I’ve related this before, but I was in Moscow as part of the Diplomatic Security advance team for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in 1988. As a thank you for all the support staff work, the ambassador had a “do” at his residence after it was all over. As I walked in the door, I could hear Brubeck’s unmistakable piano playing and thought, “oh, they got a DJ”. My jaw hit the floor when I saw him at the piano. His son was playing with him and Eugene Wright, who happened to be on tour on his own, was also playing with him.
Reagan gave a little spiel and then Brubeck and company left the stage. I saw him heading out the door to the garden, and when everybody started flocking around the Secstate to yammer at him, I headed out after Dave. He was talking to one of the Marine Security Guards, and signing an album cover (FUCK!). I thought “what the hell” and walked up to him, introduced myself and we just stood and chatted for about five minutes with nobody else around. I had lost track of his group after the 70s, and when he told me that Desmond had died and Morello had gone blind, I teared up at the injustice of the world. I didn’t even think to get an autograph, but I found the Marine afterward and discovered I didn’t have enough money in the bank to get that album from him. I told him to sleep with one eye open until I went back to Frankfurt.
My favorite version of **Bicycle Built for Two **(“Daisy Bell” for the inevitable band of nitpickers) is the one Brubeck did for some animated Charlie Brown feature.
I’ve been tearing up several times today reading all the tributes and watching and listening to so many of his performance. I’m a quite recent fan (collected several of his albums over the last 3-4 months), and I’m really surprised how hard this has hit me. I never saw him in person, but I listen to something by him pretty much every day.
RIP Dave. The world is a poorer place without you.
And thanks very much for that link, Pork Rind. I hadn’t seen it before and it was the most recent thing to bring tears to my eyes.
I think that like a lot of people, Take Five was my gateway song to jazz. I’m forever indepted to him for that.
That video of him playing with the impromptu violinist in Moscow is just too much. When I see something like that, I think people like them should run the world.
Brubeck fans are probably already familiar with this, but for those who aren’t, here’s Morello playing the melody to Shortenin’ Bread–as a drum solo.
Already done. I yammer on so much about Joe Morello that I get eye rolls from my son, but he concedes that Castillian Drums is one of the finest drum solos ever played.
