Dave Brubeck - "40 Days" (1966)

Jazz News: Joe Morello Has Died

Drummer Joe Morello, most famous for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet, has died. Here's the story from The Telegraph:

Joe Morello

Best known for his work with the Dave Brubeck Quartet over a span of more than 12 years, Morello played on 120 albums (60 of them with Brubeck) and went on to become a highly valued teacher of percussion. More...

Jazz News: New Documentary for Dave Brubeck's 90th Birthday

Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way will air on Turner Classic Movies on Brubeck's birthday, December 6 - as reported in the Chicago Tribune...

 

‘In His Own Sweet Way’: Celebrating Dave Brubeck’s 90 Years - on Film

By Howard Reich 

Dave Brubeck will turn 90 next Monday, and of all the tributes sure to flow his way, one of the most endearing will be public: the broadcast of an ambitious documentary film on his remarkably enduring career. More...

Jazz News: Brubeck Back in Action

Dave Brubeck is back in action after cardiac surgery, as noted in this story from the Worcester, Massachusetts Telegram-Gazette:

Brubeck Makes Up-Tempo Return

Ticker repaired, pianist keeps beat

By Peter Landsdowne

WORCESTER — Joined by alto saxophonist and flutist Bobby Militello, bassist Chris Smith and drummer Cody Cox, perennially popular pianist Dave Brubeck kicked off the 16th annual Mass Jazz Festival Friday night with a dynamic concert at Mechanics Hall that served as part of Music Worcester Inc.’s 151st Worcester Music Festival. More...

“Take Five” Has Lyrics?

Many would consider it sacrilege to put lyrics to the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s classic “Take Five,” a tune from the best-selling 1959 album Time Out that practically defined jazz for many people at the time. The single of “Take Five” was an amazing commercial success, the first million-selling jazz single on the Billboard charts. This was completely unexpected. Paul Desmond, who composed the song, said that “Take Five” was never meant to be a big hit - it was primarily supposed to be a vehicle for a Joe Morello drum solo.
     The instrumental version is so ubiquitous, and the 5/4 time of the song so distinct, that it’s difficult to even imagine it sung with lyrics. So, who would do such a thing? Dave Brubeck, of course. As “Take Five” was topping the charts in 1961, Brubeck and his wife, Iola, came up with the lyrics for a live performance by Carmen McRae at Basin Street East in New Orleans. And she apparently had to sing it without rehearsal. “When Carmen sang ‘Take Five,’ there weren’t many vocalists singing in 5/4 times and she had no time to prepare for that either,” recalled Brubeck. “It was just put in front of her and ‘sing this.’ That took a lot of nerve and talent. Maybe I should put ‘talent’ first.”
     This version is an absolute delight. The lyrical story presents a woman who has been trying to get the attention of a man without much success. She is rather fed up with his passivity, shyness, or inaction. McRae is the perfect singer for this, her voice edged with weary sarcasm as she beseeches her pathetic object of affection. Here, then, are the lyrics to “Take Five.”

     Won’t you stop and take a little time out with me, just take five.

     Stop your busy day and take the time out to see I’m alive.

     Though I’m going out of my way, just so I can pass by each day, 

     not a single word do we say, it’s a pantomime and not a play. 

     Still I know our eyes often meet, I feel tingles down to my feet,
     when you smile that’s much too discrete, sends me on my way.

     Wouldn’t it be better not to be so polite? You could offer a light.
     Start a little conversation now, it’s alright, just take five, just take five.

     The song originally appeared on the Columbia album Take Five: Live at the Basin Street East (which is still available as an import, I believe) and is included on Brubeck’s compilation album Vocal Encounters. You can also hear this vocal version on YouTube.

Classic Brubeck Quartet on Video

Dave Brubeck Live in '64 and '66 is part of the Jazz Icons series of DVDs and presents two performances in Europe by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The is the classic quartet with Paul Desmond, Joe Morello, and Eugene Wright. The DVD lasts for 67 minutes, and the first half is a 1964 performance in Belgium. This is a beauty of a black-and-white film, just what you'd want a jazz performance to look like from the period. Very crisp - everything was shot on film back then, of course - with lots of close-ups of Dave's hands flicking over the ivories and Paul on sax. Paul was a very low-key performer, standing quietly with his eyes closed as he produced all those smooth-as-butter notes. Songs include "St. Louis Blues," "Koto Song," and "Take Five," with a terrific extended drum solo. (By the way, this video of "Take Five" can be downloaded separately on iTunes.) Paul's expressive playing is a standout, and Dave - often underrated as a piano player - shows his range from lyrical to percussive.
     The second date is from Berlin in 1966 and is filmed, again in black and white, in front of a live audience. There is some compromise in the sound quality here - a little muffled reverb in the background. Songs include "Take the A Train," "I'm in a Dancing Mood," "40 Days," and "Take Five" again. (Some of the songs from this set and the '64 date are available on YouTube.) This is a chance to see and hear the Brubeck Quartet in its heyday and in classic form.

Success in a Sewer

Here's a 1959 Time magazine story called "Success in a Sewer" about the Blackhawk,* the legendary San Francisco nightclub that closed in the early Sixties. Shelly Manne, Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, and many other jazz greats performed and recorded there. Located in the still ungentrified Tenderloin area of San Francisco, about a mile from where I live, the site is now a parking lot.

