Dave Brubeck

1. Tea For Two

 LINER NOTES

A number of different tributes witness for the great fascination that Chet Baker's figure is still disclosing after some time from his tragic death, ranging from the interest around Bruce Weber's movie dedicated to him Let's Get Lost, to the lasting success surrounding his "historical" recordings and the continued search for previously unissued and intense career through which the artist proved so generous about himself and his unique talent.

PHILOLOGY, who has been promoting many findings of the kind, presents today two highlights on Chet Baker's artistic lifespan: his presence at the Second Newport Festival and a peculiar duo with Caterina Valente. Chet brought to the great Rhode Island parade his own quartet (note how touchingly he is introducing the musicians) including outstanding Californian pianist Russ Freeman: he opens with an exciting version of Walkin' followed by an essay of his singular and moving vocals in You Don't Know What Love Is.

After these two performances we listen to him playing Five Brothers together with his great partner from a few years earlier Gerry Mulligan and then to a blues by the great Tiny Kahn with contributions by trombonist Bob Brookmeuer and tenor sax Al Cohn. The remarkable stature of these guests brings forth some solos which definitely were not meant to be left in archives.

The most amazing encounter in that festival is anyhow for Chet Baker (and even more so for Gerry Mulligan who is going to yield it a substantial follow-up in the Seventies) the one with Dave Brubeck and his Quartet, featuring the lovely alto sax Paul Desmond. The result is an extended improvisation on Tea For Two. Two tracks complete the selection. They are not unissued like the previous takes but they can rightly be considered as true rarities since they originally appeared only on a 45 record unavailable since many years. The recording dates from 1956 in Germany and it features Chet Baker on trumpet and vocals joining guitar and vocals by Caterina Valente, at that time a "star" in the pop music world. The songs and feeling however rest on a solid jazz background and it would surely be hard to expect anything different if we are to consider the brilliant and touching contribution by Chet Baker.

In the CD version PHILOLOGY presents all jazz-fans and especially Chet's lovers with 5 splendid unissued, among which the unbelievable Yardbird Suite recorded in 1953 at Los Angeles "The Haig" with Stan Getz replacing Gerry Mulligan in the memorable pianoless quartet and an unusual (at least for Chet at that time) version of Night in Tunisia which is lit up by a burning solo and break by Angel Face.

Next two pieces with Kurt Edelhagan's Orchestra were recorded at Baden Baden in the same period, most likely the very same month as the duo with Caterina Valente. They document the end of the long European tour started in September 1955 with the late DickTwardzik and carried on through Paris, London, Paris again, Copenhagen, Rome, Florence and Berlin before the final return to the U.S. for the historical session "Chet Baker Sings" recorded on July 23rd, 1956 with a quartet featuring Russ Freeman (Los Angeles, Pacific Jazz Studios, PJ 1222).Thank to the valuable assistance, among others, of two German friends of Chet (Lothar Lewien and Klaus Gotwald).PHILOLOGY has in store more live unissued from that rich year in Europe of Mr. Baker, including a live concert in Mainz with Dick Twardzick. The legend goes on. CHET LIVES!

Translated by Donatella Paolozzi

1. Jumping Bean
2. Adios, Mariquita Linda
3. Indian Song
4. Tender Woman
5. Amapola
6. Lullabye De Mexico
7. Sapito
8. Recuerdo

 LINER NOTES

When 1967 and the 17-year-old Dave Brubeck Quartet came to an end, two questions circumnavigated the world. Was Brubeck serious about concentrating on composing, and did this mean he was through as leader of jazz combos?

The answers respectively were yes and no. Dave completed his long-envisioned oratorio, performed the premiere, with the Cincinnati Symphony, then turned his attention to a promise he had made to George Wein just before the old group dispersed. Wein had guaranteed to deliver Brubeck, solo or with a group, at the second annual Newport Jazz Festival in Mexico.

Brubeck had made a similar tour last year when American Airlines, celebrating its 25th anniversary of servicing the country, arranged for Wein to assemble a jazz package to play in Puebla and Mexico City. The reaction (commemorated in the "Bravo! Brubeck!" album) was such that this year there were calls not merely for a repeat but for an enlargement of the concept. In 1968, when the airline's baby became one of the many artistic projects of the so,-called "Cultural Olympics," the tour was expanded to cover five cities.

Promptly, Dave decided not to make it a solo jaunt. "I'd used Jack Six in the premiere performance of the oratorio, and of course he'd done some fine work with Herbie Mann's group and with George Wein's Newport All Stars. It was George who recommended Alan Dawson as the best possible drummer I could find. He's worked with Lionel Hampton's band but he's best known as a member of the faculty at the Berklee School of Music.

"Gerry Mulligan had subbed in the old quartet for several nights when Paul Desmond was having some dental work done. Since George already wanted to have, Gerry on his Mexican tour, I thought it would be exciting if we worked together."

Traveling with the package (Brubeck and Mulligan, the Adderley, Mann and Wein combos, singer Clea Bradford and Woody Herman's band), I was able to observe at first hand how swiftly and easily this excitement had been established. Reports had already come in from the New Orleans Jazz Festival about the ovation given to Dave and Gerry, topped only by Louis Armstrong himself. With only two full rehearsals and four U.S. concerts under their belt, Brubeck and his three new collaborators evolved an immediate rapport. On and offstage, Dave and Gerry were as relaxed as I had ever seen or heard them.

Before the group was two weeks old, a substantial repertoire had been assembled, composed of originals by Brubeck and Mulligan with a suitable sprinkling of Mexican standards.

The gentle, delicate Lullabye de Mexico was written by Mulligan some time ago, but Gerry says, "I never knew what to do with it. But it seemed just right for this occasion."

Dave has a special fondness for the beguiling Indian Song. "Al Walloupe, an Indian vaquero on the cattle ranch where I was raised, used to hum incessantly the first two bars, which in reality was the complete song before I extended it. Al would then laughingly explain that his forefathers would have sung that short melody for days at a time."

The public reaction to the new combo was consistently enthusiastic. During two prior visits, Brubeck had been established as the most popular Norteamericano jazz name in Mexico. The addition of Mulligan, and the curiosity value of hearing Dave in a new context, reinforced an already fervent interest.

Like the 1967 tour, the festival started in Puebla before moving on to the Bellas Artes Theatre and the National Auditorium in Mexico City. Next came two shows in Guadalajara, the first of which was a wildly acclaimed matinee held in a bullring. Theatre dates in Monterrey and Acapulco ended the tour.

The new sounds introduced on these sides confirm the reaction of Juan Lopez Moctezuma and other authoritative Mexican critics: these four musicians combine the freshness and enthusiasm of newcomers with the intelligence and maturity of experienced artists.

For Brubeck, Mulligan, Dawson and Six, this was a tour that will not soon be forgotten - a happy, cooking ball for all. Will they stay together? Despite many other commitments, Dave concedes that if Wein works out a European tour, or anything else that will bring them together again, he won't make any show of resistance.

Meanwhile, this will remain a unique and unprecedented album, a sui generis souvenir of a memorable week.

1. Happy Anniversary
2. The Duke
3. Blessed Are The Poor
4. Forty Days
5. Elementals

 LINER NOTES

This is the third album we recorded in collaboration with Conductor Erich Kunzel and the musicians of Cincinnati. It is more, however, than just "another in a series" because the Trio and The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra are joined by jazz great, Gerry Mulligan on baritone saxophone.

