The Essential Dave Brubeck - 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).