Jazz Goes To Junior College - Dave Brubeck

 

These Foolish Things Remind Me Of You

Jazz Goes To Junior College

The Dave Brubeck Quartet

Recorded in concert at Fullerton and Long Beach Junior Colleges

Columbia Records CL 1034

1957

Paul Desmond - Alto Sax

Dave Brubeck - Piano

Norman Bates - Bass

Joe Morello - Drums

From the back cover: The 1950s saw the emergence of a new kind of audience for jazz – one which existed all along, but had never before been brought together in its native habitat.

This was the college jazz audience; more precisely, the audiences which were already present on college campuses throughout the country, but who had not been given the chance to assemble to hear jazz on the home grounds. Campus concerts prior to the early fifties consisted of classical music series sponsored by the schools; beginning in 1952, student organizations, or small groups of students acting with the faculty permission but independently of an official university group, began to engage jazz artists to appear on individual concerts were a success, and today virtually all colleges have at least one jazz concert a year in the campus auditorium or gymnasium.

The pioneer combo that broke this field wide open was the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Working mostly in the Middle West, with a certain degree of concertizing on the west coast as well, Dave almost, singlehandedly opened up this market, and by 1953 enjoyed what amounted to a personal college circuit. Many other jazz artists have followed in his wake, but none so intensively as Dave. It is reasonable and fitting that his "Jazz Goes To Junior College" album (CL 566) is still his biggest all-time seller, and is in fact the most popular album the modern jazz field has ever known.

Dave, who has five children of his own, is keenly interested in youth programs of all kinds, and has played innumerable concerts for high school audiences, and even for grade schools. It is fitting, then, that the luck of getting good performances at various concerts which Columbia recorded during Dave's 1957 tours broke in such a way that the five outstanding Brubeck Quartet interpretations in this set came from two concerts at junior colleges – Fullerton and Long Beach junior colleges, to be specific. These schools, located near Low Angeles, are only two of the many junior colleges at which Dave has played. – George Avakian

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