When Gerry Mulligan joined us in the spring of 1968 for a series of festival concerts in the U.S. and Mexico, the billing was "The Dave Brubeck Trio with guest star, Gerry Mulligan." Since that time, Mulligan has become more or less a permanent guest, but as we put it, "no less a star.'

DAVE BRUBECK

1. Out of Nowhere - not on "Live In Concert"
2. Mexican Jumping Bean - not on "Live In Concert"
3. Blessed are the Poor (LP)
4. Things Ain't What They Used To Be (LP)
5. Out of the Way of the People
6. The Duke
7. New Orleans
8. Indian Song (LP)
9. Limehouse Blues (LP)
10. St. Louis Bluesv
11. Basin Street Blues
12. Take Five
13. Lullaby De Mexico (LP)

 LINER NOTES

My most vivid memory of this Berlin festival is the feeling of exhiliration and exhaustion we felt at sometime past 3 A.M., when we came back for our final encore. By this time , the TV camera crews had packed up and, as you can hear on the recording, we were surrounded on stage by members of the audience, who had left their seats to sit under the piano or wherever they could find empty floor space. The mood in the air was to play until dawn, but stage hands and the hall manager had different ideas. My several attempts to gather up the flock and head for home are heard in the unexpected and unfamiliar conclusion of "Lullaby of Mexico"

- Dave Brubeck

There are people in jazz who made up their minds about Dave brubeck year agop. But they're kidding themselves by still voicing opinions formed in 1955 or 1956 about somebody who today is still leading the same type of group he formed in 1951 - a quartet that ranks as on of the oldest and most successful combos in jazz history.

Some members of Berlin's jazz "in-group" also thought they had made up their minds when "The Dave Brubeck Trio plus Gerry Mulligan" appeared at the Berlin Jazz Days in 1970. But Dave and Gerry became the hit of the festival that included, among others, such first-rate jazz attractions as the big bands of Buddy Rich and Clarke-Boland, Sun Ra's Intergalactic Music, Leon Thomas and the new Charles Mingus Group, Oliver Nelson's Orchestrs, Earl Hines and Sister rosetta Tharpe.

Certainly, the quality of the music in this album is partly explained by the warmth and cordiality of the Berlin audience, an audience not noted in the jazz world for these qualities. (Nat Hentoff has written about "the challenge of the Berlin Jazz Festival, Europe's and perhaps the world's best.") But the main source of the high quality of the music was the personal challenge ebtween Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan, something firmer and robuster than the friendly understanding between Brubeck and Paul Desmond. Something special happened in the spring of 1968 when Dave and Gerry got together for some George Wein concerts in Charlotte, N.C., New Orleans, and in Mexico. It was a meeting that smacked of the uncommon, almost the sensational.

Here were two musicians whom one had always thought of as direct opposites, and now one discovered an ever-growing relationship between them. Both of them had "sophistication"; Brubeck got his from Darius Milhaud and Schoenberg and Mulligan his from his stay on the West Coast, his Hollywood film work and his friendships with theater people.

Jazz "experts" made Mulligan the "jazzier," Brubeck the more "sophisticated." But in "Limehouse Blues," you can hear how interchangeable these terms are in the Mulligan-Brubeck collaboration: all at once, Dave is "jazzier," Mulligan more "sophisticated." And it's beautiful to hear how the two use each other for inspiration in the last part of the piece.

"Things Ain't What They Used To Be" is not just the combo's interpretation of an Ellington song; it's full of the sincere admiration of a pianist who has learned much from the Duke , and a baritone saxophonist who often has called Harry Carney his greatest inspiration. Dave's solo, with the swinging staccato chords and, later, exciting parallel runs, is one of the best we've heard from him. And Alan Dawson's drum solo shows that intellect and swing don't have to be contradictions in jazz.

"The Sermon On The Mount" is from Dave's religious cantata. Mulligan "creeps" like a cat, like a Konitz cat, into his solos without vibrato - the preaching is soft-spoken, without the full-blown emotion of the gospel preachers.

The music is so self-contained that there's not much more to say. There's no need for biographies or anecdotes - they're too well -known: Brubeck's development from his college days at Mills in Oakland, Calif., and the octet of 1949 through the first trio recordings to first place in the 1953 Down Beat, Critics Poll (Best Pianist), to all the other honors in Down Beat, Metronome, Melody Maker, Playboy etc. (including "Musician of the Year" in 1955). And Mulligan from Gene Krupa in 1947 and the Miles Davis Capitol Band of 1948 through the famous pianoless quartet, Stan Kenton's "Young Blood," the movie work in "I Want To Live" and "The Subterraneans," and his 1960 big band.

An ironic afterthought - was Gerry's quartet without piano because he, unconsciously, even in the Fifties, was saving a place for Dave Brubeck?

- Joachim E. Berendt

Live In Concert

After twenty years and more than two score albums apiece you might well question the reasoning behind yet another recording by Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan. The spontaneous nature of jazz, however, demands that its heroes continually present their talents through the medium of records. Jazz enthusiasts are inquisitive individuals who continually look for change and development in the musicians they admire. They expect musicians to provide them with different experiences - although too drastic a change in direction can have an adverse listener reaction. A recording becomes a document of how a musician is performing - whether or not he felt like playing on the day he faced the microphone.

Live recordings are even more unpredictable as there are fewer controls. Creative musicians usually prefer the more natural surroundings of a concert hall and Dave Brubeck has certainly thrived on this situation. His whole approach to music is unpredictable and he loves to respond to the unexpected directions which can develop during the course of an improvisation. Interaction with an audience is a vital connecting link and he has often demonstrated this in the past ("Jazz Goes To College" and "The Dave Brubeck Quartet at Carnegie Hall" are two examples). Gerry Mulligan's viewpoint is similar. He has long been known as a champion of the jam session and in the earlier years at Newport could often be found directing strange assortments of musicians at one or other of the mansions playing host to late night festival parties.

In the past five years both Brubeck and Mulligan have moved away from the hassle of maintaining a permanent band, continual one nighters and all the usual hardships and pressures of living on the road. Their many successful years have obviously enabled them to live comfortably so that they can now pick and choose their musical activities.

The present quartet came together by accident. Brubeck needed a trio to work with him in his symphonic works and bassist Jack Six and drummer Alan Dawson were both recommended - probably without his actually hearing them. Their different backgrounds didn't interfere with Brubeck's concept and their approach has helped expand the rhythmic possibilities inherent in the music. The quartet was completed when George Wein booked Mulligan to work with the trio on a Mexican tour in 1968. Both Dave and Gerry wrote some fresh material for that tour and such pieces as "Indian Song" and "Lullaby of Mexico" remain in the repertoire. Since then the group has come together for special concerts, European tours and numerous festival appearances. This arrangement allowed all four musicians to pursue other activities as well as helping keep the musical approach of the quartet fresh and invigorating.

Perhaps, here, it would be valuable to draw attention to the contributions of the rhythm duo. Both Jack Six (the bassist) and Alan Dawson (the drummer) are lesser known musicians but their qualifications are admirable. Alan Dawson worked with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra before returning to Boston in the 1960s to take up a teaching position at the Berklee School of Music. Tony Williams, the extraordinary drummer who performed so consistently with the Miles Davis Quintet on such recordings as "Filles de Kilimanjaro", "Nefertiti" and "Miles Smiles", was taught by Dawson. Dawson's own prowess as a percussionist was first noticed by jazz enthusiasts when he recorded a series of albums with tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin but musicians had long been trying to persuade him to leave the city.

