Dave Brubeck 1920-2012

Arguably the last true jazz legend has left us.
Dave Brubeck passed away on 5th December aged 91. We here at Facel Vega Soul are great jazz fans, so although we are hard at work on other projects, we are absolutely honour-bound to down tools and salute an absolute great.
If Brubeck had only ever bought out three tracks and they were Take 5, Blue Rondo a la Turk, and Unsquare Dance, he and the Dave Brubeck Quartet would have been remembered forever, but his talent went far, far deeper than that. We'll leave the in-depth story of his career to others, as they will no doubt be more eloquent than us, but we'd like to take five, sit upon the ground and show you three examples of his genius, as well as his cohorts.

Unsquare Dance; this version is from the Burghausen jazz festival in 2001:

 

And of course, Take Five, probably his signature tune and one of those tracks that the general public have hummed the melody to without actually knowing who it's by, always the sign of a piece of music that has passed into popular culture. The track is actually written by his long-time composing partner Paul Desmond, who passed away in 1977 at the age of just 52.

Take five, Mr. Brubeck. You've earned it.

-FVS

Dave Brubeck - Blue Rondo A La Turk (1959)

From the album Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Recorded at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City and released in 1959 on Columbia Records.
Blue Rondo à la Turk is a jazz standard composition by Dave Brubeck. It appeared on the 1959 album Time Out. It is written in a 9/8 and swing 4/4 time signatures (the rhythm determine the pulse of the music you are playing or listening to) at a time when most jazz was composed entirely in 4/4.
Brubeck heard the unusual 1-2/1-2/1-2/1-2-3 rhythm performed by Turkish musicians on the street. Upon asking the musicians where they got the rhythm, one replied "This rhythm is to us, what the blues is to you." Hence the title Blue Rondo à la Turk.
The piece is sometimes incorrectly assumed to be based on the Mozart composition Rondo alla Turca. In a 2003  interview,  Brubeck commented that "I should've just called it 'Blue Rondo', because the title just seemed to confuse people.'
Boasting the first jazz instrumental to sell a million copies, the Paul Desmond-penned Take Five, Time Out captures the celebrated jazz quartet at the height of both its popularity and its powers. Recorded in 1959, the album combines superb performances by pianist Brubeck, alto saxophonist Desmond, drummer Joe Morrello and bassist Gene Wright. Along with Take Five, the album of course features 'Rondo', another one of the group's signature compositions. Though influenced by the West Coast-cool school, Brubeck's greatest interest and contribution to jazz was the use of irregular meters in composition, which he did with great flair. Much of the band's appeal is due to Desmond, whose airy tone and fluid attack often carried the band's already strong performances to another level. Together, he and Brubeck proved one of the most potent pairings of the era.
French singer Claude Nougaro has used this standard as a musical foundation for his song "A bout de souffle".


The Lively Ones television show first broadcast July 25, 1962. The Quartet is shown riding a magic carpet over a freeway in Los Angeles. As you do.