Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner - Non Classical Dave Brubeck - Take Five

Like I said, 3 minutes. Let's examine some of your "literary genius" and "vast musical, technical expertise" in yoiur posts on this Forum aside from your Brubeck thread, which again, after all, you state nothing about the technical or theroetical aspects of the music:

Feb 16th: "First piece...very, very nice. Beautifully haunting"

Feb 16th: "I equate arrogance with human goodness. Don't tell me how good you are; SHOW me then I will really know and draw my own conclusions"

(Spoken like a true horse's rectum. Interesting statement coming from someone that never heard or read my posts or MP3s and formed a negative opinion based on nothing)

Feb 13th: "I could certainly live with this."

Feb 12th: "Great idea to have a piano chat room. I can't wait until it's up and running"

Shall I go on? Three minutes worth of jibberish in about 60 posts, aside from the gibberish in this thread, where again, true to form, you state nothing about music itself from any type of technical aspect. Shall we randomly examine one of my posts:

From the "Fast" thread:

"My right hand ascends with greater facility and control with the 3-4-5 fingers. Give that a try. Ascend in the right hand with (from c#) 3-4-3-4-5-3-4-3-4-3-4-5, etc.
The same is true of my left hand. Anatomically, the hands and entire arm mechanism is designed to do that at the keyboard, although pianists aren't trained in that manner (using the 5-4-3 fingers the same way as the 1-2-3 fingers). I know what you're thinking. The 4th finger is weak in comparison to the 3rd, etc. etc., and this might be true if you're playing at moderate to loud dynamic levels. But at the surface of the key, you must play with limited finger height (the fingers literally resting on the key's surfaces) to play extremely fast, thereby limiting excess motion and travel time between strokes. At this level, which is conducive to a range of pppp to mp, the 4th finger is just as useful and independent as the rest."

What's this? A post about the technical aspects of piano performance? In your expert opinion as a piano critic, what's your opinion on my commentary? Do you agree or disagree with me? Any comments, master musician?

Let's look at another one:

Originally posted by rintincop:
Your version of Lennie Tristano's "Scene and Variation" is brilliant. How did you conceive of it harmonicly? Do you not play it the same way twice? How do you come up with each block chord, do you employ some sort of harmonic method?
Is it written down?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you, Rin. I could approach it two different ways. One from a "jazz persepective", that is, harmonically, using chord substitution, or from a completely different aspect, that is, linearly, more the way Bartok built his 8 voice fugue on that 5 note motivic cell in the third movement of "Music for Percussion, Strings, and Celeste":

http://www.amazon.com/Bart%C3%B3k-Concerto-Orchestra-Percussion-Hungarian/dp/B000003FEJ/sr=8-1/qid=1170655990/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&s=music

Track 6

or Ives' Central Park in the Dark:

http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Ives-.../002-9248904-9085649?ie=UTF8&s=music

Track 10

Here's an amazing piece of music that started out as an improvisation. Here, the harmonic outgrowth is the byproduct of thematic deconstruction and then reconstructing thematic motivic overlays, block upon block:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEnTEY-XQXw

I usually approach "chording" from the latter perspective, that is as the harmonic outgrowth of many linear components. Pure voice leading. I know exactly what type of chords I'm playing, huge extensions that could be classified better as harmonic counterpoint rather than different classes of 13th chords (as most of my aggregates have far more than 7 different interspaced components), but the names and sequences of chords are of far less importance than the individual voices therein, which move from dissonance to resolution like the individual voices of a many lined fugue. My style of "chording", although phrased and containing subjects within a jazz idiom, far more incorporate the harmonic elements and thinking of 20th century classical music (Ives, Sorabji, Bartok, Xenakis, Messaien, Crumb, etc.) than jazz. My influences are just as much 20th century classical/neo-classical as jazz. I never play the same thing the same way twice, and that's the byproduct of diverse influences as anything else.


What do you think, Brummel? Do you agree or disagree with my comments on linear gravity and harmonic counterpoint, and why? Dazzle me with your musical intellect.

I am totally and completely bedazzled by you and your very genius--musical and otherwise. You are without doubt the greatest; nothing like you has ever been before or will ever grace humanity again. I as everyone else stand in awe. Since I'm now telling you what you believe and obviously need to hear, I am surely coming closer to your graces. Oh, Wise One, I beseech thee tell me I am.