Jack Six was even less well known at the time he joined the quartet. The more astute jazz enthusiasts were aware of his collaboration with clarinetist Kenny Davern and pianist Dick Wellstood in The Jersey Ramblers, a highly innovative look at the jazz tradition. His musical qualifications include a music major from Julliard.

Musicians have always been enthusiastic about the response of European audiences and the reason for this isn't hard to find. They are serious about the music (it should be remembered that the first books to be written about jazz were by Europeans Panassie and Goffin), have a broad knowledge and are wildly enthusiastic. This latter quality is readily apparent on listening to the music in this two-record set. They know the repertoire and respond to the stimulating playing of all the musicians. The repertoire, of course, is a familiar one and most of the selections can be found on previous Brubeck albums but the stimulating ideas which are brought to the music counterbalance this repetition and provide a fascinating glimpse at the way in which jazz musicians approach their craft. It would be invidious to give special preference to any one selection but it is impossible to resist drawing attention to the sensitive lyricism of Mulligan's playing in Hoagy Carmichael's lovely "New Orleans". It epitomises the jazz muse and emphasises the timelessness of the central core of jazz expression.

It's strange how easily this music now fits into the central pattern of the jazz tradition. It wouldn't be unfair, or disparaging, to refer to -this music as the new "dixieland" - and this has nothing to do with such stalwarts as "Things Ain't What They Used To Be", "Limehouse Blues", "St. Louis Blues" and "Basin Street Blues" being in the repertoire. The improvisation methods employed by both Brubeck and Mulligan are now so familiar to everyone that the form of the music is entirely predictable. Consequently it is only when the musicians are playing at their highest levels that this kind of music has any real significance. Happily the music performed by both Brubeck and Mulligan at this concert falls into this category.

It was a different story when Brubeck and Mulligan began their careers. Both, in their separate ways, were regarded as somewhat revolutionary. They certainly reflected the jazz spirit of the early 1950s. Dave Brubeck first gained recognition in San Francisco where he led an experimental octet which owed a lot of its inspiration to the pianist's involvement with such classical composers as Milhaud and Schoenberg. These influences were always apparent in the highly successful quartet with alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Their cool,, detached approach was a fresh sound at the time.

During this same period Gerry Mulligan had brought to fruition ideas which he had been investigating in New York for several years. His arrangements for the Gene Krupa band and Miles Davis' now famous "Birth Of The Cool" workshop orchestra were precursors of his pianoless quartet which rose to international popularity following their West Coast.debut in 1952. Dropping the piano was a revolutionary step at that time but Mulligan felt it gave him greater freedom to weave contrapuntal lines with trumpeter Chet Baker (and later trombonist Bob Brookmeyer). It certainly meant a clean, precise sound something which jazz musicians were striving for at the time.

Today it's a different story. Outward emotion and strong expressionism have returned with the passing of the years and both Brubeck and Mulligan have responded to the influence of younger ideas which are apparent in "Blessed Are The Poor" and "Out Of The Way Of The People". No longer does Mulligan seem to find the piano an intrusion in his lines and the rapport which has developed between him and Brubeck has proved beneficial to both musicians.

1. Truth
2. Unfinished Woman
3. Koto Song - GM does not appear
4. Take Five
5. Rotterdam Blues
6. Sweet Georgia Brown

 LINER NOTES

He has had it all: the swift rise from local acceptance (in San Francisco) to national prominence and world-wide acclaim; the poll victories year after year, the meetings with ambassadors and royalty, the Time cover story, the police escorts, the insatiable crowds who kept him playing encores and signing autographs long beyond the deadline.

When the quartet disbanded at the end of 1967 after 17 years of catalytic artistic achievement, Dave and Iola Brubeck worked together on their most serious challenges: a contemporary oratorio, "The Light in The Wilderness," its text adapted from the scriptures; and the cantata "Truth is Fallen" with its heady mix of piano, rock group, soprano, chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony. No less moving than the cantata itself was the eloquent written statement that accompanied it, baring their souls in an assessment of the social, political, religious and musical significance of the cantata.

Brubeck's involvement with ambitious works as a composer on this scale has not induced him to sever his ties with jazz - the music that elevated him to a level of security at which he could afford to devote his time to these new enterprises. And so, in the fall of 1972, by agreement with George Wein, he led one of the six combos that took to the road (or rather the skies) for yet another overseas Newport Jazz Festival tour.

His outline of the itinerary was enough to give the listener a severe case of jet lag. Running into him in Berlin (I tagged along with the Wein junket for a couple of weeks) I found Dave in a rare moment of relaxation at his hotel. "I'm so used to this kind of schedule it really doesn't faze me," he said. "We started in New Zealand, Australia and Japan; then after a brief stop in the United States we headed for Paris, London and a dozen other European dates.

"Parts of this tour are under State Department auspices, so in a sense history is repeating itself; you know, we were the first to play a. Eastern European country for the U.S. government, when we went to Poland in 1958. This time around we're headed for Belgrade."

It was in Belgrade that we met again a few nights later. Dave's concert (this was one of several dates on which he split the bill with Charles Mingus' group) attracted a typically responsive, capacity crowd. The fans were perhaps a little older than at a U.S. jazz festival; U.S. Ambassador Malcolm Toon and his wife were present; the State Television cameras rolled.

Brubeck's program that night was substantially similar to the assembly of Berlin, Paris and Rotterdam tapings on these sides. The group was, in effect, a blend of the old quartet with Paul Desmond; the newer unit with Gerry Mulligan that has played together off and on since 1968; and, of course, the rare and delightful quintet sound distilled on the numbers involving both horns. The Mulligan-Desmond interplay (first commemorated when they co-starred in the memorable "Two of a Mind" LP for RCA in 1962) is beguilingly in evidence on Truth, a very free adaptation of the track from Dave's oratorio entitled Truth (Planets Are Spinning). The theme is used only as a brief point of departure; improvisation reaches several heady peaks of creativity. Brubeck makes characteristic use of space, playing complex but, on the surface, deceptively simple tricks with time, and benefiting from the extraordinarily sensitive consistency of Alan Dawson's percussive accents. The Jack Six bass solo (Jack, incidentally, played in the premiere performance of the oratorio) sustain. the level of intensity until Brubeck, in a puckish, almost Monk-like mood, returns to center stage.

Unfinished Woman is a Mulligan composition blessed with a charm and lack of pretension that I have always admired in him. Its basis is a happy, almost old-fashioned syncopated riff, with Dave taking over as Paul and Gerry offer their counterpoint comments.

Koto Song, first introduced by the old quartet in the "Jazz Impressions of Japan" album, was described then by Dave as "a blues related to the delicate music I heard performed by two Japanese girls in Kyoto. Of the classical instruments I heard, I was most fascinated by the koto... Koto Song is the most consciously Japanese of these pieces, and tinged with a bit of sentimental sadness at leaving our new friends." Another version, recorded live in Germany in 1966, was issued in the "Brubeck Summit Sessions" LP; but this new interpretation is probably the best, bringing out all the element of Paul's elegant style, nonaggressive sound and ability to create sinuous melodic lines.

