Jazz / Vocal Jazz; Bop; Cool; West Coast Jazz
Recorded: 1949-Jul 10, 2002
Dave Brubeck (leader, piano)
Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Rushing; (vocals); Paul Desmond, Bobby Militello (alto saxophone); Jerry Bergonzi (tenor saxophone); Gerry Mulligan (baritone saxophone); Bill Smith (clarinet); Norman Bates, Eugene Wright, Ron Crotty, Bob Bates, Jack Six, Michael Moore (bass); Chris Brubeck (electric bass); Joe Morello, Carl Tjader, Lloyd Davis, Joe Dodge, Alan Dawson, Butch Miles, Randy Jones (drums)
Producers include: Dave Brubeck, Chris Brubeck, George Avakian, Teo Macero, Cal Lampley.
Compilation producers: Russell Gloyd, Didier C. Deutsch.
Includes liner notes by Joel Lewis.
It's hard to summarize the highlights of a career as long and prolific as Dave Brubeck's in a two-CD compilation. If you're going to settle for that, however, The Essential Dave Brubeck is a good job, spanning 1949 to 2002, with 76 minutes of music on each disc. Although a few of these tracks were drawn from his early Fantasy recordings and his later Concord/MusicMasters/Telarc discs, the overwhelming bulk of them come from his days at Columbia from the mid-'50s through the late '60s. "Take Five" is here, of course, as are some of his better- known recordings, like "Blue Rondo a La Turk," "Take the 'A' Train" (a live 1954 performance), "Audrey," and "Some Day My Prince Will Come" (from the Dave Digs Disney album). Overall it spotlights the pianist in a variety of settings -- live, solo piano ("In Your Sweet Way" and "Weep No More," from Brubeck Plays Brubeck); interpreting West Side Story; bopping, balladeering, bossa nova, with strings; or backing vocalists Louis Armstrong, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Rushing, and Tony Bennett. In fact, no less than a couple dozen albums are sampled over the course of the 31 discs, making this an admirably wide-ranging sampler of Brubeck's work, focusing on his earlier and most important efforts.
---Richie Unterberger, AMG |
