Brubeck, Dave

I used to have an older Dave Brubeck Greatest Hits package, but it came out in 1966. Brubeck started in the 50's I believe, and is still out there touring and making records in the 21st centry. Amazing given that man's age. But it's the longevity that made me want this package.

This collection came out in 2003 and covers his entire career. It has the signature stuff from Time Out, as well as numerous tracks. The sticker on the CD says "covers 53 years, 31 tracks, 24 albums". It is quite a wide selection of material. Now Brubeck has an absolute avalanche of recorded material, so for someone that only had one album (Time Out) and one 36 year old greatest hits album, this career spanning 2 CD retrospective is perfect. Over so many years and so many record labels, I'm sure there were some rights issues with all this, and I'm glad they were overcome.

I'm sure some Brubeck purists will say that it's not worthy, that one should buy the albums and all that, but he has SO MANY albums, it's extremely daunting to a Brubeck newbie, so this was a prefect choice, and I have to say I really enjoy this collection. I think you will too (unless of course you already own all of this stuff).

Ah. Jazz. I love Jazz, so I don't know why I don't have more Jazz CD's in my collection. Anyway, I bought this because my father was always into Dave Brubeck (my dad got this when it was new), so I decided to pick something up to see what it sounds like. The song on here named Take Five is something that I recognized instantly, so I must have heard this somewhere before - but God knows where. The Super Audio CD version sounds incredibly clean on my home theatre system. This really does show off the format, by making it feel like the guys are there - it's amzing how much better this sounds in SACD vs a "conventional recording" of the same songs on the same system. I'm not one who can tell you when a time change happens, or how Joe Morello's playing makes this song better because of that bridge... I just enjoy the music; I'm not a technicaly listener.

This album is to Jazz what Back in Black and Led Zeppelin IV are to hard rock, or Michael Jackson's Thriller is to pop music, or Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon is to rock. Get this.

And if you have a Super Audio CD player, then you DEFINITELY need to get this - it's a showcase for the format.

Thanks to Wil Wheaton (yeah, THAT one) for pointing out the video.