Take Five is, of course, another rerun, one that we see now in a 13 year perspective. The "Time Out" album was released in January of 1960. As Dave now recalls: "That entire LP was an ice breaker. Even Paul Desmond didn't realize at the time the significance of what he had achieved by producing a hit record - and a great composition - in 5/4 time. Steve Race, who wrote the notes, called the whole album an experiment that might be regarded as more than an arrow pointing to the future. He said something great had been attempted and achieved."

Even today, when 5/4 can be felt and played competently and comfortably by high school bands (many of whom also deal with 9/4, 7/4 and other meters that seemed impossibly exotic in the days of Desmond's venture), the original composition has a special character, one that takes on a new dimension with the unison and harmony passages by Gerry and Paul.

Dave might be expected by now to have tired of responding to this most-requested of works, yet he says: "We really still enjoy playing it - and you've heard what kind of audience reaction it still receives wherever we go.

Of all the concerts on the route, none was more wildly acclaimed than the Rotterdam date. As Dave recalls it, "They just wouldn't let us off the stage. We must have played at least 40 minutes of encores.

"In fact, Rotterdam Blues begins with just me at the piano after I'd returned for another bow; the rhythm section and horns came in later, and the entire thing was completely spontaneous, but I think it resulted in some terrific blues solos." Bru's estimate is correct; good humor, funkiness and spirited blowing were the order of the night. The power of positive swinging, generated by the leader and picked up by his sidemen, has rarely if ever been more accurately pinpointed.

Since even this supposedly final encore would not satisfy the Rotterdam fans, Dave administered one brief, good-humored coup de grace, playing a single unaccompanied chorus of Sweet Georgia Brown. "I don't know how it happened to come to mind; I probably hadn't played this tune since my trio days over twenty years ago. But it just seemed like fun to do it."

None of us who heard and witnessed the pleasure Dave and his musicians shared during this tour can believe that the five will not reunite at some point in time, even though Dave presently is involved in a different and particularly rewarding venture. His "Two Generations of Brubeck" concerts, with major contributions by Chris Brubeck (whose New Heavenly Blue rock group contributed to "Truth is Fallen") and Darius Brubeck (named for Dave's teacher) are spanning two generation. not only onstage but, logically, in the audiences they attract.

I doubt that Dave Brubeck will ever reject or neglect any area of music with which he has ever been associated. He is the product of a multiple cultural heritage and social milieu; just as his oratorio transcends sectarian religious boundaries, his music will remain neither exclusively jazz nor classical, traditional nor avant garde, neither black nor white, but rather a summation of all he has absorbed during 40 years in and around music (almost 30 of them as a professional).

I took forward eagerly to an album entitled "We're All Together Once More for the First Time Again."

1. Blues For Blueport
2. All The Things You Are
3. Blues
4. Take The "A" Train
5. LIne For Lyons
6. Jumping Beans

November 4, 1972

1. Sapito - "Compadres" - May, 1968
2. Recuerdo - "Compadres" - May, 1968
3. St. Louis Blues - "Berlin Philharmonic" - 1970

 LINER NOTES

Sapito

This is a Gery mulligan tune from the period when we were billed as the Dave Brubeck Trio featuring Gerry Mulligan. After the quartet disbanded I thought I was going to take a lot of time off. But Gorge Wein called me and said, "Dave, I need you in Mexico, I've got Mulligan - would you play with him if I got a rhythm section down there?" And I said, "I know of a good bass player, Jack Six, but I don't have a drummer. Don't just get me a great drummer, get me a great person who's a great drummer."

Wein's wife Joyce called me back and said, "George told me what you're looking for. I have the perfect guy for you: Alan Dawson!" That's how the group came about. And she was right about Alan. I took the Mexican tour because I thought I owed George Wein from the days when i was starving and he'd hired the quartet.

Well, Gerry started writing for the group, and I started writing, also. We played so well togther, we were more than ready for the Mexican audience, even though we were playing all new material. Of course, we stayed together after that for several years.

Recuerdo

I wrote that tune specifically for these Mexican concerts; it means "remembrance" or "souvenir", and just keeps repeating the rythm of that word. Gerry always answers me a beat late on purpose. So we've got a canon in one bar. People were leaving the concert hall singing "recuerdo, recurdo."

St. Louis Blues

I love to play "St. Louis Blues" - I've used it for years on most concerts, as an opener or a closer or somewhere in between. I was touched to receive a note from the heirs of W.C Handy, the composer, thanking me for my many performance of Handy's composition.

• Theme For Jobim

 LINER NOTES

"Theme For Jobim"

1. Recuerdo - May, 1968
2. St. Louis Blues - November, 1970

 LINER NOTES

By early 1954, when the first of these pieces was recorded, the Dave Brubeck Quartet had become a part of the lives of a generation. The American ear had been conditioned through a couple of decades in which a remarkably high percentage of popular music was also music of quality. The acceptance of the quartet was an extension of that phenomenon. But when fame found the quartet, the fortuitous and unlikely symbiosis of quality and mass popularity was about to end.

It would be a long time, if ever, before popular music and jazz were again synonymous. There is significance in the fact that one of the rare latter-day exceptions was when, in the early 1960s, "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo A La Turk" put the Brubeck Quartet on the pop charts.

Fortunately for Brubeck, and for listeners who admired his music, there was a momentum. Through its immense popularity with college students and other people their age, the quartet had built a cadre of fans who followed them even into the rock and roll era. There were legions of young people, led by peer pressures and trends of the times to become rock fans, who refused to be weaned away from jazz or from pop music based in jazz values.

How popular were Brubeck and the quartet? In 1954, when television was an infant without much influence, print was king in the information business and no mass-circulation magazine was more influential than TIME. Brubeck was the magazine's cover story in the November 8,1954, issue. A cover story in TIME was a national event that brought the subject massive attention. Brubeck was catapulted beyond the jazz audience into the public consciousness. People who had paid little or no attention to jazz began buying Brubeck records.

With Time Out, recorded in 1959, the quartet became the first instrumental group to sell a million records. Demand was so great that the band was on the road virtually without surcease for years. The road was global. It led to every nook and cranny of the United States and to India, Poland, Japan, Mexico, Germany, Holland, Argentina, and most of the rest of the United Nations. In a throwback to the swing era, when leaders and sidemen became household names, Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Eugene Wright and Joe Morello were among the best known musicians in the world.

Brubeck's influence can be heard whenever a musician improvises in 5/4, 7/4, 9/8 or the other unconventional time signatures to whose possibilities he opened the ears of the jazz community. It can be heard in the playing of Bill Evans and Herbie Hancock, to name just two of the pianists who have acknowledged the importance of Brubeck's example and have, in turn, influenced new generations of jazz players. It is obvious in the nearly infinite number of times his compositions, particularly "In Your Own Sweet Way," are recorded by others. His impact increases as time continues to disclose the importance of his contributions.

Brubeck's controversial musical direction was set long before he appeared on the cover of TIME. Every element already was present in his music when he was unknown and struggling in 1946; off-center time signatures, polytonality, polyrhythms, wild improvisational transformations of standard songs. Listening to Brubeck recordings from 1946 to the present provides a sense of continuity and fidelity to high standards.

The son of a Northern California cattle rancher, Brubeck was born in 1920 and by the age of 13 was a working cowboy and musician. The ranch had a lasting influence on his musical development.

"The first polyrhythms I thought about were when I was riding horseback. The gait was usually a fast walk, maybe a trot," he says, "and I would sing against that constant gait of the horse. Except when one of the cattle would break away from the herd, then I'd have to round it up. There was nothing to do but think, and I'd improvise melodies and rhythms."

