COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Telarc
ALBUM TITLE: Dave Brubeck
PERFORMER: Dave Brubeck (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: 83670
Brubeck recorded this album in single takes in 4 hours 50 minutes. Time was, that’s how jazz worked, and records were all the fresher and more interesting for it. These are fine performances by any standard, but especially impressive from an 86 year-old suffering great pain from an ankle injury.
The standards, with the possible exception of ‘This Love of Mine’ and ‘Indian Summer’, are familiar warhorses, while his own ‘Autumn in Our Town’ and ‘Summer Song’ are, if memory serves, updates of a beautiful theme he wrote for the score of the early-1960s TV series Mr Broadway, yet Brubeck sounds as if he is discovering every piece.
Less percussive than in the days of the classic College and Time albums, his playing still contains echoes of boogie and stride in angular, interlocking rhythmic figures. His melodic lines and harmonies evoke the Impressionists and even Chopin but are in essence pure Brubeck, timeless and unique.