Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time

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Ninety per cent of what he told me about Take Five was completely undermined by the rehearsal tapes,” he said. “He insisted that the famous Take Five rhythms were in place at the beginning. Then I listened to the rehearsal tapes and the rhythm they were working with originally was unrecognisable.” PC . It was used for a piece in Jazz Review, but he gave me much more material than I ever could have used in a piece like that, and I would say that I hadn’t heard at least 80 percent of the material since 2003. The next night, Dave came to the club unsure if Desmond or the bass player Norman Bates were going to show up, and if not, he and Morello would have to play alone. Just as Dave and Morello got to the bandstand, Desmond and Bates walked in and everything seemed fine and they played. That didn’t mean Paul was happy, and the resentment went on for months – everything Joe and Paul said to each other had to be passed between Dave because they wouldn’t talk to each other.

down into his fingers, he gained ownership of them in a way unlikely had notation acted as an intermediary. JJM .You used the word “assertive” in describing Dave’s defense of his decision to hire and retain Joe in the face of Paul’s demands. I found him to be assertive on many occasions. An important example was during a phase in his career that was shaped by cultural politics and the civil rights movement. For example, during a tour of the American South in the late 1950s he had to be assertive with racists in defending the right of Wright to perform with his group…

After that all the rehearsal tapes are lost, so we don’t actually know what happened between the rehearsal and the rhythm we now know.” JJM .Since your father was a painter, is it possible he was attracted to Time Out because of the album cover art, or did he buy the record after hearing it on the radio?

While the earlier version had been “much more driving and faster” with a lopsided Latin rhythm, this had a sexy 5/4 Take Five beat which “sits in the groove”, said Clark. Philip Clark is a music journalist who has written for many leading publications including The Wire, Gramophone, MOJO, Jazzwise , and The Spectator . He also writes for the Guardian, Financial Times, London Review of Books , and the Times Literary Supplement . He trained as a composer but these days prefers to produce his own sounds playing piano as part of a weekly free improvisation workshop. Clark lives in Oxford with his wife, two children, two cats, and more recorded music than he can ever listen to.

For all the quartet had become famous for carefully executed compositions, they could also play entirely free. Layering one raw tonality against a different tonality has a complex psychoacoustic effect. Chords retain their basic identities while spawning a spectrum of notes, now forced into unlikely alliances, that blend and clash unpredictably. The brain, hopefully, grasps increasingly complex interrelationships between unrelated chords as our ears acquire a taste for a tarter and more aromatic harmonic palette. This interview took place on May 26, 2020, and was hosted and produced by Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita

Hopefully these quotes give an idea of the intense, well informed discussion that Philip Clark presents. Also, if you have lingering doubts abouts Dave's Jazziness, listen to the fabulous gem (imho of course!) of "Ode to a Cowboy" which is described by Philip as: JJM . The first instance of their playing music from Time Out live was at Newport in July, 1959. What was that like? Dave told me about being on a coach with Parker, talking with him about what Darius Milhaud had taught him, and the whole concept of polytonality, and he shared thoughts with him about Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel, Satie and Debussy. He would have an in-depth conversation like that with Parker on one night, but on the next Bird would be so out of it and unapproachable, presumably desperate for a fix. One time Parker was being sought after by the mob, seeking cash for drugs, and Dave remembered advising him not to get involved with these people. So, there was a close bond between them while they were on the road, but their friendship, for whatever reason, isn’t well documented. Paul] Desmond is fiddling with the melody line, so there are bits where it’s in a minor key and suddenly goes into the major, and the transitions aren’t quite worked out. [Eugene] Wright is trying to work out his bass part, and Dave is desperately trying to glue the whole thing together. They try 12 times. Then Dave says let’s do another tune. Blue Rondo” was the start of my interest, and I subsequently plundered my dad’s record collection, which included lots of classical music but also records by people like John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Pee Wee Russell, Coleman Hawkins, Benny Goodman, and Louis Armstrong. Everything I have done in music started with that experience with “Blue Rondo.”

A musical interlude…Listen to “Ode to a Cowboy” from the 1957 album Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A. ( the first recordings featuring Joe Morello on drums) A Letter From the Publisher An appeal for contributions to support the ongoing publishing efforts of Jerry Jazz Musician In This Issue A Collection of Jazz Poetry — Summer, 2023 Edition Truth” begins with a propulsive vamp followed by an atonal explosion within the composition. Dave’s solo reflects that by starting with lines played in an incredibly nimble, fast jazz time, and after a chorus or two the left hand and right hand start moving away from each other as he moves into these extraordinary clusters, and any sense of regular meter or groove dissipates – it becomes a dialogue, really, between Dave and Alan Dawson. There are numerous points in the solo when you think that Dave is playing so many clusters so densely that he can’t possibly go any further ; but he keeps on pushing and pushing and pushing, moving further and further out. The energy momentarily dips, then he spins the rhythm around, and rotates the energy in another direction.

It’s a completely different rhythmic feel,” he said. “They all really struggle with it and it never really works. [Joe] Morello, who was a miraculous drummer, can hardly play it. He keeps tripping over it and he can’t quite get it to fit into the groove. JJM .When Columbia issued their 50th anniversary edition of Time Out, they didn’t include any of the outtakes, but you’ve heard things other people haven’t. What did you discover in those studio outtakes that you’d like to share with us? During my research for the book I got in touch with Sony to see if they could locate tapes of subsequent recordings, but after several months of waiting, they responded by saying that the tapes were never returned, so we don’t know what happened between their first attempts at recording “Take Five” and to how it eventually became the version we know. We can’t know what conversations went on in between the two sessions and how or why Morello decided to drop that first rhythm and to get into the groove we know, but it was absolutely the right thing to do. JJM .Clearly, Columbia was concerned about it. There didn’t appear to be a lot of support in their offices other than the now legendary A&R man George Avakian and the label’s president Goddard Lieberson…One of the reasons I believe in jazz is that the oneness of man can come through the rhythm of your heart. It’s the same anyplace in the world, that heartbeat. It’s the first thing you hear when you’re born — or before you’re born — and it’s the last thing you hear.”