He even learned from a little gasoline engine that drove the pump that filled the stock tanks with water.

"That little engine was an incredible generator of rhythms. It would take a couple of hours for one of those water tanks to fill. I'd sit there in the shade of the tank listening to the engine and putting other rhythms against it."

Another element that would manifest itself in Brubeck's work was Native American music. His father's top cowhand was a Miwok named Al Walloupe, who taught young Dave Indian songs and became a lifelong influence.

Both of Dave's older brothers had become musicians. It was his assumption and his father's hope that Dave would be the son to continue the ranching tradition. But music tugged at him more strongly than veterinary medicine, the major he declared at College of the Pacific in Stockton, California. He switched to the music department.

His only formal music study had been piano lessons from his mother, a talented and respected teacher. As a child, his ear was so good and his eyesight so bad that he pretended to be reading. Convinced that he was going to be a cowboy anyway, his mother stopped giving him lessons and he pursued music on his own, playing in local bands and exploring harmony, but only by ear. Brubeck and formal theory were strangers. He continued to fake reading.

That caused him difficulty with his professors, some of whom were less than enchanted with this wild boy who lived with three other music students in a bunker-like basement called "the bomb shelter' and who often fell asleep in class because he'd been up late playing in some club. Many on the faculty were impressed with Brubeck's ability to answer questions by playing answers at the keyboard. Nonetheless, his failure to solve problems using pen and manuscript paper caused controversy among the teachers. When in a keyboard class in his senior year it was discovered that he couldn't read music, the dean informed him that he would not be graduating. But the ear training and composition professor and the counterpoint teacher teamed up to convince the dean that Dave had a brilliant aptitude for counterpoint and harmony. He was allowed to graduate with the proviso that he promise "never to teach and embarrass the conservatory." He promised. He has never taught, except by example.

After graduating with a music degree, after the Army, Brubeck methodically and painfully taught himself to read music, 'Because of my eyes, I was a hard person to train," he says, "whether it was shooting a rifle, playing sports or playing the piano. I always had to do everything my own way. The way I taught myself to read music was by writing music.".

Now, he has so much facility with written music that he can produce it on airplanes. The floor of his music room is often covered with freshly inscribed manuscript paper and he has turned out a body of compositions that includes everything from piano works to long-form pieces for orchestra and chorus.

Following a World War II Army career that he began as a musician - went overseas as a rifleman and ended as a band leader - Brubeck in 1946 entered Mills College in Oakland, California, under the GI Bill. The attraction for him was Darius Milhaud, one of the greatest 20th century composers, who was in residence at Mills. Dave's brother Howard and the composer/arranger Pete Rugolo were Milhaud's first male graduate students at the women's school, and Howard stayed on as Milhaud's assistant..

At 26, Brubeck still couldn't read well, but Milhaud immediately spotted his potential and insisted that he learn compositional theory and put it to practice. The practice was in writing for a medium-sized band that Brubeck and other students formed as an outlet for their composing. The theory was employed along with counterpoint, polyrhythms, polytonality and Brubeck's native feeling for swing. Initially called "The 8," the band became the Dave Brubeck Octet. The other Mills members were Bill Smith, Jack Weeks, Dave Van Kriedt and Dick Collins. From the Bay Area jazz community they added Cal Tjader, Bob Collins, Ron Crotty, Paul Desmond and Bob Cummings. Desmond and Cummings alternated on alto saxophone..

The octet was a laboratory for Brubeck's, Van Kriedt's, Smith's and Weeks' developing musical ideas. It had few paying jobs, but it made records that to this day sound advanced, and it created relationships that led to the Dave Brubeck trio and, ultimately, to the quartet with which Brubeck finally found wide acceptance..

Brubeck and Desmond met in a jam session in 1944, shortly after D-Day, at the Presidio in San Francisco. Desmond was stationed there. Brubeck was passing through on his way to Europe from Camp Hahn in Southern California. In 1947, after the war, in addition to being in the octet, the two played together frequently when Desmond sat in with The Three Ds, a band Brubeck worked with at the Geary Cellar in San Francisco. Years later, Desmond told me that the first time he sat in with Brubeck, the empathy was total and the celebrated counterpoint that marked their association for 30 years happened that night spontaneously..

In 1949, the two began working together regularly at The Band Box, a club in Palo Alto, with Desmond in charge. It was the last time, except for scattered record dates, that Paul would work as a leader for more than 20 years..

They further developed the ESP that had manifested itself at the Geary Cellar. Brubeck remembers the music during the three weeks of the Band Box engagement much as Desmond recalled it in a 1960 Down Beat magazine interview with the great jazz pianist Marian McPartland who in those days occasionally wrote articles..

"I have a memory of several nights that seemed fantastic, and I don't feel that way too often," Desmond told Marian. "I'd give anything for a tape of one of those nights now, just to see what was really going on..

"I know we were playing a lot of counterpoint on almost every tune, and the general level was a lot more loud, emotional and unsubtle then. I was always screaming away at the top of the horn, and Dave would be constructing something behind me in three keys. Sometimes I had to plead with him to play something more simple behind me..

"It seemed pretty wild at the time; it was one of those few jobs where you really hated to stop - we'd keep playing on the theme until they practically threw us off the stand..

"Anyway, that's where the empathy between Dave and me began, and it's survived a remarkable amount of pulling and pushing in the 11 years or so since.".

Pulling and pushing and scuffling. Brubeck had given up the Geary Cellar job to work for less money with Desmond at The Band Box. When Desmond pulled out and took the band with him to another gig, Brubeck was left without prospects for supporting his wife, Iola, and two young boys. Finally, he got a job at a resort club in Lake County. It paid scale and the use of the place where he and his family could stay. The accommodations turned out to be a tin shed with no windows, too hot for habitation in the daytime and barely endurable at night..

From 1946 to 1949, the octet played only four concerts. At the last one, a young disc jockey named Jimmy Lyons was so enthused that he persuaded KNBC radio to launch a weekly program called "Lyons Busy," with music by the octet's rhythm section. That was the beginning of the Dave Brubeck Trio, with Ron Crotty on bass and Cal Tjader playing drums. They made two records for the small Coronet label. The four sides attracted enough attention that Brubeck, with the help of Max and Sol Weiss (who had been pressers of records for other companies), scraped up $350 and bought the masters..

Dave and the Weisses decided to start their own label. The first releases on Fantasy Records were reissues of Brubeck's Coronet sides, "Indiana," "Laura,' "Tea For Two" and "Blue Moon," followed by original recordings of the Brubeck Trio. Down Beat and Metronome began to pay attention. Three of the trio's records were on Metronome's list of the best of 1951, before Brubeck and Desmond finally got together again..

In the meantime, Desmond was on the road with Jack Fine and Alvino Rey, and the Brubecks were broiling in a metal enclosure up at Clear Lake. Then, Jimmy Lyons got the trio a job at the Burma Lounge in Oakland. Their live music on the "Lyons Busy' show brought into the club crowds of sailors on liberty who had heard the broadcasts on board their ships in the Pacific. The number of Brubeck's fans was substantially increased by those servicemen, who kept coming back and bringing their buddies with them. Later, the trio moved to the Blackhawk in San Francisco and worked at The Haig in Los Angeles. After Desmond returned to the West Coast, he sat in with the trio, but there wasn't enough work to make the band a full-time quartet..

