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The Spectacle Blog
Jazz legend Dave Brubeck passed away today of heart failure one day shy of his 92nd birthday.
Brubeck is best known for the landmark 1959 album Time Out which showcased his experimentation with time signatures. Time Out features songs like “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, “Three to Get Ready” and, most famously of all, the Paul Desmond penned “Take Five”.
Some other notable Brubeck tunes include “Camptown Races”, “It’s a Raggy Waltz” and “Unsquare Dance”.
In June 2010, I had the good fortune of seeing Brubeck in concert with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at Symphony Hall. By this point, Brubeck’s health had become frail and he had to be assisted to the piano. But once he started playing his timeless music, the years just fell away.
UPDATE: In a 2005 interview with the AP, Brubeck likened jazz to democracy:
Jazz is about freedom within discipline. Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom, democracy and the United States.
Many people don’t understand how disciplined you have to be to play jazz….And that is really the idea of democracy - freedom within the Constitution or discipline. You don’t just get out there and do anything you want.
Words of wisdom. Now it is up to us to ensure this wisdom doesn’t die with Dave Brubeck.
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More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/12/05/dave-brubeck-rip
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Bob K| 12.5.12 @ 11:52PM
Regarding his commentary on Democracy: In 1958 in Poland, Brubeck recorded Brandenburg Gate. The recording came out shortly thereafter and it was the first time I heard him.
RIP
spike59| 12.6.12 @ 5:38AM
My tiny high school in Maine was not considered a 'major athletic power', although we did win a few state championships here and there...but we had a jazz band that was second to none, and the fact that our band leader followed Dave Burbeck's theme of 'freedom within discipline' was the major reason-my schoolmates weren't the most talented musicians to ever come down the pike, but they worked hard, and kept the sound tight-even a dedicated rocker like myself and my friends, none of us jazz fans, had a great deal of admiration for their hard work and discipline-maybe if we had applied those lessons to ourselves, we could have found success. My prayers go out for his family and friends. He will be sorely missed
Glen H| 12.6.12 @ 11:26AM
Album is Time Out. Desmond hit is Take Five.