The American Spectator

p> TAKE IT FROM THE TOP br> Re: Christopher Orlet’s Take 85 and Michael Presley’s letter (under “Brubeck at 85”) in Reader Mail’s All That Jazz : /p>

Chris Orlet’s article on the great Dave Brubeck was an absolute delight! I loved “Take 5” many years ago when it was the first jazz piece to hit the top of the pop charts, but I never really got into his music until high school. During an arts and humanities class, the teacher (who happened to be the school’s band director and later became the long-time president of the Northeast Ohio Jazz Society) played a number of cuts from the marvelous “Jazz Impressions of Eurasia” album, all played during a State Department-sponsored trip for the Quartet (Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Gene Wright, and Joe Morello) through Europe and the Middle East in 1958. Brubeck’s use of various signatures and suggestions of the music of the nations the Quartet visited was stunning. For instance, he used overtures of Chopin in his piece “Dziekuje” (Polish for “Thank you”) which brought the audience in Warsaw to its feet with thunderous applause after he finished. Another piece, “Brandenburg Gate,” was extraordinary, and one could feel the power and conflict that emanated around that great Berlin structure over the centuries. “Gate” was exceeded only by the Quartet’s pairing with Brubeck’s brother Howard and his orchestra for a 20+ minute expansion of the original work which covered the entire side of a later album, “Brandenburg Gate — Revisited.” I owned most of the Quartet’s albums and thank God they’ve been released in CD, as I’ve worn out the original vinyls a long, long time ago.

p>To Dave Brubeck, a wonderful and heart-felt Happy 85th Birthday! I hope that I’m half that active when I hit that age. Come to think of it, I hope I’m half that active when I hit 55 next year! br> — Jim Bjaloncik br> Stow, Ohio /p>

Love Brubeck. Liked the article, but, OW! I winced when I read the sentence, “And then there was the race card to deal with.” Why, oh why, does “race” have to be on a “card” EVERY SINGLE TIME it comes up in discussion?