While the trio was working in Honolulu, Brubeck had a swimming accident that seriously injured his back and neck, which disabled him for months. Tjader and Jack Weeks, who had been playing bass with the trio in Hawaii, returned to the mainland and went on to other work. From his hospital room in Hawaii, on his back, in traction, painfully scribbling, Brubeck wrote Desmond a note: 'Maybe now we can start the quartet." Desmond kept that note until the day he died..

With Weeks, Crotty and Tjader all otherwise occupied, Brubeck had to go through a rebuilding process. In the first round, Fred Dutton and Herb Barman played bass and drums. Before long,Barman was replaced by Lloyd Davis and then Joe Dodge on drums. At various times, Wyatt 'Bull" Ruther, Crotty again and the brothers Norman and Bob Bates filled the bass chair. Dodge and both Bates brothers are heard in this collection..

The Blackhawk became home for the quartet. They worked there as much as six months of the year, with forays into Southern California, Washington and Oregon. By the end of 1951, on the strength of its Fantasy recordings, radio shots and word of mouth, the band began to get bookings in other parts of the country. It had freshness and audacity that provided the element of surprise demanded by jazz audiences.

It was often a long way between clubs, and the band bus was Dave's big old Kaiser automobile. Although the quartet played its share of dumps, there were also engagements at establishments Brubeck recalls fondly, including the old Blue Note in Chicago, Storyville in Boston and, among black clubs in the South, the one in the WaLaHaGe Hotel in Atlanta..

By 1954, things were going well enough that Brubeck was able to install his family in a house in the Oakland Hills. Now, there were six Brubecks, Catherine and Christopher having joined Darius and Michael. Danny and Matthew were yet to come. Dave and his family liked the Bay Area. He was considering ignoring the harbingers of national success and staying put..

When TIME magazine, to Brubeck's astonishment, put him on its cover in 1954, he went overnight from increasing recognition in jazz to nationwide celebrity. By then, he and the Weiss brothers of Fantasy had separated amicably so that he could sign with Columbia Records. The Quartet's first album for a major label, Jazz Goes To College, created a considerable stir and reinforced the band's already sizeable popularity with college students and their contemporaries. Brubeck had won the Metronome poll in 1953 as a pianist. Now his band began winning Down Beat and Metronome polls regularly, and Desmond became a perennial winner in the alto saxophone category..

In 1956, Joe Dodge decided he wanted to get off the road. Joe Morello left Marian McPartiand to take over the Brubeck drum slot, with Norman Bates continuing on bass. When Bates left in 1958, Brubeck hired Eugene Wright, who had distinguished himself in a career that included stints with Count Basie, Gene Ammons, Buddy DeFranco, Red Norvo, Arnett Cobb and, just before accepting Dave's offer, a three-year run with Cal Tjader. What was to be the most lasting and famous edition of the Dave Brubeck Quartet was in place and positioned for major success..

Brubeck, still attached to his home in the Oakland hills and to his native region, was undecided whether to make an all-out effort. His attorney convinced him that the only way to pay off his debts and put his many children through college was to move East, closer to the sources of work in clubs and colleges where the quartet was in demand. They could rent the Oakland house, he said, and come back if the move didn't work out. Dave and Iola took a deep breath, packed up, gathered the kids and moved to Connecticut..

It worked out. Dave's career took off. Record sales jumped. Club dates diminished as demand for the quartet grew in concert halls. "Take Five" was the first jazz record in years to become a hit. Eventually the Brubecks sold the Oakland place. They lived for a time in a sort of artists colony in the woods of New England. Then, on a big piece of land in the rolling hills of Wilton, Connecticut, they built a house named by Desmond, and called ever since, The Wilton Hilton. Paul, the quintessential apartment dweller, left San Francisco for new digs on the top floor of a building in midtown Manhattan. Through all the changes of bassists and drummers, the constant in the quartet was the relationship between Brubeck and Desmond. On a personal level, it was strong enough to be revived after the youthful irresponsibilities of Desmond's brief leadership period, when he pulled the band out from under Brubeck at the Band Box. Musically, Dave had been enchanted from the beginning with Paul's lyricism, the intuition that made him a perfect counterpoint partner, and the ear that led him through even the most unconventional of Brubeck's harmonic enterprises.

Desmond frequently pointed out that his friend was, among other things, an accompanist of remarkable generosity, sensitivity and attentiveness. "You can play the wrongest note possible in any chord, and he can make it sound like the only right one," he told Marian McPartiand in the Down Beat interview.

The outstanding example of those attributes in this collection is "Le Souk," which is often and correctly cited as one of Desmond's greatest works of imagination.

Upon close listening, the importance of Brubeck's contribution to Desmond's "Le Souk' solo is obvious. This is essentially a performance without a plan. The piece wasn't composed, or even discussed. It was made up of a collection of oddments, chords that happened to be lying around, as it were, and if Columbia hadn't been taping, it would have disappeared into the air. Brubeck's task was not merely to listen closely to this Middle Eastern fantasy that Desmond was concocting but to anticipate where the magic carpet might go next and keep it from crashing. He did it with such balance and keen suggestiveness that the crowd's big roar at the conclusion of Brubeck's own solo rightly belonged to the way he helped Desmond sustain a remarkable burst of inspiration.

Morello had misgivings about joining Brubeck. He was concerned that drummers in Dave's band had always been, as he put it to me years later, "out to lunch in the background." Brubeck assured him that he would be featured. In Morello's early days with the quartet, there was a long period of tension. Despite the fact that Desmond had recommended Morello, he and Norman Bates almost quit over Brubeck's encouragement of drum solos to showcase Morello's virtuosity. For Desmond, ideal drumming consisted of a steady beat, the quieter the better. Morello had no intention of hiding his paradiddles and flams under a bushel. He sometimes played fills during Desmond's solos, and his volume was not what Paul considered discreet.

Brubeck arranged what he has called an "armistice' that lasted for years. It was described by Robert Rice in a New Yorker profile: "...bloody war was likely to rage whenever the quartet played, with Brubeck doing his best to mediate between Morello on the one hand and Bates and Desmond on the other."

Over the years, the animosity dissolved in respect for one another's abilities. In the final years of the band Desmond and Morello became friends, to Brubeck's relief and gratification. The friendship deepened during a 25th anniversary reunion tour of the quartet in 1976. Brubeck says that when Desmond died of lung cancer the following year, Morello was devastated.

'I think the world of Paul,' Joe told me in 1992.

"No, it's more than that. I loved the guy."

Shortly after Gene Wright joined the band in 1958, the State Department sent them on a tour of Europe and Asia. It was the beginning of an international odyssey that continued until the group disbanded in 1967. Later tours took them to South America, Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, Australia and behind the Iron Curtain to Poland, Yugoslavia, Hungary and Romania. In 1987, Brubeck finally made it to what had been the Soviet Union - with a triumphant three week tour. In 1988, he returned to perform for Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev at the Moscow Summit.

Following the 1967 breakup of the quartet, Brubeck concentrated on composing and performing largescale religious and secular works while still maintaining an active tour schedule. From the late 1960s to the early '70s, he played frequently with baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, a contemporary whose quartet in the 1950s had been as well known as Brubeck's. They performed and recorded with bassist Jack Six and drummer Alan Dawson.

There was also a period during which Dave toured with his sons, Darius, Chris and Danny in a band billed as Two Generations of Brubecks. Each of the boys has long since established a successful career in music. A younger son, Matthew, has an admirable reputation as a cellist.