Now permit me to tell you I think you are o.k. and I have enjoyed the bantering. I admire you because you are compassionate about your beliefs. Permit me the same, o.k.? Brubeck rules here, and I will continue to attend all his concerts I possibly can. Brubeck is greater than the total sum of his parts. Yes, that's my original opinion. Yes, that's still my opinion.

I hope you have signed up for the Brubeck Quartet newsletter. I enjoy reading it.

BDB, no, I do not receive the Brubeck newsletter. Would you mind forwarding the address to me and any other info. Please send the info here or email me. Thank you very, very much.

BDB, ignore the previous request. I now have signed up for the Brubeck Newsletter. Hey, thanks a million, and I owe you a cold one.

Sometimes its not the..prowess or technique..
but style...in the creative sense..some may say Julie London was not a good singer..but she's remembered for her hit.. Cry Me A River
so whatever a person thinks of Brubeck..after he's gone you'll always remember .."Take Five"

... and Desi Arnaz singing "Baba-Loo"
... and Yul Brynner's singing in "the King of Siam"
... and Liberace singing "Always".
... and Irene Dunne and Buddy Ebsen singing "She'll be coming around the Mountain" on the Beverly Hillbillys.
... and Alfalfa's singing to Darla on the Little Rascals
... and Fred Flintstone singing "Eeep Op Ork Ah Ah"

etc., etc.

all of them as equally memorable and unforgettable as Brubeck's stone-fingered performances on "Take 5".

Yeah but none of them look like Julie London!

Neither does Julie London any more.

Ellis, thank you for sharing your most recent Dave Brubeck find. Please email me again with that information. Thanks.

I recently got a notice about the 2007 Brubeck Festival at the University of the Pacific next month. It looks interesting. I will see him in San Francisco April 15.

I can only hope that his stone fingers hitting those keys doesn't trigger another earthquake.

If Robert Wuhl doddered onstage with a white wig and filled in for Brubeck, do you think anyone would notice the difference?:

http://www.8notes.com/images/artists/dave_brubeck.jpg


http://www.nationwidespeakers.com/images/biopics/RobertWuhl_880.jpg

http://www.nndb.com/people/863/000022797/davebrubeck02.jpg

Dave Brubeck is a very nice person. His warmth and humanity come out in his playing. There are technical whizzes who have none of that, and they never make it out of justly deserved oblivion.

Oh sure we do, every once in a great while.

http://h1.ripway.com/Virtuosic1/R1_0026.MP3

http://h1.ripway.com/Virtuosic1/R1_0027.MP3

http://h1.ripway.com/Virtuosic1/R1_0017.MP3

BDB, I agree with your comments 100%. Regardless of what you-know-who has to say, I never tire of hearing Brubeck, who is #1.(Yep, I still hold that opinion.) And, yes, Brubeck is more than a jazz pianist; he's a first-class human being in every sense of the word.

This is why I stay away from jazz. Seems to me you can't even discuss the topic without a bunch of juvenile arguments over "who is the best."

What a bunch of childish nonsense.

Back to something useful....

To answer the question "Why is it called Take 5" -
The pieces was first recorded in 1959 on an album entitled "Time Out". "Take 5" is an alternative way of saying "Lets take time out" i.e. take a break..
I seem to recall reading about this somewhere in the dim and distant past and I think that this is the connection.. the source of the title..

There are a couple of puns there. Brubeck has been very adventurous with time signatures and rhythms. Take Five is in a quintuple meter. Blue Rondo a la Turk is another example, being nine beats to the bar, but divided 2 + 2 + 2 + 3. Darius Milhaud, his great mentor and teacher at Mills, encouraged him to do so. He took that advice to heart, and today what I see most in his playing is not virtuosity in his pianism, but his virtuosity as a musician.

Brubeck named one of his sons Darius, and he still speaks with great affection about Milhaud. His brother Henry also studied with Milhaud, before the war, which is probably how Dave came to study there. Henry was the second male student at Mills.

Exactly BDB. "Take 5" is a play on words not only with the Album Title "Time Out".. but also with the unusual time signatures adopted.

I have a double vinyl album of Brubeck's Carnegie Hall Concert (1963 I think it was) where the group plays stuff in 5/4 11/4 9/8 etc. That live version of "Blue Rondo" is wonderful.. both for Desmond's solo and Brubecks piano solo which switches between 9/8 3/4 2/4 4/4.. and sometimes you have two time signatures going at the same time (overlapping)!