Triple Play [Box set]

Amazon.com essential recording
It was way too many years ago that Dave Brubeck recorded his first solo piano outing, Brubeck Plays Brubeck. This three-CD set (packaged for the price of two CDs) rightfully captures Telarc's solo Brubeck set, available singly as Just You, Just Me along with the live quartet CD Late Night and the all-star session Young Lions & Old Tigers. What's so vital about this three-pack is the range of different Dave Brubecks it displays: there's the thoughtful, late-night dreaminess of the solo materials, which show customary harmonic flashes and wonderfully phrased complexities that manage to be familiar even when totally new. With Late Night you get a live set from Brubeck's late-career saxophonist-of-choice, Bobby Militello, who takes tunes at a pace that sounds inspired by the spirit of the late, great Paul Desmond. The set shows that Brubeck's careful development of his early work was definitive enough to last decades. Rounding out this set is a volume of duets and collaborations with a host of "young lions" (including Joshua Redman and Roy Hargrove) alternating tunes with some "old tigers" (including vocalist Jon Hendricks and Gerry Mulligan. These are relaxed meetings, but none of them less than excellent. --Andrew Bartlett

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