10 More Essential Dave Brubeck Albums

A collage of 9 of the 10 more essential Dave Brubeck albums. I left out Paper Moon, because it has a pretty ridiculous cover.

Jazz pianist and composer Dave Brubeck made a lot of incredible music during his long lifetime. In 2015, I wrote a post covering 10 of my favorite Dave Brubeck albums. Since Brubeck’s discography is so deep, I decided to write this sequel and focus on 10 more essential Dave Brubeck albums. I was lucky enough to work on a documentary about Dave Brubeck and meet him a couple of times and hear him live in concert several times, so his music has a special place in my heart. The albums are listed in the order they were recorded. 

The Dave Brubeck Trio: Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals (Recorded between 1949 and 1951) The CD has all 24 songs this group recorded together. Featuring Ron Crotty on bass and Cal Tjader on drums and vibes, Brubeck’s trio could swing like no other. Highlights include a great version of “Indiana” that starts out very slow, as though Brubeck is going to play it as a ballad. Then, suddenly, Brubeck starts playing it fast, and Crotty and Tjader jump in, making the old tune swing. There’s also a fun version of “Avalon” that starts out in ragtime before it starts to really cook. 

Jazz Goes to College (1954) After a 1951 diving accident which injured vertebrae in his neck, Brubeck was looking for someone to share the soloing duties with in his group. He turned to alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Desmond had played in Brubeck’s Octet in the late 1940’s, but had earned Brubeck’s enmity when was playing in a group with Brubeck. Desmond was offered another gig, and took the rest of the group with him, but hired another piano player instead of Brubeck. Fortunately for music lovers, Brubeck and Desmond were able to patch things up. Jazz Goes to College was Brubeck’s first album for Columbia Records, and it followed in the steps of Brubeck’s 1953 album Jazz at Oberlin, which was recorded live on campus. Bob Bates on bass and Joe Dodge on drums made up the rest of the quartet. Jazz Goes to College starts out with the slow blues “Balcony Rock,” and both Brubeck and Desmond take excellent solos. Brubeck’s solo on “Le Souk” is awesome. At the end of the year, Brubeck was featured on the cover of Time magazine. He was the second jazz musician to ever be on the cover of Time—Louis Armstrong was the first. Brubeck actually felt some embarrassment about the cover, as he felt that part of the reason he was getting the cover was because Time didn’t want to put a black jazz musician on the cover. Duke Ellington was the first person to show Brubeck the cover and Brubeck said, “It should have been you.” 

Jazz: Red Hot and Cool (1955) Recorded live at Basin Street East in New York City, the album featured a cover photograph by Richard Avedon, showing 1950’s supermodel Suzy Parker gazing longingly at Brubeck while a blurry Desmond holds his sax in the background. The album was cross-marketed with Helena Rubenstein lipstick, as they had just introduced a “jazz” shade. The music inside the album sleeve was excellent, as listeners heard the exquisite interplay between Brubeck and Desmond, who were again backed by Bob Bates on bass and Joe Dodge on drums. A highlight of the album was the first recording of Brubeck’s composition “The Duke.” Brubeck said that the initial inspiration for the song was his car’s windshield wipers. He later said, “When I first wrote it, I didn’t really understand how complex it was. It goes through all twelve keys in its first eight bars.” (It’s About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story, by Fred M. Hall, p.58) Something that’s so striking about Brubeck and Desmond is how they could take the oddest songs, like “Fare Thee Well, Annabelle,” a 1935 hit for the Boswell Sisters, and make them interesting vehicles for their improvisations. Brubeck recorded “Indiana” again on this album, and this version features an excellent, complicated solo from him. 

Dave Digs Disney (1957) Featuring songs from Walt Disney’s cartoons, Brubeck helped introduce these songs into the jazz repertoire with this album. “Someday My Prince Will Come,” from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, quickly became a jazz standard, as it was soon recorded by Bill Evans on his 1960 album Portrait in Jazz, and Miles Davis made it the title track of his 1961 album. Other highlights of the album include “Heigh-Ho (The Dwarf’s Marching Song),” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” The lineup of the Brubeck Quartet was changing with this album, as the unfortunately named Norman Bates, brother of Bob, played bass, and Joe Morello was on drums. Morello gave Brubeck’s Quartet much more rhythmic drive, and Morello was a drummer who could play the complex polyrhythms that Brubeck was interested in. The Dave Brubeck Quartet’s most famous lineup would form the following year, as Eugene Wright took over on bass. 

Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein (1960) This album was a fascinating experiment, as the Quartet played “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra” alongside the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. The piece was written by Dave’s brother Howard Brubeck and took up all of side one of the album. Side two was comprised of the Quartet’s versions of songs written by Leonard Bernstein. Unfortunately, this album wasn’t reissued on CD until it was issued in the EU in 2011. It finally made its US debut on CD in 2012, as part of the Complete Columbia Studio Albums box set, but it isn’t available separately. I was able to gather the whole album before this because the Bernstein songs on side two were reissued in 1986 as Dave Brubeck Plays Music from West Side Story, along with other tracks from the Quartet’s albums Anything Goes and My Favorite Things. The orchestral tracks were harder to track down, as they weren’t issued under Brubeck’s name, but as part of Sony Classical’s Leonard Bernstein series, surfacing on the 1998 CD Bernstein on Jazz. Fortunately, you can now listen to the album as intended on Spotify and other streaming services. “Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra” is a successful pairing of jazz and classical styles, and the Brubeck Quartet does a superb job of handling the material. Section one, “Allegro,” has sudden twists and turns, but the Quartet was used to playing material that often shifted—think of Brubeck’s twisty “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” Sections two and three, “Andante” and “Adagio,” are lovely without ever sounding like easy-listening “jazz plus strings.” Section four, “Allegro: Blues” is sprightly and swinging, with Brubeck’s solo at the end upping the tension until the final climax. 

Countdown: Time in Outer Space (1962) The third in Brubeck’s series of “Time” albums, Countdown features more Brubeck originals written in unusual time signatures. Desmond wrote “Eleven Four,” one of his rare contributions as a songwriter—although he did write the Quartet’s most famous song, “Take Five.” When Brubeck began his explorations of different time signatures, there were many nay-sayers among jazz critics. Like many cultural sub-groups, the jazz world has a way of arbitrarily deciding who is “in” or “out” of jazz. But those critics who dismissed what Brubeck and the Quartet were doing missed out on some fantastic music. For this album Brubeck re-recorded “Someday My Prince Will Come,” taking a more adventurous piano solo. Another highlight is “Castilian Drums,” which gives Morello an opportunity to stretch out and solo, and it reminds the listener that one of the reasons Brubeck was able to be so successful in his time experiments was because he had Joe Morello on drums. The album was dedicated to astronaut John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. 

Jazz Impressions of New York (1964) Released the same year as the wonderful Jazz Impressions of Japan, this album featured some of the songs that Brubeck wrote for the TV show Mr. Broadway. While the show only lasted 13 episodes, Brubeck’s theme for the show remains a classic. My favorite song on the album is the rollicking “Summer on the Sound.” Other highlights include “Broadway Bossa Nova,” and “Autumn in Washington Square,” which features a wonderful, yearning solo from Paul Desmond. 

Paper Moon (1982) Brubeck broke up the classic lineup of his Quartet at the end of 1967. He wanted a break from touring and time to work on longer compositions. A few months later, he was back out on the road. In 1976 the classic Quartet reunited for a 25^th anniversary concert tour. It’s fortunate that they did, because Paul Desmond died of lung cancer in 1977. Brubeck formed a touring band with his sons Chris, Darius, and Dan, and they performed together throughout much of the 1970’s. The lineup on 1982’s Paper Moon found Brubeck backed by Jerry Bergonzi on tenor saxophone, Chris Brubeck on bass and bass trombone, and Randy Jones on drums. The songs on the album are mostly jazz standards. There’s an excellent, bluesy solo by Dave on “Music, Maestro, Please!” Another highlight is the song “Symphony,” by Alex Alstone. It’s a bit unconventional, as it finds Brubeck playing super high on the keyboard at the beginning. Bergonzi’s tone and sound is totally different from Desmond’s, so there’s no sense in comparing them. Paper Moon also includes a nice solo version of “St. Louis Blues,” a song which was long a staple of Brubeck’s live concerts. 

Private Brubeck Remembers (2004) A rare solo piano disc from Brubeck, this title finds him playing songs associated with World War II. There’s a wistful, poignant feeling to much of the album as Brubeck plays these songs that he’s known for so long. A limited edition included an extra disc of Walter Cronkite interviewing Brubeck about his experiences in the war, which is a fascinating listen. 

London Flat, London Sharp (2005) Recorded in 2004, this was the last quartet recording by Brubeck. The album featured his excellent group of Bobby Militello on alto sax and flute, Michael Moore on bass, and Randy Jones on drums. The title track shows Brubeck’s vibrant, swinging style still fully intact. Another highlight is the groovy “Mr. Fats,” a tribute to Fats Waller. This record really shows that Randy Jones was definitely up to the task of following in Joe Morello’s footsteps. It also shows that Bobby Militello is an excellent saxophone player whose sound is so different from Paul Desmond’s that he doesn’t invite comparisons. The pieces on London Flat, London Sharp come from throughout Brubeck’s long career, ranging from new pieces, like the title song, to one written sixty years before—“Ballad of the Rhine,” written in 1945 as Brubeck watched his Army unit cross the Rhine River. Taken together, they show Brubeck’s relentless spirit of innovation and his quest to keep creating, which lasted throughout his career.