Halfway through the 1990s, approaching his mid-seventies, Brubeck was working as much as he cared to, and that seemed to be a lot. He continued to compose new music including songs, chamber music and ballets. His quartet with saxophonist Bobby Militello or clarinetist Bill Smith, Six on bass and drummer Randy Jones, continued to perform throughout the world. Brubeck began working selected clubs again, finding rewards in the creative stimulation of small, attentive audiences.

For Dave Brubeck, the musical development that began with the rhythms of the ranch has never stopped. Nor have the rewards to his audience, which is everywhere.

1. Blues For Newport
2. Take Five
3. Open The Gates (Out of the way of the People)

 LINER NOTES

Before Dave Brubeck made his appearance at Newport on the fateful night of July 3rd, Bill Chase and his jazz/rock group had just finished playing one of the most exciting opening sets that we ever had at the Newport Jazz Festival. Dave was visibly affected by the reaction of the audience and the enormous volume of sound that came from the incredible amount of electronic equipment that Chase used in their performance. Dave asked me to please turn up the sound system as loud as possible so that his tiny quartet would not appear dwarfed by the sound of the previous group. I told him to forget it and go out and "wail". The excitement of the evening caught hold of Dave and his entire group and when they started to play the intensity and inner electricity of Mulligan, Brubeck, Jack Six and Alan Dawson completely wiped out anything that had happened on that stage prior to their arrival. I'm glad that the performance was preserved for this album.

1. Together
   (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan - June 29, 1994)
2. Gerry-Go-Round
   (Dave Brubeck, Chris Brubeck, Randy Jones, Gerry Mulligan - June 27, 1995)

 LINER NOTES

The concept for this album has gone through several metamorphoses and titles. It started as "Duets," and I recorded two of them with my old friends Gerry Mulligan and George Shearing before I began my Spring of '95 European tour. I submitted a "guest list" to Telarc, and while I was in Europe they began contacting the artists and checking their schedules against mine. John Snyder and Russell Gloyd, the producers of the album, decided that we should definitely include some of the "young lions" on the jazz scene. This was an exciting idea that I endorsed, but was hesitant about since I did not know most of them personally. We started thinking about calling the project "Full Circle," because, although different generations were represented, all were connected through our intertwining jazz roots.

The "young lions" of my day are now the "old tigers." Gerry Mulligan, my neighbor in Connecticut, and I have shared a similar history going back to the early '50s when we were identified with what became known as West Coast or "Cool" jazz. The popularity of George Shearing's Quintet in many ways paved the road for me and other small jazz groups. Over thirty years ago Jon Hendricks, as part of the Lambert-Hendricks-Ross vocal group, premiered and recorded "The Real Ambassadors," a jazz musical which my wife, Iola, and I wrote for Louis Armstrong. James Moody and I, although in separate groups, have toured together over forty years and four continents.

When we finally hit upon the title Young Lions & Old Tigers someone suggested the adjective "wise" should be substituted for "old." To my way of thinking, "old" is "wise" because in this business survival of the "cats" definitely follows the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest.

During my six weeks in Europe I started receiving news about the players who had accepted our invitation to record. I was delightfully surprised and decided that I would write a special tune for each of these artists. I have a pocket size music note pad which I carry with me and immediately put it to use.

We were traveling through Europe primarily by train. One morning, we were in the barn-like Frankfurt railway station when we happened to see Larry Clothier whom we have known for years as Carmen McRae's road manager. We asked him who he was touring with, and he answered "Roy Hargrove." I told him I'd just written a tribute to Roy based on the rhythm of his name, and that I'd like to meet him. We found him just as he was about to board his train. After a quick introduction I pulled the note pad out of my pocket and said, "Roy, I wrote a tune for you yesterday."

Roy looked at "Roy Hargrove," sang through it perfectly, smiled and said, "Yes, I can play this." That was quite an understatement. From that first quick glance, he made the tune his own. His trumpet sings the ballad like a human voice, then follows with a great jazz improvisation.

In '94 Jon Hendricks and I happened to be staying in the same hotel in Paris. The fiftieth anniversary of D-Day was being celebrated in France, and Jon was there to commemorate his landing at Normandy. I had landed three months after D-Day, so we had many war-time stories to relate. I invited Jon and his wife to come to our concert at the Champs Elysees Theatre that right. At the encores, I invited Jon on stage. When asked what he'd like to sing, to my surprise he answered, "'How High the Moon' - but as a ballad like the original."

The Parisian audience was so mesmerized by this rendition that I asked Jon to please repeat it for this recording so that it would be preserved. The result is a moving interpretation with emotional depth and fully explored lyrics rising from a melody that over the years has evolved through many bebop choruses and was transformed into Charlie Parker's "Ornithology." "Somewhere there's music..." the song begins, and Jon Hendricks found the source.

Jon was still in the studio when Michael Brecker walked in. They greeted each other as old friends. Jon recalled visiting the Brecker home and remembered hearing Michael and Randy when they were "young cubs" of about ten and twelve. I had played with Michael only once, ten years ago, in a jam session in Madarao, Japan, and I looked forward to another opportunity. On my train journeys in Europe I wrote the Michael Brecker Waltz because the syllables of his name, for me, are in the rhythm of a waltz.

His quickness and fluency was what I expected from Michael. Each chorus seemed to move into a higher gear and drove until the ending, which became even more adventurous than I had anticipated.

More good news! Christian McBride also accepted our invitation. I wrote a blues using the rhythm of "Christian Mc-Bride" and my manager-producer Russell Gloyd suggested the title "Here Comes McBride." It follows the same rhythm, so nothing had to be changed.

In writing the piece, I left spaces where Christian could slap the bass, which creates a great rhythmic pulse. I've always loved playing duets with great bassists, whether it be Eugene Wright ("Darktown Strutter's Ball") or Charlie Mingus ("Non-Sectarian Blues"). And here was young Christian stepping right into those "walking" shoes.

This spring we played in Graz, Austria, where one of the oldest universities in Europe is located. I was eating breakfast in the hotel when I felt a tap on my shoulder and was greeted by a man I'd never seen before except in posters in the hotel lobby. He said, "I'm Joe Lovano. I'm so happy we are going to be recording together." I told him it was sure to be a new experience for both of us. Then, he excused himself and said he was going to the University to teach a seminar at the Jazz Institute.

What is remarkable about the "Joe Lovano Tango" is that we had actually planned to record a completely different piece, but the night before the session I began repeating over to myself Joe Lovano's name, and it fell into a tango rhythm.

I finished Joe's tune in the car on the way into New York from my home in Connecticut. When we got into the recording studio, Joe looked at the music and asked me how I wanted the piece played. I said, "Not as a typical tango, but as more of a comment on the tango. You should feel free to take it any direction you want to go." The result is almost a Kurt Weill touch, with humor, but also with a darker shadow beneath the surface.

As far back as the late '40s and early '50s, George Shearing has been one of my favorite pianists. In an interview in Down Beat, 1957, 1 said. "I think we always will have a big debt of gratitude to Shearing. He helped make it possible for me to make it."So, when George chose to play my composition "in Your Own Sweet Way" for our duet, I was very flattered. Like most of this album, the first take was all that was necessary

The name "Joshua Redman" is clearly spelled out in the piano introduction.

