Brubeck first met vibraphonist and multi instrumental percussionist, Cal Tjader at San Francisco State University. The two formed a short lived Octet that soon disbanded to make way for smaller combos. Dave Brubeck Trio with Cal Tjader was recorded in 1949 and released the following year. The Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer tune, That Old Black Magic would become a staple of Brubeck’s live sets for years. This album contains the first Brubeck recorded take of that standard. 

Dave Brubeck took his quartet to his alma mater in Stockton, California for the first in what would become a series of live recordings at colleges and universities across the country. The album Live at the College of the Pacific: Volume 1 features bassist Ron Crotty and drummer Joe Dodge. The real star attraction here is the interaction between Brubeck and the quartet’s emerging star, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. This December of 1953 release on Fantasy Records features the quartet improvising on six selections from the great American song book. Check out what the quartet does with the Benny Goodman penned tune, Lullaby in Rhythm.

Jazz Goes to College is Dave Brubeck’s first Columbia Records release. It, again, features alto great Paul Desmond. By now bassist Bob Bates was on board as a permanent member of the band along with drummer Joe Dodge. This recording documents the band’s 1953 college tour and was recorded primarily in the mid west. The album’s opening track is a blues entitled, Balcony Rock that was recorded at the University of Michigan’s main campus in Ann Arbor. Also check out the quartet’s take on the Billy Strayhorn penned, Ellington standard Take the “A” Train. They turn this big band number into a very deliberate blues. Playing in front of young audiences in college auditoriums would become a big part of the Dave Brubeck quartet’s broad appeal.   

Brubeck Time is a rare studio performance by the quartet. Until this time mostly college and nightclub recordings were being offered up by the band. In keeping with his other releases up to this point, the quartet again explores the possibilities that can be found in popular standards. It may surprise listeners at how much blues influence is present in these mid-fifties recordings. This 1955 Columbia release, and others from this period, pre-date Brubeck’s more overt classical and world music influences that would become one of his lasting legacies. From this album I chose the lone original composition credited to Brubeck and Desmond. It is however the alto saxophonist’s love song to Audrey Hepburn, simply entitled, Audrey that I find very moving.

Live at Storyville: 1954 is also a 1955 release by The Dave Brubeck Quartet. The album was recorded at famed jazz impresario George Wien’s legendary Boston nightclub over three separate dates. All but six of the selections presented here are standards but represent a leap forward in extended improvisation from the previous album recommendations. The lone original is the Brubeck/Desmond penned, Back Bay Blues. The tune I selected however is the album’s opening track, On the Alamo, that features some of the most creative improvisation of Brubeck’s career. The All Music Guide to Jazz still refers to this album as, “long unavailable.” They apparently are not familiar with Bluebeat Music.

Yet another 1955 release is entitled, Red Hot and Cool. This is also a live recording taken from three different performances at New York City’s Basin Street Nightclub. This is the first Dave Brubeck album I ever heard. I literally grew up to this music. Initially what attracted me to this recording was the album cover art. The girl in the red dress in a jazz club looked so cool, and still does. This album introduced the world to a song that is perhaps the most famous Brubeck penned composition, The Duke. He performs it here with the quartet. He would re-record the tune a year later on his solo piano debut. The Duke may be the most “covered” of all of Brubeck’s tunes. Versions by jazz greats Barney Kessell, Joe Pass, Phil Woods, Mary McPartland and George Shearing come to mind. My favorite cover may be the Miles Davis/Gil Evans take on the album Miles Ahead, where Miles fronts a 19 piece jazz orchestra.

Brubeck Plays Brubeck is the pianist’s first solo recording. It also gives listeners a chance to hear him emerge as a formidable songwriter. This 1956 release, again on the Columbia label, features Brubeck playing nine original compositions. He does a solo piano take on The Duke as well as another composition that would become a staple of his live repertoire for many years, In Your Own Sweet Way. This tune would be covered by many musicians as diverse as trumpeters Miles Davis and Chet Baker, pianists McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans and guitarists Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass. Even harmonica player Toots Thielemans and tenor saxophonist Pharaoh Sanders recorded this tune.

Dave Digs Disney is a 1957 release on Columbia. Brubeck has stated that this album was inspired by a family vacation to Disneyland even though these eight songs from four Disney movies (Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio and Cinderella) had already been part of the quartet’s repertoire for several years. The tune Someday My Prince Will Come from Snow White pre-dates Miles Davis’ version, which was the title track of one of his own Columbia recordings in 1961.

In 1957, The Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded its final installment of live college recordings. This album entitled, Jazz Goes to Junior College was recorded at Fullerton Junior College in Orange County, California.  This 1958 release features what many consider to be the defining versions of several numbers including W.C. Handy’s Saint Louis Blues. My favorite from this performance is the albums opening track Bru’s Blues. 

In 1959, The Dave Brubeck Quartet released an album, Time Out that became the first million selling jazz album and remains one of the most popular jazz recordings of all time. It is that rare masterpiece that was embraced by the general public despite of, or perhaps because of, its innovative approach to jazz music. The album’s title is a reference to the fact that each of the seven compositions use various time signatures not previously associated with the jazz form. It is a great irony that the lone composition on Time Out that Brubeck didn’t write was the album’s “hit” Paul Desmond’s, Take Five. Desmond has said that the tune was originally written as a vehicle for a drum solo by Joe Morello. This song was released as a single a few months after the album’s initial release and actually climbed the pop charts. A testament  as to the greatness of this composition and the brilliance of the four musicians who perform it on this record is the fact that, despite it being perhaps the most over played and overly familiar jazz song of all time, it still holds up quite well fifty plus years after its release.  The “B” side to Take Five is also Time Out’s opening track, Blue Rondo a la Turk. It is an ambitious composition by Brubeck that combined blues, a classical rondo and Turkish folk music. By 1959 what was known as the original quartet had been supplanted by bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morrello. This band when it included Paul Desmond would come to be known as the classic quartet. Time Out’s success made Brubeck, who already was leading the most popular band in jazz, a huge international star. He would take this success and use his influence in the jazz world to go on and continue incorporating widely divergent musical statements and creating ever increasingly ambitious projects.