Well, ok I do tend to prefer the small groups when it comes to jazz. Three or four or five guys (they are almost always guys) playing and taking turns soloing. That’s one thing for for sure about jazz: you’re going to get a lot of soloing going on. Improvizational, I guess. A solo is never quite the same every time, but they tend to be quite similar from one version to the next.
But you have to agree that old Dave Brubeck is pretty easy to listen to. He also really is old these days. Up in his nineties if I’m not mistaken. And while any blogger worth his salt would go look up old Dave Brubeck, but this is an interactive blog so go google that shit yourself. I’m going to keep talking about the fact that Dave sets up the melody and the rhythm on the piano while letting the saxophone and the drums do their own things.
One thing that took some getting used to is that the drums don’t always keep the beat in jazz. A lot of times the bass, piano, guitar, or something else will do that while the drums go someplace else. Same thing but different with the saxophone. It doesn’t stick to the melody or even a harmony but instead weaves its own lyric throughout the melody laid down by the piano. So in this case the saxophone is almost like a vocal performer conveying feelings not through words but through notes.
Maybe its a little bit like abstract painting. There is not a recognizable form there, but there is a sense of what is being conveyed. I mean, for God’s sake, we all know what Mark Rothko was saying, right? So when I hear “Take 5” I feel the ocean at Big Sur on the central coast of California. Not exactly the carefree beaches of SoCal, but still mellow. Soak in that sea air baby, or be wherever Dave takes you.