Take Five
Had enough nattering nabobs for today? One of the reasons I try to inject - with varying degrees of success - some humor on this site is that too much dwelling on the days events can be really bad for one's sanity. Or one's soul, depending on the day's news. So let's take a break. How about a complete change of subject. Let's talk about Dave Brubeck. He's been one of the jazz greats for more than 50 years now. And he's been married to the same woman for 65 of his 86 years. He just played at the 50th annual Monterey Jazz Festival. He played at the very first one, too.
The Wilton, Connecticut, resident still performs about 50 to 60 concerts a year, such as in Monterey where he also played at the first festival in 1958. He has slowed his pace from about 80-100 concerts a year a decade ago and 200 concerts in the 1980s, said producer Russell Gloyd.
"Until I stop going," is the time Brubeck said he plans to end performing and recording. He was already a big star in the 1950s and appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1954.
His return to Monterey this weekend coincided with his 65th wedding anniversary on Friday to Iola, to whom he proposed on their very first date at a fraternity dance. "It is weird," Iola Brubeck said. "Sometimes your intuition is right."
Soon Brubeck took her to a black San Francisco night club for an important test. "I wanted my wife to see the environment I wanted to live in … which was black night clubs," he told Reuters in a 90-minute interview. "She was right at home being the only white face."
JAZZ AMBASSADOR
With his 1950s preppy appearance of khaki pants, jacket and tie and horn-rimmed glasses, Brubeck has long served as a jazz ambassador, popularizing concerts on college campuses but also playing black clubs in the then-segregated South.
"I had a following that accepted me regardless of their race, my race," said the composer of standards such as "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The Duke."
Myself, I am not much of a fan of jazz. Some I like, a lot I don't understand. But there are a few songs that are transcendental. It does not matter if you are a fan of a certain genre or not. So it is with Take Five, from the 1959 album Time Out. Enjoy.
Music, Personal Thoughts, Video | Gaius Monday, 24 September , 2007
By Lars Walker, Tuesday, 25 September , 2007 @ 6:21 am
I feel the same way. I’m not big fan of jazz, but Take Five is an experience, an icon, something…. Something important, I think.
By Your Mama, Tuesday, 25 September , 2007 @ 8:18 am
Oh Yeah!