1 I'm In A Dancing Mood 3:20 2 Two Part Contention 10:05 3 The Duke 2:12 4 Take The A Train (#1) 6:04 5 Gone With The Wind 5:06 6 Lonesome Road 8:10 7 Take The A Train (#2) 5:37 "New Material In New Tempi" (Three Part Composition) 8 Eleven Four 4:23 9 Take Five 5:18 10 Blue Rondo Ala Turk 7:59
Alto Saxophone – Paul Desmond Bass – Eugene Wright (tracks: 5 to 10), Norman Bates (tracks: 1 to 4) Drums – Joe Dodge (tracks: 1 to 4), Joe Morello (tracks: 5 to 10) Piano, Leader – Dave Brubeck
Live concerts from the late fifties! No performance dates are given on release. Joe Dodge and Norman Bates are erroneously credited for each other's actual roles. Additionally, the track given as "Eleven Four" is actually "Three to Get Ready" from the 1959 album Time Out (along with the included "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo aka Turk"). The composition "Eleven Four" wasn't released until 1962 for the album Countdown-Time in Outer Space, well-past the late fifties.
This compilation of concerts by two different editions of the Dave Brubeck Quartet have better than average sound for an unauthorized release, though the first four tracks sound suspiciously like they came from the same 1956 Newport Jazz Festival performance as Brubeck's LP At Newport. There is a small bonus here, though: "The Duke," which was edited off the original record, is restored as the introduction to "Take the 'A' Train" although "In Your Own Sweet Way" is missing. The second part of the CD features the classic edition of the group with Gene Wright and Joe Morello joining Brubeck and Paul Desmond. The inclusion of "The Lonesome Road" is a surprise to all but the most knowledgeable of the pianist's fans, who know that Brubeck has had a mental library of thousands of old songs for a long time. "Three to Get Ready" is mislabeled "Eleven Four," an early version of "Take Five" seems rather conservative, and the infallible Desmond actually falters in the opening chorus of "Blue Rondo a la Turk." ---Ken Dryden, allmusic |