October 06, 2016

Unsquare dance

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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1 Love it!  I know Take 5 of course, but I don't think I'd heard Unsquare Dance before.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 06, 2016 09:38 PM (PiXy!)

2 The sax players was awesome, but the bass player absolutely killed me. I'm writing this from the afterlife. 

I don't think I've enjoyed a music link like this since the one of a Japanese orchestra doing Smoke on the Water. (which was Brickmuppet or Wonderduck, IIRC, just to prevent confusion)

Posted by: ubu at October 07, 2016 10:57 AM (SlLGE)

3 Here's the Smoke On The Water cover. I dug it up again recently because I found a recent episode of the same show where they covered several well-known anime songs. Just the Western orchestra, though, not the tokiwazu group.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at October 07, 2016 11:38 AM (ZlYZd)

4 Ah, sorry if you were the original source.   Senility, it's what's for dinner!

Posted by: ubu at October 07, 2016 12:01 PM (SlLGE)

5 No, Wonderduck is the one who found it. But I did translate it.


-j

Posted by: J Greely at October 07, 2016 01:44 PM (ZlYZd)

6 Well, one good turn deserves another.  I sent that to a friend, and he responded with this:

Who's up for jumping on a horse and conquering Europe?  (sorry if I'm derailing).

Posted by: ubu at October 07, 2016 01:53 PM (SlLGE)

7 Um, Dave Brubeck?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 07, 2016 03:01 PM (+rSRq)

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