     On the corner of Turk and Hyde Streets at the edge of San Francisco’s Tenderloin and just a wiggle away from the city’s sleaziest strip joints, slumps a scabrous nightclub called the Black Hawk. Its dim doorway belches noise and stale cigarette smoke. Against one wall lies a long, dank bar minus bar stools; a bandstand, just big enough for an underfed quintet, is crammed on the other side; stained, plastic-topped tables and rachitic chairs crowd the floor. The capacity, when everyone is inhaling, comes close to 200, and strangely, the crowd is always close to capacity. This week the Black Hawk is edging into its tenth year as one of the nation’s top resorts for modern jazz, the club that launched such cool cats as Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan. Says Co-owner Guido Caccienti: “I’ve struggled for years to keep this place a sewer.”

     No Bells. Entrepreneur Caccienti is rarely aware of the kind of music being played in his sewer: he is a bit hard of hearing and besides, he knows little about jazz. This has its advantages. Explains the San Francisco Chronicle’s Jazz Columnist Ralph Gleason: “It’s the club musicians like best. First, the owners don’t tell them what to do. They can’t—they can’t communicate. Second, the audience is best. Why else except to listen would anyone endure these conditions?”

     The awful conditions have steadily deteriorated since the fall of 1949, when Guido and a boyhood pal named Johnny Noga scraped up $10,000 to go to a sheriff’s sale and buy a bankrupt nightclub. Guido deployed his wife Eleanor at the cash register, Johnny married Helen, the head waitress, and they began to book some musical acts. Along with Brubeck and Mulligan, jazz stars as well as pop singers drifted into the Hawk—Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Erroll Garner, Dorothy Dandridge, Johnny Mathis. Regulars remember how Eleanor Caccienti refused to ring the cash register when Dizzy Gillespie was talking for fear she would miss a joke. (Now the cash registers have no bells.) They recall the night a trombonist lost his pants in the middle of a solo, and the time Drummer Art Blakey belted a cymbal so hard that it bounced onto a ringside table where (according to Gleason) “two worshipers were sitting with eyes closed. They went six feet in the air, straight up.”

     No Books. Season after season, the joint was jammed. The Hawk’s mascots —pigeons living in a coop right above the men’s room—grew fat and happy. The fees that the club was able to pay for its jazz acts rose from less than $300 to more than $3,000 a week. Even after the Nogas sold their interest in the club last year to Max Weiss, secretary-treasurer of San Francisco’s avant-garde Fantasy Records, nothing really changed. They did try to straighten out the chaotic books, but it was a foredoomed effort. Accurate accounting is apparently not a necessity for survival in the jazz world, where only a few clubs—Nick’s in Manhattan and the Blue Note in Chicago—have lasted as long as the Hawk.

     This week Guido’s noiseless cash registers are ringing up drinks and entrance fees to a brisk rhythm, the music of Vibraphonist Cal Tjader and his jazz quartet (quickly convertible to a bongo-congo Latin quintet with the addition of a crack drummer named “Mongo”). Says Owner Guido: “We give the customers good jazz. The musicians we don’t bother. We never walked around with big cigars and said, ‘I’m Mister Black Hawk and won’t you sit at my table, musician?’ They can look right across the room when they play and see me at the bar and know the boss is working too.”

Time magazine, August 3, 1959
"Nightclubs: Success in a Sewer"

* There is some controversy about whether the name of the club was the Blackhawk (one word) or the Black Hawk (two words). Albums recorded at the Blackhawk have tended to use the one word spelling in their titles. However, this article uses two words and the photo of the marquee seems to show two words. Fred Hall addressed the issue in his biography of Dave Brubeck, It's About Time. Dave recalls the name as one word, and Hall spoke to the original partners, Guido and the Nogas, in the early 1990s. They all came down in the one word camp. Guido claimed that the guy who made the sign "goofed." One other note - Guido's last name in the Time magazine story is spelled "Caccienti" but elsewhere, including Hall's book, is spelled "Cacianti." Perhaps the corner of Turk and Hyde is some sort of grammatical black hole?

My First Post

I'm a jazz enthusiast, and I mean that in the true sense of the word enthusiasm. That word comes from the Greek enthousiasmos meaning "to be inspired" or more specifically "inspired by god." Jazz can strike me like that and I often find myself listening over and over again to a particular song until I feel that I finally absorb it somehow. Does this happen to anyone else?
     The current enthusiasm is the song "Far More Blue" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. This song is from the album Time Further Out, recorded in 1961. It's a sort of funky waltz that begins with a beautiful Paul Desmond lead on the melody. Brubeck is considered part of the "cool" school of jazz, and Desmond's solo is a perfect example. But Brubeck's solo which follows is an argument against it, unless he's trying to be the nerd of the cool school. The piano solo is rhythmic and in fits and starts, as were many of Brubeck's solos, as if the waltz were trying to break out into a Charleston or something. The rhythmic play against the drums and bass are what make the song so enjoyable for me. Brubeck returns to the melodic waltz at the end - almost as if to say "I can play like this too."