Take Five, Mr. Brubeck. You’ve earned it
The jazz world lost a giant this week in 91-year-old pianist Dave Brubeck, whose cool, understated “West Coast” style made it easy to overlook how innovative and complex his music really was. His fellow musicians and contemporaries — fans such as the great Miles Davis and others — understood it very well.
Brubeck joins an eclectic list of great musical figures who played their last earthly notes this year, absent an encore in the next world. They include Kitty Wells, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys, Robin Gibb, Levon Helm, the great Etta James, the equally magnificent Earl Scruggs and the less magnificent but still notable Davy Jones of the Monkees.
The breadth of that list is remarkable. A handful achieved fame and success in the mainstream world; others, like Brubeck, were influential giants within their genre but were too little noticed outside it. As Brubeck said in a 2010 interview, “If there’s a heaven, let it be a good place for all of us to jam together and have a wonderful, wonderful musical experience.”
With Little Davy on the maracas, no doubt.
One other note: I have often wondered what musical giants such as Mozart and Beethoven would have thought of jazz, if they had a chance to hear it. Would they “get it”? Would they appreciate the musicianship involved? Would they immediately try to borrow its innovations and complex rhythms?
Or — as I think quite likely — would it come across to them as mere noise? (With rock, I’d put that likelihood at 100 percent). I suspect Brubeck’s famous hit “Take Five”, with its muted yet radically different approach, would be a great place to launch such an experiment.
– Jay Bookman
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121 comments Add your comment
josef
December 7th, 2012
10:00 pm
moonbat
I love that one! A certain reserved brown-eyed-handsome-man was known to have danced on the table tops after a few of those…
FRED
Tell her this Redneck Plantation Liberal Delusional Lickspittle Jewboy said to “lighten up!”
josef
December 7th, 2012
10:13 pm
catch y’all later…
moonbat betty
December 7th, 2012
10:36 pm
You can’t stop Rock and Roll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaehBH7DtR4
RW-(the original)
December 7th, 2012
10:37 pm
I’m always amused when I happen upon a list like this. For some reason Adam Yauch and Davy Jones have their group identified and the rest stand on their own merits. I’m never really sure if the writer just deems them less notable or less talented, but I’m certain those designations are solely based on the biases of the writer. Perhaps it’s the way the writer feels about the subjects or perhaps it’s what the writer thinks they know about their readership.
However, I only came here to chat with Josef and I see that he’s left the building…
moonbat betty
December 7th, 2012
10:47 pm
hmm, no song RW?
RW-(the original)
December 7th, 2012
11:02 pm
If you insist…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0DU4DoPP4
RW-(the original)
December 7th, 2012
11:10 pm
Then again I guess a song around here should always have some debatable points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6djgavbp7c
blahblahblah
December 7th, 2012
11:20 pm
“With rock, I’d put that likelihood at 100 percent”
Not a chance. Mozart would have been a metalhead.
moonbat betty
December 7th, 2012
11:44 pm
that’s cute, RW.
I didn’t think you gambled.
Oscar
December 8th, 2012
12:33 am
Walk, Don’t Run
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIuIIqbyEIU
Boney James
December 8th, 2012
6:16 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCcuFx2jb7g
Attack Dog
December 8th, 2012
6:56 am
Why are you showing a photo of Paul Desmond rather than Dave Brubeck? Dave’s “Take Five” is one of the few musical compositions done in 5/4 time.
stands for decibels
December 8th, 2012
7:41 am
Mozart would have been a metalhead
Nein. “Er war ein Punker.”
stands for decibels
December 8th, 2012
7:48 am
speaking of Wolfgang…is it possible that nobody linked the one and only song (pretty sure) to hit Number One in the US sung in German?
well, if not:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVikZ8Oe_XA
stands for decibels
December 8th, 2012
7:51 am
Why are you showing a photo of Paul Desmond rather than Dave Brubeck?
Ask whoever posted it to YouTube, and picked that as the thumbnail.
stands for decibels
December 8th, 2012
7:59 am
off topic, but it’s no longer Friday night.
I’m not sure what to make of the Aussie DJs story.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20651246
Like most people I was saddened and angry at the circumstances I’d read about behind the suicide. I wanted to allow myself to project that anger at the dumb radio djs who had, apparently, precipitated that tragedy.
But as some chose to do when replying to Jay’s piece about the Wal-Mart supplier’s fire–what about the consumers who make this thing possible? If the djs don’t have an audience, and sponsors who want to sell to that audience, they don’t make that prank call.
If people aren’t lapping it up and laughing at the folks who wind up being on the nasty end of such things, inflicting their cruelty, this isn’t a story, is it?
Just seems a little too convenient to blame it solely, or even mostly, on some on-air talent; had they not been hired for the gig. someone else would’ve done what we nowadays verbalize as mere “pranking.”
/soapbox
Corbin Sharpe. I think, therefore I am...I think
December 8th, 2012
8:27 am
Stands,
I too was saddened when I read about the Nurses suicide, but I have to ask why she felt the need to do that ultimate act. It seems a little strange. It was a prank, one of bad taste, but a prank
nevertheless. Why couldn’t she just laugh it off? It suggests an underlying cause that this event set off. Just guessing…
Corbin Sharpe. I think, therefore I am...I think
December 8th, 2012
8:30 am
OH! and…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmOecBHVhLg
to all y’all…
Jay
December 8th, 2012
8:51 am
Desmond also is credited with writing “Take Five.”
stands for decibels
December 8th, 2012
9:06 am
Why couldn’t she just laugh it off?
Obviously, there was something more at work here than merely the reaction to that one event–a suicide is always going to be more complex than that. But it doesn’t absolve those of us who find such pranking–and we ought to call it what it really is, “bullying”–to be entertaining.
Heading upstairs.
Juan
December 10th, 2012
4:44 pm
Jay, Thanks for “Taking Five” to remember another “Great American” contributor who made this World a better place to live in.