In this remarkable rare collection from Acrobat Music Group, chronologically we catch up with Brubeck following the early success of their Jazz Goes To College Album. Featuring The Dave Brubeck Quartet and (as the liner notes reveal) his “long-time colleague and musical sparring partner Paul Desmond,” Acrobat includes twelve live recordings from 1956 gigs at New York City’s Basin Street Jazz Club and three from Chicago’s renowned The Blue Note in 1957. While the announcer cuts into the songs and sometimes it’s hard to guess which tracks comprise an entire twenty-five minute show, the quality of the music is first-rate.
Kicking off with Brubeck’s own famous jazz standard “The Duke,” it strengthens considerably with the follow-up track “Stardust,” which gives the rest of his band including Desmond on alto sax, bassist Norman Bates, and drummer Joe Dodge a chance to shine. This is especially evident in Desmond’s wonderfully catchy start to “Gone With The Wind,” that brings Brubeck in significantly nearly two and a half minutes late and given the extraordinary musicality, one can almost sense the good natured musical rivalry between the two as they play. Although Bates would eventually be replaced by Eugene Wright and Dodge with Joe Morello, the phenomenal and sophisticated inclusions make the perfect background CD to unwind with after a hard day’s work.
Unfortunately, because it is a live show, there are times that the announcer must stop tracks just when they’re really beginning to jam such as in the superlative cool jazz number “Out of Nowhere” as Desmond was really getting warmed up. As the album continues, we hear a great call-and-answer style as the men play off one another especially given Brubeck’s great interplay with his percussionist on “A Minor Thing.”
Featuring one of Brubeck’s signature pieces, “In Your Own Sweet Way,” I was even more surprised by some of the offbeat tracks, including what seemed to be an improvised last minute decision to play “The Trolley Song” (made famous by Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis), complete with unexpected sound effects, to meet radio time requirements. It’s this laid-back and versatile vibe offered up by the group that makes them just so downright likable as Dave’s dubbed an all around nice guy by the announcer.
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