Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time

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The incidental discussion about time signatures, other muso's of the time, and the music label (and executive) influence on recordings produced is fascinating. Hopefully the following quotes give an idea of the style:

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. 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. This interview took place on May 26, 2020, and was hosted and produced by Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita 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.” 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 EditionNinety 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.”

In a May 26, 2020 interview, Clark discusses his book with Jerry Jazz Musician editor/publisher Joe Maita. PC . The idea of modernism was an exotic strand of American culture at the time, and Columbia Records honed in on that as a marketing tool. Lots of people were afraid of modernism, of course, but a lot of people were attracted the idea of modernist painting, literature, architecture… 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.

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.” 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? 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)

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? 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.” Around that same time a magazine called Jazz Review started, edited by Richard Cook, whose death from cancer in 2007 was a big loss to British journalism. At one time he wrote for Classic CD, which is when we met, and I told him I would like to write for Jazz Review, so he gave me some stories. After that it just snowballed. I started writing for The Wire, then Gramophone and newspapers. There wasn’t any great plan, it just sort of fell into my lap. The reason, Milhaud said, that he never wrote-or cared for-twelve tone music is that in a twelve tone piece you are going nowhere in particular [harmonically], therefore you can't go anywhere. You think of Beethoven, or Stravinsky, he'd say, they are always leading you somewhere new, and for that to happen you need to move between keys. This, for Milhaud, was the basis of architecture in music. 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.down into his fingers, he gained ownership of them in a way unlikely had notation acted as an intermediary. 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.