Dave Brubeck is a famous Jazz musician and composer, most famous for the piece "Take 5". Brubeck is probably most famous for the fact that he tended to use strange time signatures, like 5/4 for Take 5.

Another of his pieces has the extremely clever (IMHO) name "Unsquare dance" which is in 7/4. And amazingly enough, it swings.

In 2001 when he was 80, that piece was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra with him as a guest. He had lost a lot of dexterity, so the main piano solo was performed by someone else, but he had a solo at the end.

The first soloist, a sax player, was truly outstanding. As soon as he started playing, I said, "Oh, yeah!"

But the most delightful thing of all is Brubeck's reaction to it all. He has a big grin the whole time and obviously is enjoying it enormously. Music is happiness (or can be) and this one is.

I don't link to music much but I ran into this a couple of days ago and couldn't pass it by.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Entertainment at 09:28 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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