Brubeck Time (Reis) [Original recording remastered]

Dave Brubeck | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 20, 1998)
• Number of Discs: 2
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B00000DFSF
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #144,603 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

BRUBECK DAVE BRUBECK TIME

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Columbia finally gets this classic right!, July 4, 1999

By 

James M. Shertzer (Winston-Salem, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brubeck Time (Reis) (Audio CD)

The first studio recording of the original Brubeck quartet is a classic with a checkered audio history. Recorded in 1954 in mono, as Brubeck was beginning to stir excitement (and controversy) and achieve fame with a Time magazine cover, it's a brilliant, driven and swinging set, with dazzling performances that often explode like fireworks ("Stompin' for Milli," here with its original 10-second intro). Yet it contains some of the original quartet's most gently reflective moments ("Audrey"). Brubeck and Desmond are in peak form. Over the years, the tapes were rechanneled into hideous fake stereo LPs and not well treated when first transfered to CD (in the set "Interchange 54," which also included four bonus tracks from "Jazz: Red, Hot and Cool," a set from the quartet's live Basin Street performances of the period). To be frank but kind, the sound wasn't up to snuff. Thankfully, this 20-bit remix peels back the phony stereo garbage and accumulated sonic grit and puts us back in the studio with the guys. The sound is vivid, vital and full-bodied, even better than my original 1950s mono LP version, a bracing reminder of how good good mono can be. The photos and liner notes are top-notch and contain a poignant story about Desmond, actress Audrey Hepburn and the tune named for her I'd never heard before.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1950's JAZZ IN SHARP FOCUS, October 19, 2004

By 

Crabby Apple Mick Lee (INDIANAPOLIS, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brubeck Time (Reis) (Audio CD)

If I am reading the album notes correctly, this is Brubeck's first studio recording. The quartet's first recordings were the "live" college and nightclub affairs that brought Brubeck national attention to begin with. Brubeck and company were apparently concerned about attempting a quality performance without an audience. By evidence of what is heard here, their anxieties were misplaced.

I recently realized that I have a fondness for 1950's jazz. It seems every decade has its distinct "flavor" as far as jazz goes-which I suppose isn't all that surprising. It is easy to place any particular piece of "pop" music within its decade and so it is jazz is no different. In part I suspect my fondness of 1950's jazz and its popularity in general is that it is easily accessible and understandable. With the advent of "free form" or "abstract" jazz in the 1960's, jazz itself took a nosedive in record sales and audience attendance. Still, as a young teenager, you couldn't get me to listen to jazz of any era. So now, nearly 50 years after the fact, suddenly its starting to make sense to me. From what I can tell, I am hardly alone. Among those in my acquaintance, there seems to be renewed interest in pre-1965 Brubeck, pre-"Bitch's Brew" Miles and "before he began dropping LSD" Coltrane. This perhaps does not speak well of us in that we are so behind the times. But at the same time we approached adulthood the "next big thing" was the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Now whatever virtues there may have been in John McLaughlin and company, I think it is fair to say that exposure to those celebrations of noise turned off a whole generation to jazz for a long time. Never has there been such a serious misperception of the readiness of a generational audience to receive such an artistic genre. Our general proclivities may have been "progressive" but musically we were still in love with the strictures of harmony and melody. Most of us still couldn't tell you the difference between big band swing and be-bop-so how could we be prepared to appreciate the subtleties of twenty-six "changes" in a standard eight-bar?

As I have written before, 99% of all the listening public has never sat through two minutes of music theory. They only know what catches their ear. BRUBECK TIME still catches the ear after all these years. This is still five years before their monumental TIME OUT album; but the excitement and interplay in the quartet is captured in excellent detail even though it is only in monophonic sound. (This recording also can serve as "exhibit one" as to why many audiophiles had rejected early "stereo sound" in favor of high quality mono.) The drums and bass come through sharp and clear and the presence is never lost as it sometimes was on their earlier "live" offerings. Brubeck and Desmond dance around each other, fight for attention, and "call and response" though eight tunes that still have to rank with the best of the legendary duo. Brubeck ranges from soft touching of the keys to almost sledgehammer pounding while Desmond's sax imitates low groans, sweet piccolo tweets, and goofy loon honks.

The liner notes are also of interest-informative and never heavy-laden with technical detail. I was pleased to hear that "Audrey" was in fact for Audrey Hepburn and that unknown to Brubeck she "sang" "her" tune while tending her garden all the rest of her life. It's a lovely piece of music for a beautiful woman and it is just one little bit of detail that makes this album like a small fine-looking diamond from the past. The CD is well worth buying and an excellent place to start if you are just developing and interest in jazz.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great ride from Brubeck, July 12, 2002

By 

Jon Warshawsky "Sinatra Guru" (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Brubeck Time (Reis) (Audio CD)

Another superb ensemble performance from the early Brubeck quartet -- the 1950s were a great era for this team. While 'Brubeck Time' is overshadowed by the later 'Time Out' album, this set brings together some sensitive Paul Desmond alto sax ('Audrey') and the edgy and energetic keyboard of Brubeck ('Jeepers Creepers', 'Stompin for Mili'...), all in proper proportion. Just wonderful -- you never snooze, but it never becomes overwrought or forced.

Song selection here is also very effective, standards that the quartet reintroduces as old friends that are more interesting than you had ever thought. Paul Desmond's lines on 'Why Do I Love You' are worth more than a few repeated listenings. 'A Fine Romance' features some great interplay between Desmond and Brubeck.

Sound quality is 1954 -- clean, but monophonic. Columbia's mono recordings hold their own even today. Maybe the music is so good that state-of-the-art-1954 is enough to let us appreciate what we're hearing.

As an aside, Columbia's liner notes and packaging continue to be several notches better than Verve, Riverside and some other labels. Not a deal breaker, but if you enjoy learning more about the album and the people who conceived it liner notes such as these are vastly superior to most of what's available.