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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Overview, August 22, 2003
Here is the perfect introduction to one of the greatest jazz artists of all time. Not as expanded as the box set "Time Signatures" or as condensed as "Greatest Hits", the tracks in this collection span five decades (two of them with Sony) and over twenty studio albums. The first nine tracks are mono. Brubeck didn't just make great music, he experimented and invented new concepts. His biggest innovation of course was coming up with odd time signatures. For example, "Unsquare Dance" is in 7/4 and "Blue Rondo A La Turk" is 9/8. He was also a great interpreter as he does his own versions of "Maria" from West Side Story and "Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White. There are also guest vocalists such as Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae, Jimmy Rushing, and Louis Armstrong with a track each. As you'll hear (and read) on this collection, Brubeck also enjoys playing in front of a live audience. About half of the album are live tracks but they sound terrific. On most of the tracks he is augmented by other musicians but there are some in which he plays solo. The collection begins with "Indiana" recorded in '49 and ends with "Love For Sale" from '02 written by Cole Porter and performed live. There's also a track called "Audrey", as in Hepburn.Dave Brubeck didn't just make great music, he shaped it so that a whole new generation of music lovers could appreciate and find it sounding as fresh now as it was decades ago. If you're discovering him for the first time then start here, you won't regret it. Actually get this double album anyway, it's a great listen either way. Liner notes are by Joel Lewis.
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't Leave the Planet Without It, February 4, 2004
I once heard Oscar Petersen affirm that "there are only two kinds of music: good and bad." Within the broad musical forms that encompass the genre of jazz, Brubeck consistently managed to play superb music. Contained on Essential Dave Brubeck, are selections that, taken together, provide a representative sample of the remarkable ensembles that played under the Brubeck name. Brubeck was "global" before it was fashionable. Le Souk, the Brandenburg Gate and even Take Five and Blue Rhonda incorporate international time signatures and stylistic modes that demonstrate Brubeck's attempt to assimilate an Asian influence into the African-American jazz art form. It's also great to hear again Take the A train, especially given Duke Ellington's profound influence of Mr. Brubeck. This is an oustanding selection of music from a consistently gifted ensemble. For fans of Brubeck, Desmond, Morello, Dodge -- both old and new -- Essential Dave Brubeck is an solid introduction to what Mr. Petersen would doubtless classify as "good" music.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Essential, perhaps, but hardly adequate, December 9, 2005
Brubeck's greatest popularity occurred during his association with Columbia Records, and this collection certainly documents some of the commercial and artistic highlights of this productive period. Particularly heartening is the inclusion of three tracks from the "Brubeck Plays Brubeck" solo piano album, including his exceptional improvisation on "In Your Own Sweet Way," an original that subsequently became a jazz standard. Still, this sampler does not include enough of the early work to dispell three widely held misconceptions: 1. that Brubeck and Desmond (or Brubeck and any other soloist) would regain the extraordinary chemistry of the 1950's quartet; 2. that the studio sessions, beginning with "Time Out," were equal if not superior to the earlier college concert dates; 3. that Brubeck's later experiments with time signatures represented an advance over his earlier adventurousness with melody, harmony, meter.
Neither Brubeck nor Desmond ever played with more in-the-moment inspired inventiveness than on their live 1950's dates. The excitement ensuing from their empathy with one another as well as their reactiveness to the palpable encouragement of their audiences was a singular moment in jazz history. In fact, during the 1950's they were to small-group modern jazz and its adherents what the Benny Goodman Big Band had been to attentive young listeners in the 1930s. The "Essential Dave Brubeck" provides only four examples from this fertile period, barely enough to whet the appetite. Moreover, the selections appear to be more abitrary than representative of this highly-charged edition of the quartet at its very best.
If you really want the essential Brubeck, be sure to supplement this collection with the '63 Carnegie Hall Concert but also with the earlier "Jazz at Oberlin" and "Jazz Goes to College." If the superior heat, intensity, and risk-taking extemporaneousness of these sessions recommend them over the later, more tepid, recordings, look next for "Jazz at the College of the Pacific, Volumes 1 and 2."
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by Dave Brubeck 
