AuntShecky
12-05-2012, 06:26 PM
We lost one of America's finest composer and musician today, Dave Brubeck.
http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=778419
Jazz is such an eclectic collection of musical visions and styles, it's almost redundant to call an individual jazz artist "unique." But Dave Brubeck truly was. His compositions as well as his recordings with the Dave Brubeck Quartet had the ability to keep progressive jazz on a high intellectual level yet at the same time accessible to the average listener, who not only thoroughly enjoyed the music but actually learned something in the process. Even so, Dave Brubeck experimented with time signatures and complex rhythms, an artistic choice that was unprecedented for an era when (as now) success tended to shine only upon the simple, the safe and the predictable.
As the msn article points out, Dave showed how any melody, from Mozart "Blue Rondo a la Turk" to popular standards, such as Johnny Mercer's "Tangerine," could be given a rollicking jazz treatment. Whether he was composing and performing, the man was extraordinarily versatile.
Like a few other jazz musicians before him-- Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman -- Dave Brubeck made several world tours, in which he helped establish positive images of American life, art, and music, and his contribution toward helping to thaw international relations during the Cold War cannot be forgotten.
But I think Dave Brubeck and his Quartet will be most remembered for the song that introduced many Americans to the country's only indigenous art form. "Take Five" -- which, though the word has been dreadfully overused -- was truly a "cultural icon."
So long, Dave! We'll miss you.
http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=778419
Jazz is such an eclectic collection of musical visions and styles, it's almost redundant to call an individual jazz artist "unique." But Dave Brubeck truly was. His compositions as well as his recordings with the Dave Brubeck Quartet had the ability to keep progressive jazz on a high intellectual level yet at the same time accessible to the average listener, who not only thoroughly enjoyed the music but actually learned something in the process. Even so, Dave Brubeck experimented with time signatures and complex rhythms, an artistic choice that was unprecedented for an era when (as now) success tended to shine only upon the simple, the safe and the predictable.
As the msn article points out, Dave showed how any melody, from Mozart "Blue Rondo a la Turk" to popular standards, such as Johnny Mercer's "Tangerine," could be given a rollicking jazz treatment. Whether he was composing and performing, the man was extraordinarily versatile.
Like a few other jazz musicians before him-- Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman -- Dave Brubeck made several world tours, in which he helped establish positive images of American life, art, and music, and his contribution toward helping to thaw international relations during the Cold War cannot be forgotten.
But I think Dave Brubeck and his Quartet will be most remembered for the song that introduced many Americans to the country's only indigenous art form. "Take Five" -- which, though the word has been dreadfully overused -- was truly a "cultural icon."
So long, Dave! We'll miss you.