remember that no one had really explored this concept in depth and in the case of Nichols, had not really tested in on recordings although the title track on "Love, doo, cash, love" is a waltz. The band is more successful than 3/4 than Brubeck in my opinion although the tune is a bit sentimental despite the HN quirks. He also composed anther waltz called "Ida" which is in a similar vein. I think that Richmond's drumming sometimes goes in to four too in places.

And then of course, there's this from 1952:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDECL_R008M

I don't know of any bebop using 3/4 time before this. Fats Waller and probably many others had composed waltzes way before then, of course - here I betray my ignorance - but my impression is that while the Bebop period was obviously very interested in rhythm, as strictly speaking opposed to time, when it came to Latin American rhythms they stuck pretty much to those restricted to 4 to the bar, or multiples and subdivisions thereof. I can't help feeling that Monk was piss-taking with this arrangement of Carolina Moon, bleeding it dry of all the sentimentality associated with the tune.

[Ian Thumwood]

A lot of early jazz was played in 2/4 and it was Armstrong who was a significant force in popularising the more "modern" 4/4 time signature. The problem with 3/4 is that is tends to sound old-timey whereas something like 6/8 is far more natural. The issue I was raising with Brubeck was that the whole concept of time signatures in jazz is pretty fluid and that the music can quite easily flip between different meters and some meters can still work when combined. I met drummer Marcus Gilmore after a Steve Coleman gig several years back and talked to him about how difficult it was to play his boss's jump cut rhythms. He explained that , at the end of the day, you just play what you "feel" and it isn't really an academic exercise.

I think that Coleman is a massively important musician and it is fair to say that his feel for playing around with time signatures is light years away from where Brubeck was in 1959. I cannot help but thinking that a lot of the fluency of musician being able to play in strange and unnatural time signatures owes a lot to computer software. From recollection, Coleman made some comment about this is the liner notes to one of the albums he had and it made me pay a lot more attention to how he tackles the composition process. Whilst I take on board your comments about Ornette and the idea of a "free pulse," jazz is far more sophisticated these days and I feel that players like Steve's Coleman and Lehman are probably able to utilise software to produce very complex ideas that make Ornette's ideas seem naïve in comparison. I find both these soloists to be extremely rhythmic players and they sound like they thrive off these complexities. By contrast, Brubeck was having to work these ideas out in rehearsal without any precedents to assist. Personally, I feel that the real cut and thrust in jazz these days applies to people who are thinking about how you can apply musical rules such as harmony, rhythm and form as opposed to simply abandoning them as was the case with Free Jazz. It is quite a radical idea but maybe it helps explain why a more analytical player from the 1960s like Eric Dolphy sounds more shocking than someone who wears his heart on his sleeve whilst playing like Albert Ayler.

[Joseph K]

A lot of early jazz was played in 2/4 and it was Armstrong who was a significant force in popularising the more "modern" 4/4 time signature. The problem with 3/4 is that is tends to sound old-timey whereas something like 6/8 is far more natural. The issue I was raising with Brubeck was that the whole concept of time signatures in jazz is pretty fluid and that the music can quite easily flip between different meters and some meters can still work when combined. I met drummer Marcus Gilmore after a Steve Coleman gig several years back and talked to him about how difficult it was to play his boss's jump cut rhythms. He explained that , at the end of the day, you just play what you "feel" and it isn't really an academic exercise.

I think that Coleman is a massively important musician and it is fair to say that his feel for playing around with time signatures is light years away from where Brubeck was in 1959. I cannot help but thinking that a lot of the fluency of musician being able to play in strange and unnatural time signatures owes a lot to computer software. From recollection, Coleman made some comment about this is the liner notes to one of the albums he had and it made me pay a lot more attention to how he tackles the composition process. Whilst I take on board your comments about Ornette and the idea of a "free pulse," jazz is far more sophisticated these days and I feel that players like Steve's Coleman and Lehman are probably able to utilise software to produce very complex ideas that make Ornette's ideas seem naïve in comparison. I find both these soloists to be extremely rhythmic players and they sound like they thrive off these complexities. By contrast, Brubeck was having to work these ideas out in rehearsal without any precedents to assist. Personally, I feel that the real cut and thrust in jazz these days applies to people who are thinking about how you can apply musical rules such as harmony, rhythm and form as opposed to simply abandoning them as was the case with Free Jazz. It is quite a radical idea but maybe it helps explain why a more analytical player from the 1960s like Eric Dolphy sounds more shocking than someone who wears his heart on his sleeve whilst playing like Albert Ayler.

