Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond.
Blue Moon (1952-54; released in 1990.) These guys are so much more than
Take Five, their most famous piece, written by Desmond and appearing on their best-selling album
Time Out.
Brubeck's piano style, playing in more than one key at once with contrasting rhythms and unusual time signatures worked beautifully with the "
light melodic tone" of Desmond's alto saxophone. They played together in a quartet that achieved great popularity from 1951 until 1967.
Blue Moon captures some of their great earlier work. It consists of reissues of
two records,
Jazz at the Blackhawk (1952-53) and
Jazz at Storyville (1952-54). There are some great standards on these recordings, including "Blue Moon," "You Go To My Head," "Trolley Song" and "Jeepers Creepers," but as jazz critic
Ted Gioia says, "Brubeck and Desmond always had some tricks up their sleeves, especially during this early period, when no standard was given the standard treatment
." This album like so much early Brubeck-Desmond, as Gioia concludes, "is always a delight, and sound very spontaneous. You can hear the fun these two creative minds had in playing off each other's wildest flights."
[Related posts:
Great Jazz Albums #1 (Hank Mobley), #2 (Horace Silver), #3 (Sonny Rollins), #4 (Sonny Clark), #5 (Dexter Gordon), #6 (Cannonball Adderley); #7 (Bill Evans), #8 (McCoy Tyner), #9 (Clifford Brown), #10 (Sinatra), #11 (Monk), #12 (Kenny Dorham), #13 (Coltrane), #14 (Duke Ellington), #15 (Miles Davis), #16 (Wayne Shorter), #17 (Dinah Washington); #18 (Sarah Vaughan); #19 (Stan Getz); #20 (Blue Mitchell); #21 (Gene Ammons); #22 (Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers);
#23 (Red Garland);
#24 (Ella Fitzgerald);
#25 (Charlie Parker);
#26 (Art Pepper);
#27 (Bud Powell);
#28 (John Hicks);
#29 (Kenny Barron);
#30 (Coleman Hawkins);
#31 (Count Basie);
#32 (Benny Carter w/ Ben Webster and Barney Bigard);
#33 (Chet Baker);
#34 (Thad Jones);
#35 (The Great Jazz Trio);
#36 (Ahmad Jamal)]
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