GET IN THE MOOD WITH JAZZ MOODS
Jazz is hot. Jazz is cool. And jazz perfectly captures the mood at midnight. Now, Legacy Recordings has captured all three dominant feelings of jazz in a new series, Jazz Moods, featuring 12 of the most important improvising artists of the past half century, including Billie Holiday, Dave Brubeck, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Thelonious Monk. In stores now! www.JazzMoods.com

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Dave Brubeck is a member of that charmed circle of improvising artists whose popularity is commensurate with his musical accomplishments. The first jazz figure ever to make the cover of Time, Brubeck (b. 1920) has for nearly half a century been a major figure as pianist, composer, and leader of perhaps the most widely known and well-traveled quartet in the history of jazz.

This was the foursome that was together from 1958 to 1967, featuring the elegantly floating alto saxophone of Paul Desmond and bulwarked by the rock-solid bassist Eugene Wright and and the spectacular drummer Joe Morello. The quartet's "Take Five" (whose haunting, bluesy melody was written by Desmond) was their crossover breakthrough, leading to gold records featuring a host of exciting pieces in "odd" time signatures, like "Blue Rondo a la Turk."

The Essential Dave Brubeck — a two-disc set — is additionally notable for the man who selected all of its material: Dave Brubeck. The 31 tracks draw from 24 albums, spanning 53 years (1949-2002). There are studio and live recordings, groundbreaking performances (Brubeck leading his early quartets, which helped set the tone for West Coast cool), solo piano items, and many examples of his importance as a composer (including, among other things, the lilting "In Your Own Sweet Way" and the harmonically challenging "The Duke.") Plus there are special guest cameos by Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Rushing, Gerry Mulligan — and jazz's once and future king, Louis Armstrong.

The Essential Dave Brubeck provides the ideal survey course in Brubeck Time. More.

More by Dave Brubeck

The level of success Dave Brubeck attained with his album Time Out was unprecedented in jazz at the time of its release in 1959.

Over the decades, for all the subsequent upheavals in jazz, its popularity has never waned—perhaps because it was such an upheaval for its challenging use of unusual meters. And because Paul Desmond's delicate yet insistent alto saxophone sound was, and remains, so haunting. "Take Five" may be the single most widely recognizable piece jazz has produced.

But "Take Five" is so much the work of Brubeck, Desmond, Gene Wright, and Joe Morello that it has never been covered much by other jazz artists. The two most covered, and most exquisite, Brubeck pieces remain "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke," both of whose beauty was appreciated very early by Miles Davis.

All Dave Brubeck Releases

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