If you want odd time signatures in jazz, I'd suggest listening to the Mahavishnu Orchestra. They predate most people's access to computer software.

Also, I'd disagree with your implication that jazz 'these days' is more sophisticated because of what you also erroneously imply - that jazz musicians have abandoned a free pulse.

As has been stated before, Free Jazz improvisers do not abandon harmony, rhythm or form, but rather, these are elements that are drawn into what is spontaneous. Listen to Interstellar Space. It is highly sophisticated and this sophistication comes precisely because it lacks a steady beat i.e. it can't really be accurately notated rhythmically. As for harmony, Coltrane freely modulates with different scales and motives - the use of motives creates cohesion and spontaneously-made structure.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Whilst I take on board your comments about Ornette and the idea of a "free pulse," jazz is far more sophisticated these days"

I don't wish to retread (stomp) old soil, particularly at a time of national crisis (and Boris Johnson), but what is this "sophistication", who or what defines it, by what criteria, and why should it even matter? If say, Paul Desmond is more "sophisticated" than Ernie Henry, who gives a fuck? The point of art is to express individuality & feeling, and hopefully perhaps, connect. It's not a first year essay at Totnes University with marks for "wide reading" and spelling Wittgenstein correctly.

[Ian Thumwood]

All I am saying is that jazz has moved on. "Interstellar Space" isn't some ultimate conclusion in jazz and the music has moved on in the intervening 50 years. If you want to look at musicians pushing the boundaries of what jazz can do or be, we are now in a much different place than in 1959 or in 1967. For what it is worth, from what I have listened to my personal experience Steve Coleman is actually more successful as a formal composer than Ornette's efforts in this field. I was really disappointed with stuff like "Dedication to writers and poets" and much preferred the work with the quartet, Jazz has been an evolving process since it's second decade in the 1920s. In a 100 years we have gone from a point where writers have had to grabble with how to write for a large ensemble and how to make saxophone sections swing through the likes of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn fully realising what a standard big band could achieve until the point you arrive at more analytical composers like Threadgill, Steve Coleman and Braxton. The innovative elements within the music are always changing - "Interstellar Space" is just a midway point in the history of the recorded music.


Yes, the point is to express individuality but I am suggesting that the innovations in jazz are now coming from people who write as opposed to purely performing.

[CGR]

The Sunday Telegraph had a glowing review of the new biography of Dave Brubeck "A life in time" by Philip Clark. The publicity also cites very favourable comments by the likes of Joe Lovano and Mike Westbrook. Brubeck is someone I would admit to overlooking having been put off his music by negative comments from the people who got me in to jazz in the first place. I have always felt that Brubeck's music became more interesting as he got older although it has always been noticeable that fellow musicians as diverse as Cecil Taylor, John Zorn and Andrew Hill held his music in really high esteem. It is certainly the case that he was more appreciated by his fellow jazz musicians than jazz fans who mistrusted the popular appeal of his music by a wider, non-jazz audience. In this respect, this book seems particularly timely.

The book would appear to be aimed at sceptics like myself as it dissects the music analytically and, putting the music in to it's political and social context with the result the truth worth of his music becomes apparent. The Telegraph was extremely complimentary about this book which offers in depth assessment of his playing as well as the influence of his teacher, Darius Milhaud. Just reading the review has made me very curious and my interest is very much piqued by what I have read on line. There is the suggestion that book is raising the bar for critical appraisal of jazz musicians which had hitherto be limited to major players like Duke or Miles or the more thorough overviews of Gunther Schuller. The other comments I have read also suggest that the book is not only informative and insightful but a very good read too. I generally read a lot of history and archaeology books and tend to find that the kind of analysis they favour makes you susceptible to a similar forensic approach to other things I appreciate such as music and football. This book looks just the ticket! It is something that I will be looking out for and given the recent comments on this board regarding jazz being appraised with care and attention, I would have thought that this books would appeal to several people posting here.

He was one of the few jazz musicians that the general public might have heard of. And, of course, one of the few jazz musicians to have had a commercial hit. I went to a gig by one of his sons a couple of years back and he introduced "Take Five" as "the song that paid for my rather expensive education".

I seem to be warming to the West Coast 'Cool Jazz' in recent years. In particular, I've come to appreciate Art Pepper earlier recordings having found them initially rather dry compared to his intense late 1970's revival recordings, particularly the live recordings. The live "Village Vanguard Sessions" complete set is still one of my all time favourite recordings.