Jazz At Oberlin

Everything on the album is Brubeck/ Desmond at their greatest and most adventurous before popularity rendered them more polite, or elegant, or something admirable enough but not as exciting as this. I would single out Brubeck's solo on "The Way You Look Tonight" as one of the most daring, innovative, and relentlessly brilliant jazz performances I have ever heard on any instrument. Jazz and classical purists alike might disapprove, but it's beyond category.

This is a great recording of the Dave Brubeck quartet at Oberlin College in 1953. Its the first Brubeck album I ever bought, and whilst it predates the most famous of Brubeck's quartets, it has Paul Desmond on Alto and that makes its essential.

Great versions of How High the Moon and Perdido are perhaps highlights, but the whole album is superb. The contrast between Brubecks aggressive Piano solos and Desmonds flighty alto is amazing, yet somehow they were made for each other. The quality of musicianship is of the highest order, sometimes they throw in a bits of Bach (or Bach like), Brubeck gets into semi-modern classical music at some points and the rest of the time the band are just swinging.

I'm not familiar with the bass player and drummer but they play more than an adequate supporting role to two giants of Jazz.

I purchased this album a couple of years ago. Being a very huge Brubeck fan this album did not disappoint. His music in 1953 was every bit as challenging as the Time Out stuff. This is a great album to get especially if you are just being introduced to jazz. Dave always sounds simple, tame and safe on the surface which attracts you to his music and to jazz. Once you start listening and getting into it you realize the complexity. The only reason I did not give this 5 stars is because in reading the liner notes I discovered this was a 2 and 1/2 hour concert and only 40 minutes are represented on this CD. It would be great to have the concert in it's entirety especially considering its historical significance. Buy this CD anyhow; and maybe someone will find the rest of the show and re-release as a complete concert.

I find it hard to believe that when I arrived on a college campus in the early sixties I was quickly indoctrinated by the "insiders" among the jazz players into disavowing any interest in the music of Brubeck or Desmond. Both were deemed not only too commercial but too West Coast, too white, too fay, too unaffected by the Bird revolution.

Not only is the foregoing among the most myopic viewpoints ever shared by musicians, but it is equally mistaken to assume Brubeck's music is not a force to be reckoned with until the "Time Out" recordings. Let the Oberlin record speak for itself: it represents improvisation of the highest order by two musicians at the very peak of their creative powers.

Take Paul's solo on "Just the Way You Look Tonight": He quotes from Prokofief, Stravinsky, and at least 3 American composers while building an emotional, pyrotechnical, beautifully structured solo spurred on by the audible vocal encouragements of Brubeck himself. Who could follow that? Brubeck does, not only matching but possibly topping it, with thunderous, wildly inventive yet boldly assertive, polyrhythmic melodic statements played in octaves in the left hand.

There's a widespread myth, proven wrong time and again, that the best music occurs when great soloists are accompanied by equally heralded drummers and bass players. To the contrary, the most spirited and swinging jazz always happens when players know their roles and listen to each other.

Before your jazz collection numbers more than 10 albums, make certain that this is one of them.

This recording is 50 years old but loses none of its luster. The sheer joy of the performance and the appreciation of the audience makes this album pure pleasure. The last four tracks are among the best that Brubeck and Desmond ever did. The creativity and chemistry among the musicians has few rivals in the jazz genre. Amusing quotes and references to other songs, quasi-classical forms including Bach-like fugues between Brubeck and Desmond make for much fun in listening (I always hear something new) and it swings!