![]() One day while Dave was in the back yard hanging up diapers, Desmond showed up and was taken to see Brubeck. This led to a break of several years between the two and Brubeck, who with his wife Iola had three small children, forbid her from letting Desmond into the family home. If I ever decide I need another name, it’s going to be Desmond.” For a short time he led a small band at the Band Box that included Dave Brubeck he left, but prevented Brubeck from taking over. According to Desmond’s friend Hal Strack, in 1942 they were listening to the Gene Krupa band, with singer Johnny Desmond. He was drafted into the Army and joined the Army band, but was not called into combat. When twelve years old he started studying clarinet and would have studied violin, but was dissuaded by his father, who was quoted as saying violinists were “a dime a dozen….with the violin, you’ll starve.” He started on alto saxophone in high school, where he also co-editor of the high school newspaper, where he once interviewed Bob Hope. Born with the name Paul Emil Breitenfeld in San Francisco, he tracked his ancestry to Moravia, but never had certainty as to the ethnicity. Paul Desmond (– May 30, 1977) was, like Brubeck, a California native. ![]() Brubeck followed up by assigning different timings to each of the members Paul Desmond was assigned 5/4 and came up with “Take Five”, which went on to become the biggest hit ever for the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Drummer Joe Morello said that on the song “Sounds of the Loop” he would occasionally change the timing from 5/4 to 7/4 and had urged Brubeck to try some different timings. “Take Five” was written in 1960 by Paul Desmond has a long, fabled history, starting with the 1940s, when Dave Brubeck was traveling in Europe, where he was introduced to jazz performed in times other than 4/4. Stories of Standards is sponsored by ListenUp. So here, from “Time Out,” is the classic “Take Five.” See if you can count along and really feel the five-beat rhythm.Tune in weekday mornings for Stories of Standards to hear our favorite versions of “Take Five.” Rodney Franks presents Stories of Standards Monday through Friday at 7:50 and 8:50 a.m. Players like him helped develop what became known as “cool jazz” or the “West Coast sound.” While other saxophone players were playing fast and brash, Desmond chose to lay back and play sweetly. Much of it was due to Desmond and his smooth, dry sound on the sax. The Dave Brubeck Quartet stayed together for decades and really developed a signature group sound. This gives the tunes a very different rhythmic feel, as you’ll hear in today’s song, called “Take Five.” Written by Brubeck’s longtime collaborator and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, the song has five beats per measure and went on to become a Top 40 hit single - something that rarely happens to a jazz tune. Brubeck experimented with songs that had five, six, nine, 13 beats per measure. Most of the songs we listen to have four beats per measure. The album was based on Brubeck’s search for the new, with all of the songs being in different time signatures. ![]() ![]() He released an album called “Time Out” in 1959 with his quartet that was the first jazz album to be certified platinum (1,000,000 copies sold). Loved by many, he is one of the few jazz artists to cross over to a non-jazz audience. Welcome to Day 2 of Jazz Appreciation Month! Today we turn our ears to Dave Brubeck, another one of the towering figures in jazz.īrubeck had a 60-year career and played into his 80s before he passed away last year. ![]()
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