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Cadillac & Ford. Their technique is getting smoother all the time. Explains Brubeck: "Everything we play is superimposed on the tune, and each chorus is superimposed on the one before it. If you don't goof, you're obliged to keep going farther out all the time." Both Brubeck and Desmond habitually venture into keys that are entirely foreign to the one they are supposed to be playing in, for they are firm believers in what musicians call polytonality. Some tunes, like On the Alamo and Let's Fall in Love, stimulate the Brubeck crew to new and fancier flights, month after month, then drop out of the repertoire when they begin to bore the men. The quartet may swing into These Foolish Things, which seems to remind them of lots of other things (including Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, Lazy River), or into Fare Thee Well, Annabelle, which begins with a polytonal fughetta and is interrupted by a hoarse dissonance that sends the whole band into a fit of laughter. The prom perennial, Stardust, is popular with Brubeck and Desmond because its stately harmonic progressions flow as smoothly as the Mississippi, allowing them freedom to improvise in their most carefree vein. Of course, they never play the tune any more, nor the original harmonies. All that remains of poor old Stardust is the memory of a mood.
Says Desmond: "The melody is just a vehicle. It's like an old Ford with a new Cadillac motor put in."
Brubeck, the driver who pilots the strange, souped-up vehicle, rarely stops worrying about whether the audience will be with him. Says he: "The audience is part of creativity, maybe some of them for the first time in their lives. When it works, that persistent beat starts to become a live thing in the room. Pretty soon it is so solid everybody feels it, and it comes back to you. Then you can really start to play music."
When he feels he has "really" played music, Brubeck seems almost in a kind of trance. It happened at a recent recording session. Dave finished in a fever, grabbed a handkerchief, wiped his face and ran to the wall as if he wanted to burst through it. Paul laughed aloud, followed him and spun him around. Brubeck was laughing, too, great yelps of laughter. He threw his arms into the air, drunk with music. A photographer who happened to be there was caught up in the excitement. "You're hot," he yelled, "by God you're hot! Don't stop now!"
Is Anybody Happy? Dave Brubeck is not stopping. Besides his inner drive, there is plenty of competition to keep him interested. Big bands continue to get off the ground (Count Basie, Woody Herman's "Third Herd," Duke Ellington). The nation is laced with touring jazz packages, e.g., "Jazz at the Philharmonic," with stars such as Pianist Oscar Peterson, Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and Singer Ella Fitzgerald. Serious composers continue to find stimulation in jazz; this month will see the U.S. premiere of a work by Swiss Composer Rolf Liebermann, a kind of concerto grosso in which the Sauter-Finegan band will act as jazz concertino to the Chicago Symphony's long-haired tutti.