The Dave Brubeck Quartet closed the Toronto Jazz Festival in fine form at the Four Seasons Opera House on Wednesday, July 2nd, with Brubeck on piano, Bobby Militello on saxophone, Michael Moore on bass, and Randy Jones on drums. Although Mr. Brubeck had a bit of difficulty getting out the words to introduce the songs in his first set, and he played with a backrest, you would never know he was at the ripe age of 87 by his playing, except perhaps, as a tribute to his mastery of playing those keys like the jazzmaster we know him to be.

Dave Brubeck made a name for himself in the jazz world in the late 50s/early 60s for his fantastic playing and his tendency to impressively play around with time signatures, on great albums like Time Out, Time Further Out, and Countdown Time in Outerspace. He liked deviating from the usual 4/4, and instead playing in everything from 9/8 to 7/4, and most notably, for playing in 5/4 in his most famous piece, “Take Five”, which appears in numerous films including Annie Hall and Say Anything…

Although the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on sax, and Joe Morello on drums, which made those classic albums, has long since disbanded, Brubeck’s latest quartet showcased some fine talent, in particular bassist Michael Moore, who wowed the audience with several complex, musical, and mesmerizing solos throughout the evening. In the grand finale piece, Randy Jones gave one of the more musical drum solos I’ve heard, “Take Five”, in which you could almost hear the melody singing through his percussive improvisations.

In the first half of the evening, the Quartet took the stage, starting out with the standard “Gone with the Wind”, possibly the most-played piece at the festival this year (Renee Rosnes/Bill Charlap and Sophia Perlman also performed the piece during the festival), and certainly the best rendition I heard at the festival, played so masterfully by these ‘grandmasters’, as the concert series rightly dubbed them. One of the highlights of the first half involved a three-way improv solo between Brubeck, Moore, and Militello, pulling off a spontaneous ‘call and response’ that worked almost all the way through, and which followed Moore’s best – and great it was – solo of the evening.

Dave Brubeck’s son, Matthew Brubeck, a Toronto resident and cellist who used to perform with his father, joined the quartet for a few pieces: “Three to Get Ready” from Time Out, a Dave Brubeck original which put a melody to the Sermon on the Mount, and the great “Unsquare Dance”. “Unsquare Dance”, a piece in 7/8 time, which Brubeck said was one of his least favourite tempos to play in, was a joy. In the first few bars, the band had the audience clapping along, until we got lost a few bars in – keeping time in 7/8 is no small feat – but the quartet never lost it. The mellow sound of the cello worked perfectly in this piece.

After the intermission, the Toronto Jazz Festival Big Band, featuring performers like Guido Basso, joined the Dave Brubeck Quartet on stage for the second set, playing a mix of pieces from Brubeck’s theme song to “Mr. Broadway”, a short-lived detective TV show, and “The Basie Band is Back in Town”. They played “Elementals”, an impressive suite composed by Brubeck, based on the rhythm of a heartbeat and the notes A, B, and C, and which takes us on a journey through musical history from the Gregorian chant, to the Bach chorales, to the waltz, to swing, and finishes in 12/8. Although the work is a complex and praiseworthy achievement, it seemed more technical and less musical than some of the other pieces performed.

I ought to mention just how fantastic the acoustics at the Four Seasons Centre are. Despite there being something like 30 instruments playing at once, I could still pick out each individual member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet’s playing, including Bobby Militello on sax, despite there being several more saxophones in the big band. It would have been better if the Dave Brubeck Quartet had been positioned a little more centre stage for the first half of the concert, instead of on the far left, in order to make room for the big band set up.

The true star of the show, was Brubeck himself, and in particular, his solo piece, “Dziękuję”, or “Thank You” in Polish, a tribute to his mother’s love of Chopin, and a stunning achievement – both technically and musically. Here is where Brubeck really shined; I wished there was more solo piano and less of the big band washing out this one man’s talent. That being said, the big band and the quartet were good, and the 2-hour concert was two of the fastest hours I’ve experienced – the musicians were great and totally in the moment all the way through – and it ended too soon, despite being a full and wholly satisfying concert.

My one complaint, if I may be allowed one, was that in an effort to please audiences by playing old favourites from Time Out, these pieces were played in settings they were never intended to be played in, and didn’t quite work as well as I would have liked. When the big band played “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, it was sometimes clunky, with all those fast notes usually handled by just one sax and the piano, now being played by many saxophones, trombones, and trumpets. The grand finale, “Time Out”, just wasn’t meant to be performed by a big band, and its finest moments were solos by Brubeck and drummer, Randy Jones. After the third standing ovation of the evening, the Dave Brubeck Quartet and the Toronto Jazz Festival Big Band played their most triumphant collaborative piece of the evening, “Take the ‘A’ train”, a piece that was made for a big band, and boy did they nail it!

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