We had finished the track with Christian McBride in ten minutes, so Joshua was telephoned and asked to come in to the studio earlier than scheduled. I had never met him, but certainly his reputation had come before him, as was true of all the "young lions." Joshua asked me what I expected with his melody, and I said "A plaintive, haunting quality." I got what I wished for and more. In his choruses you can hear Joshua reaching back and stretching ahead.

The 1928 pop tune "Together" was an obvious choice for Gerry Mulligan and me, because we have played together or opposite each other on the same bill for over forty years. Back in California days his quartet with Chet Baker and my quartet with Paul Desmond used to trade venues on the West Coast. Gerry and I have made many albums together and have toured together with Paul Desmond, Jack Six, Alan Dawson, and other musicians, including my sons. Just this year while on tour in Europe, we played a duet each of the nights our groups shared a concert.

James Moody. When I think of him I recall the first time I heard him "yodel" in a bluesy way. I also think of his strength as a great tenor saxophonist. Although James Moody may be one of the "old tigers," (it's no secret he's just had a big 70th birthday celebration at the Blue Note in New York), think how his musicality has kept him abreast of what's going on today. Maybe it's because he was always ahead of his time.

As I pondered James Moody's name I thought of how "moody" referred to a mental state that did not describe the James I knew, and began to write a song about it. Iola helped me complete the lyric to "Moody." Again, "take one" did the job!

I decided to write for Mulligan "Gerry-Go-Round," using his name as the rhythm of a musical round. I tried to keep the contrapuntal style Gerry has used so effectively throughout his career.

He was just finishing his own recording session for Telarc when we grabbed him and said, "Gerry, play this." He did. And the first take is what you hear.

Ronnie Buttacavoli's seven syllable name produced a longer theme than anyone else's.

Co-producer John Snyder had been raving about the sound Ronnie got on flugelhorn. From his work with singer Etta James, I knew he would be a very lyrical and sensitive musician. When I heard him warming up in the studio, I knew that the tune I wrote for him would work beautifully. After introductions, we immediately started to record.

The guest artists and I received great support from the rhythm section - Jack Six, bass and Randy Jones, drums, with my son Chris, appearing on electric bass on tracks nine, ten and eleven.

What amazes me about all these sessions was the remarkable ability of each artist to come into the studio, see something, often for the first time, and produce a performance that I can't imagine being any better if it had been played and rehearsed a thousand times- Young or old, lions or tigers, everyone bore the stripes of a true professional.

During the break at the second session, John Snyder suggested I play some solo piano. I recalled that old standard "Deep In A Dream," because, at first, recording with all these great musicians had seemed to me "an impossible dream," but now it was actually coming true.

Thank you, Young Lions & Old Tigers.

1. Lullaby de Mexico
   (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Jack Six, Alan Dawson - 1970)

1. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
   (Dave Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan - June 29, 1994)

 LINER NOTES

1. Limehouse Blues
2. Journey
3. Cross Ties
4. Broker Blues
5. Things Ain't What They Used To Be
6. Movin'
7. Blues Roots

 LINER NOTES

Dave Brubeck and the blues are old, old friends. He began his professional career playing the blues. He was a nineteen-year-old relief pianist in a club in Stockton, California, sustaining the mood between Cleo Brown's sessions of piano-playing and singing. The blues was Cleo's bag and Dave dug right into the blues, too. They both enjoyed the blues so much that Cleo often stayed on beyond her normal stint to play some four-handed boogie-woogie with Dave.

That was the beginning of Dave's conviction that the greatest statements in jazz are usually blues-based.

"The people that I've liked most," he pointed out recently, "people like Charlie Parker and Art Tatum, moved me the most when they played the blues. It's the greatest form in jazz because it's the simplest form. And because of its simplicity, it gives you the greatest freedom. The musician and the audience both know the form so well that all the complexities that the musician gets involved in can be felt and understood by the audience."

During the seventeen years that he led the Dave Brubeck Quartet, the fact that he was working out of a jazz musician's natural wellspring, the blues, was often obscured by the emphasis placed on his use of classical devices and his ventures into unusual time signatures.

But the blues was always at the root of everything he played. It had to be because that's where Dave began as a jazz musician. And this was never more evident than when he recorded with such completely blues-oriented musicians as Louis Armstrong and Jimmy Rushing.

This session with Gerry Mulligan took both of them back to their blues roots. Some of Gerry's earliest influences were the Jimmie Lunceford band and Jack Teagarden. The rolling swagger of his baritone saxophone has always been colored by at least a touch of the blues. Even when settled on the West Coast early in the 1950's, leading the quartet that - along with the Brubeck quartet - helped to establish the cool sound of West Coast jazz, the blues kept drifting through almost everything that Gerry played.

For both Dave and Gerry, the opportunity to focus on the blues gave them the stimulation that comes from real freedom. This was the first time that this group, with Jack Six on bass and Alan Dawson on drums, had recorded in a studio. (Its only other album, Compadres, CS 9704, was made at a series of concerts in Mexico). But, largely because of the easy, old-shoe relationship that both of them have toward the blues, they found that a return to the real fundamentals of jazz created an excitement that is reflected in their playing.

"You really get to your roots this way!" Dave exclaimed as he listened to the playback of Blues Roots on which he uses a piano that is given a honky-tonk sound by spreading strips of copper over the strings. "I dig the way I play on that old piano.

"And notice that ending!" he added happily. "It's just like you always had to end the blues in the old days."

The sense of freedom was increased by the fact that Dave's musical relationship with Gerry is developing in a different fashion than his relationship with Paul Desmond in the old Brubeck Quartet.

"Gerry," Dave explained, "loves to play and he gets very impatient. He keeps coming in on my solos all the time and I'm kind of digging it. Paul never interrupted me and I never interrupted Paul. But now I'm beginning to interrupt Gerry.

"In the old quartet, Paul and I left each other alone in our solos. For a while we had some improvised counterpoint but that kind of faded away because we liked the rhythm guys to stay out of it and they got bored.

"But in this group nobody cares if the bass player is on the root or if the drummer keeps the beat, so we can make the transition to complete freedom. Now we're going more and more to free improvisation. Sometimes we really sound like the new approach, but the way we do it is harder because we always keep a structure underneath so the listener has something to relate to.

Although the billing of the group is "The Dave Brubeck Trio featuring Gerry Mulligan," Brubeck invariably refers to it as "the quartet." He is thinking of it now in more long-range terms than when it was first put together in the spring of 1968 to play a few concerts in Charlotte, New Orleans and Mexico. Then Mulligan seemed to be a visitor whose place might be taken by someone else at other concerts. But he is settling in as a regular part of the format.

"I never thought things would work out this way with Gerry," Dave admitted. "He hates piano players."

-Willis Johnson

NOTE: An interesting comment on Dave's blues-playing comes from none other than Willie "The Lion" Smith, who practically invented the piano, He made the following statement in Leonard Feather's Downbeat Blindfold Test:

DAVE BRUBECK. ST. LOUIS BLUES (COLUMBIA). Paul Desmond, alto, Norman Bates, bass.

WILLIE "THE LION" SMITH: I give them five [stars], and if they were all put on the stage together, they would capture the prize anywhere -not only in a concert hall, but in a back room or any place. They upset me ... the minute they start playing, that feeling and beat is there.

I like the piano because he plays like the guys I told you about at the brickyards in Haverstraw, New York, where the blues was born ... he has heavy hands, but hits some beautiful chords ... you could put this on at anybody's house, and they'd dance all night.