Customer Reviews

Rediscovering Dave Brubeck

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Dave Brubeck is a jazz pianist and composer who has created some of the best, most popular, and most original jazz to date. His album, "Time Out", released in 1959, was the first million-selling jazz album. His experimentation with unusual time signatures is one thing that gave his music its own sound. His importance to jazz is inarguable. "Rediscovering Dave Brubeck" does a phenomenal job of presenting Dave Brubeck's life within the framework of his music. In Full Screen Format and Dolby Digital 2.0, the audio and video quality are excellent. When Dave Brubeck is not playing the piano, his music is in the background.

The interviews are conducted in Dave and wife Iola's home. At 80, he is still performing and writing music. His piano playing is magic! Dave Brubeck's story unfolds from his upbringing with a musician mother and cowboy father to the days when he was the only pianist in town without a gig on New Year's Eve to his current performance in Berlin. His contribution to music and music history is discussed, but perhaps not in the technical detail that a musician might like. However, there is plenty of detail about critical decisions that Dave Brubeck made during his career, his motivations, the people who influenced him, and the impact that those decisions had on his career. Old photographs, newspaper clippings, and old movie footage are presented. (For more information, see pbs.org and search on Brubeck.) Hedrick Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times correspondent, is an amazing interviewer, of course.

The extras:
* At home with Dave and Iola Brubeck
* "Unsquare Dance" with the London Symphony Orchestra
* Dave talks about the art of creativity
* "In Your Own Sweet Way" rehearsal with Brubeck and sons
* Dave and Iola talk about the process of collaboration
* "Take Five" excerpt from University of the Pacific concert
* Backstage in Berlin, Germany

The extras include another 30 minutes of material. (The rehearsal with his sons is nearly 9 minutes long.) These are not fluff, they contain substantial interviews and performances. They are a similar video and audio quality to the 57 minute biography. I would have liked to have seen "Take Five" in its entirety, rather than a 3 minute excerpt. I highly recommend this DVD to any Dave Brubeck fan. "Rediscovering Dave Brubeck" is a glimpse into Dave Brubeck the man, and an in-depth look into Dave Brubeck the musician.

This is great - but I am a Brubeck fanatic. This is not music - this is biography and documentary. But Dave Brubeck is history and he deserves to be studied as such. I don't think that anything by Dave Brubeck or about Dave Brubeck would be displeasing to me. Since I'm a musician also learning more of how Dave thinks and derives his music is inspirational.

The DVD, "Rediscovering Dave Brubeck," was produced by PBS in 2001 and is a fine overview of this geniuses long and productive life in jazz. Brubeck fought for his own style, blending classical and jazz with a unique sense of swing and time. He once said his secret was playing music that that no one else could play.

You learn of Brubeck's upbringing on a California ranch (taught piano by his cultured mother; taught ranching by his uncultured father), his education, and his matchless career as a jazz innovator. Mr. Brubeck was about 80 at the time of the interviews for this program, and he provides sanguine reflections on his storied and satisfying career. Jazz critics Ted Gioia and Stanley Crouch also provide astute commentary on Brubeck, as do other friends, producers, and collaborators.

The DVD lacks any complete performances of any of Brubeck's pieces, which is a loss. Nevertheless, one gets a good sense of the drive and genius of Dave Brubeck, who recently turned 90 and who is still writing and performing.