Dave Brubeck - in memorium

There is one less artist in the world tonight.

Dave Brubeck was one of my all time favorite musicians and must have been a lot of people’s faves because he was the first jazz musician to sell a million records. The year I was five, the Dave Brubeck Quartet put out a platter called Time Out on which they experimented with non-traditional time signatures. A huge hit single from that album was Take Five, in which the melody and breaks were so expertly woven around the then-revolutionary  5/4 time signature  that most people didn’t  realize right away just why it sounded ‘different.’  I loved the piano and sax solos – Paul Desmond was copied and copied and copied again by lounge players all over the world. Eugene Wright’s bass made you feel right at home in five.

Of course, Joe Morello’s trap work was what grabbed and held me. The drum solo was like a sidebar conversation to the main piece and went its own way for awhile before rejoining the rest of the quartet.  Even ten years after that recording hit the charts, it was magical to be a young drummer hearing it for the first time. Of course, I had to learn it. I had to wait until no one was in the house to practice because without Brubeck chording on the vamp background, it just sounded like a high school kid beating on the drums. Which is of course what I was.

Brubeck and various incarnations of his combo produced a large body of work, much of it in inconvenient, marvelous times. Every piece was interesting and entertaining.  Dave Brubeck continued to play at least as recently as earlier this year and was 91 when he passed.

Daughter One likes to talk about the importance of following your passion as your life’s work. Mr. Brubeck did that. In spades.