The British critic Benny Green remarked in 1958 that "posterity may well wonder how such a legend should have come about in the first place". Some jazz diehards loathed his music for its apparent betrayal of jazz's bluesy roots, and for what they saw as dilettantist flattery of an aspirational audience in its classical references. They featured unconventional rhythms (Take Five was in 5/4, Blue Rondo à La Turk in 9/8), coolly jazzy, smoky-sax melody, percussively emphatic piano-playing, and often a smattering of classical borrowings.īut Brubeck's journey had its hitches. Composed by Brubeck's then saxophonist Paul Desmond, Take Five was the triumph among a remarkable group of instrumentals the Brubeck group recorded at the height of its stardom between 19. Take Five has found its way into movies like Mighty Aphrodite, Pleasantville and Constantine, and into the aural wallpaper of restaurants and elevators everywhere - but it still sounds playfully fresh, turning the remarkable trick of swinging freely despite a treacherous metre. Since then, the classically-influenced Brubeck has written for choirs and symphony orchestras, for ballets and chamber groups, for his own long-running quartet and the ensemble featuring his three sons that gets together for high days and holidays, like tomorrow's Christmas show at London's Barbican. That's how it's been since his catchily tricksy jazz instrumentals perched alongside Ben E King and the Everly Brothers in the pop charts of the early 1960s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |