Brubeck and Friends prove jazz lives

Posted on Nov 19, 2009 in Reviews | Comments Off on Brubeck and Friends prove jazz lives

Gerald Kloss
Milwaukee Journal

You know you’ve got a meaty program when the headline act doesn’t come on until 11:15 p.m., more than three hours after the start of the show.  So Milwaukee Jazz buffs got their money’s worth and more at, the Performing Arts Center Thursday night, even before Dave Brubeck and Sons took the stage to wrap up the oversize musical package.

Four groups preceded the Brubecks in the benefit concert; sponsored by the Milwaukee Jazz experience and Jazz for Life to open a three-day jazz celebration any of them could have carried the night on their own.

San Francisco guitarist Jimmy Stewart’s quartet (bass, drums, synthesizer) opened with a 4O-minute set, effectively placing Stewart’s musing, pensive line, against a throbbing synthesizer background.

Mandolinist David Grisman’s quartet provided the happiest surprise of the evening, bringing the audience to its feet with smart, tight, exuberant arrangements that firmly established the mandolin as a legit jazz instrument.  Wagging his shaggy head, Grisman plucked and strummed up a storm in numbers like Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” and in a bluegrass ditty, “Dawg’s Rag” got whoops, hollers and a hand-clap accompaniment from the crowd.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, brother of Wynton, came up next with father Ellis on piano, plus bass and drums, setting off a din that trembled the Uihlein Hall chandelier.  A full-blast version of John Coltrane’s “Impressions” was followed by far out variation on Jerome Kern’s “Yesterdays” and a dynamic Dixieland closer. “Royal Garden Blues.”

Native Milwaukeean Sonya Robinson, making her first big-hall appearance here, then came on with a dazzling fuchsia gown and a fierce determination to show that jazz violin is no dainty, la-dada instrument.  Working over, under and amid a surging rhythm accompaniment, she more than held her own, most often preferring the harsh insistent stroke than the singing line.

Finally, the Brubecks – white haired, three-piece-suited, elder statesman Dave on piano, plus bearded long-haired son Danny on drums, and bearded, burly son Chris on bass and trombone.

It was like the ’50s again, hearing those first musing plano chords, then the sudden break into the jaunty beat, the building of the long crescendo, the high plateau of sustained fury, the diminuendo to a quiet close. Not heard on stage Thursday night, but still held in the memory, were the cool, floating tones of Paul Desmond’s saxophone.

Here, certainly, was a prime example of family togetherness on the jazz stage.  Proud papa Dave looked up and smiled at Danny’s gyrations on the drums and cymbals, even walking to the rear, chin in hand to view the spectacle up close.  The finale, of course, was the most famous Brubeck number of them all “Take Five,” greeted by the audience like an old friend.  When it ended at 11:45 p.m., emcee Ron Conrad a final word to say: “Jazz  Lives!”  He was so right.