Dave Brubeck RIP...

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just breaking on the BBC news website...

Dave Brubeck died this morning, aged 91.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

he had an amazing life; the documentary made a few years ago showed a musical and loving family and an immense career ... he and Desmond made one of the great sounds of the twentieth century

[cloughie]

he had an amazing life; the documentary made a few years ago showed a musical and loving family and an immense career ... he and Desmond made one of the great sounds of the twentieth century

Calum - very well put - One of the great contributors to music in the 20th Century.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

I can't say I was a big fan of Brubeck, but every so often over the years, I'd hear something by the quartet and think...Hey, THAT is very tasty.

AND, he turned a hell of a lot of people on to jazz.

RIP Mr B.

BN.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

bbc coverage

chicago tribune

[Lateralthinking1]

Very sorry to hear this news. I liked Dave Brubeck and his music. It always seemed to me that many who are exceedingly knowledgeable about jazz couldn't take to him wholly and at the same time his music was such that they could never dismiss him. There is no value judgement in that statement. It is factual rather than criticism. And it is precisely that location of him that in a bloody-minded sort of way made him so appealing to me.

He was, of course, conventional and unconventional. While "Time Out" is so well-known that it could seem crass even to mention it, it used unusual time signatures based on Eurasian folk music. Perhaps that is a key reason why I like it so much. And it has a remarkable ability to evoke a certain time in the past and to create a distinct vibe in the immediate environment. It is impossible to think it wouldn't have considerable longevity even in 2012.

I was only saying a fortnight or so ago to a member of this forum in a private message that Brubeck and his wife had been married for 70 years. That too was a very remarkable achievement.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Just to add to my bit...I think HIS playing got better as he got older. A lot less heavy and pedal based than some of the early tracks with the quartet. If he wasn't always for me, I can certainly see the merit and dedication.

BN.

[MrGongGong]

Serialist Jazz Piano

what's not to love ?

Interesting that like the great Jonathan Harvey a musician who managed to unite seemingly disparate musical worlds .........

[Tenor Freak]

Teh Grauniad obituary (Only partial, I guess Fordham's writing the full obit now.)


Such a shame, but a well-lived life. Strange, it seemed that Brubeck would be around forever. RIP.

[Zauberfloete]

Just heard the news on Radio 2. An absolute legend. I was brought up on "Time Out" and have loved it all my life, it seems. I saw the Dave Brubeck Quartet at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester a few years ago (a sell-out audience). I seriously wondered if Brubeck himself would actually make it to the piano on the stage (he was very doddery) - and the combined age of the quartet must have been nearly 300 - but they were all fantastic. To have heard them play "Take Five" live was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life. Like Tenor Freak, I also thought that he would be around forever so I'm very sad but, at the same time, grateful for his huge contribution to music. RIP, Mr Brubeck.

[Byas'd Opinion]

From Geoffrey Smith's liner notes to the splendidly rowdy "Live at the Berlin Philharmonie" (by the quartet which was always billed as "The Dave Brubeck Trio with Gerry Mulligan"):

[Critics] decided that rangy Californian with the horn-rimmed glasses was too academic and intellectual to be a real jazz man.... Worst of all, the Brubeck quartet was hugely popular, but with the wrong people. Single-handedly, Dave discovered a vast audience for jazz on America's college campuses, who turned out to be particularly enthusiastic about him. But, the critics scoffed, they weren't a real jazz audience. Middle-class white kids, more attuned to pop music and show tunes than blues and swing, what did they know? Their very attraction to Brubeck confirmed him as lightweight and middlebrow.

Well, this middle class white ex-kid likes a lot of his stuff, but in fairly small doses. He's probably a musician who's been both over-rated and under-rated at various points in his career.

Scottish Television have an archive Brubeck concert available via their YouTube channel. It's an early 80s (I think) performance by the quartet with clarinettist Bill Smith accompanied by the Scottish National Orchestra (as it was called in those days). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlbruIg6-1Y

[EdgeleyRob]

Very sad news .RIP.

[clive heath]

I shall celebrate his life with an adulatory listen (possibly, very loud when the neighbours are at work), to "Dave Digs Disney" , one of my very first LPs, with that wonderful 4/4 against 3/4 and supremely melodic Paul Desmond (who's effete tone somehow managed to conceal the real Jazzer underneath) as well as the Newport festival gig which is all Duke Ellington tunes and which LP took me years to find, not knowing the correct title, but knowing of at least two tracks, "Jump for Joy" and "Things Ain't What They Used To Be", of old. I heard the quartet at the Hammersmith Odeon on many occasions, visiting as he did several years on the trot and doing two shows each on successive nights and to be honest the repetitive sequence of current hits made my mind turn to other things, found in the pub next door.

[salymap]

I'm one of the middle class white 'kids' who liked him although I know little of jazz these days. But on switching on the kitchen radio today, my brain said 'Take five' and it was just that

RIP Dave Brubeck.

[amateur51]

Teh Grauniad obituary (Only partial, I guess Fordham's writing the full obit now.)


Such a shame, but a well-lived life. Strange, it seemed that Brubeck would be around forever. RIP.

Nicely put