Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time

Product Information

Clark compiled much of the information that makes up this book from interviews with Brubeck while traveling with Dave, his wife, and the band he was playing with later in his life and career.

If you think back to what had been happening in the swing era, especially in the big bands-Duke Ellington, Basie, Benny Goodman-counterpoint was never really important. By the time I was with Milhaud, I could hear that Kenton was putting different keys together and he was adventurous with rhythm-he'd obviously been studying Stravinsky. Not during my 80+ years, in more than 70 years as a serious jazz player and listener, have I read such an incisive and entertaining book about a jazz landmark such as Dave Brubeck, and his band members.The incidental discussion about time signatures, other muso's of the time, and the music label (and executive) influence on recordings produced is fascinating. This book] is that rare beast: an uncompromisingly analytical study that absorbs and entertains, illuminating both its subject and his social context. Brubeck comes across as someone you would loved to have met and I was surprised to read what a heavy drinker the alto sax player Paul Desmond was. It also looks at his influence on many strands of popular music since the 1950's and demonstrates he was as influential as any of the bebop players. sax, interaction with Charlie Parker; and including the early Octet, which had a strong alignment with the chromatic ideas of Milhaud etc.

The late Whitney Balliett of the New Yorker mastered the difficult skill of bringing an improvisation to life in the mind’s ear, largely by avoiding the use of technical terms. Woven throughout are cameo appearances from a host of unlikely figures, from Sting, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, and Keith Emerson to John Cage, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse. By the dawn of the 1960s, when “Take Five”, a catchy little number in 5/4 time, was high in the pop charts, regularly requested on the BBC’s Sunday lunchtime radio show Two-Way Family Favourites, he was effectively the public face of modern jazz, even though his genial temperament and settled family life – he was married to the same woman for 70 years – ran contrary to what was generally seen as the idiom’s beatnik tendency. If you like the music of Dave Brubeck get this book to put some flesh on the bones but remember I did warn you! Tutored also by his mother (Bessie) who was fairly well down the path of a concert pianist career - her hopes dashed by her rancher husband moving the family to run a cattle ranch in remote Ione (Sacremento).Time Out may be what Brubeck (1920-2012) is known for, but, as Philip Clark reveals in Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time , it is merely the highlight of his long career as a composer, pianist and bandleader. Author Clark appears to be a devoted fan, but he often lapses into hipper-than-thou prose and wildly jumps back-and-forth through a few decades in a single chapter. By keeping the music at the centre, and interweaving the background of cultural, political and social change to illuminate the development of the music, Clark gives us a complete picture of the artist's life and work. p>The data controller is Headline Publishing Group Limited. PH IL IP CL AR K is a music journalist who has written for many leading publications including The Wire , Gramophone , MOJO , Jazzwise , and The Spectator .

Brubeck opened up as never before, disclosing his unique approach to jazz; the heady days of his ‘classic’ quartet in the 1950s-60s; hanging out with Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis; and the many controversies that had dogged his 66-year-long career. It was an album that could melt into the background or send people to the dance floor but which also revealed, and continues to reveal, further harmonic, timbral, and melodic subtleties with each careful listen. He was a “West Coast jazz” musician, but he wasn’t from the same LA scene as the players who were associated with that label and didn’t sound like them either. The brain, hopefully, grasps increasingly complex interrelationships between unrelated chords as our ears acquire a taste for a tarter and more aromatic harmonic palette.

Each chapter explores a different theme or aspect of Brubeck's life and music, illuminating the core of his artistry and genius. The book’s discussion of Brubeck’s playing and composition styles is perceptive, showing just how different his approach was from peers like Bill Evans, Lennie Tristano, Thelonious Monk, etc. Hotjar sets this cookie to know whether a user is included in the data sampling defined by the site's pageview limit. Combining his commitment to jazz with the lessons learned during his early studies with the expatriate French classical composer Darius Milhaud, he was happy to explore a hybrid work such as his brother Howard’s four-movement “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra”, which he and his quartet recorded with the New York Philharmonic in 1960, under the baton of Leonard Bernstein. In Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time, Clark provides us with a thoughtful, thorough, and long-overdue biography of an extraordinary man whose influence continues to inform and inspire musicians today.