My brother-in-law really likes jazz, and I’ve sometimes said in his hearing that I don’t particularly care for it as it seems formless, repetitive and tuneless to me. This comment has been received about as well as you’d expect.
But sometimes I get shoved into examining music that I think I don’t like. Such has been the case with the works of Dave Brubeck, in particular his monster hit “Take Five,” which my choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, is performing in the choral version that includes lyrics by Iola Brubeck, Dave’s wife, with an arrangement by the prolific Kirby Shaw. A full examination of Brubeck’s career is totally beyond the scope of this post; I encourage you to follow the footnoted sources at the end of this post if you want to do some further reading.
Ho-kay. Brubeck’s origin story is truly fascinating, so let me take at least a dip into that before moving on to the piece at hand. Brubeck did the piano-lessons-at-age-four routine, but his family moved to a 45,000-acre ranch in California when Dave was 12 and he got roped into working there. His two older brothers were on track to become professional musicians due to his mother’s influence and training; his cattleman father insisted to his wife that “’this one is mine,” referring to Dave. Thus Brubeck moved from the piano bench to the saddle, but music still fascinated him: