It's About Time

Tomorrow night is the 32nd annual “Kennedy Center Honors,” with this year’s honorees being Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro, and Bruce Springsteen. You might think I’d want to comment on Bruce receiving this tribute, perhaps questioning whether it’s coming too soon (probably not). But I’d rather focus on Dave Brubeck – and say that it’s about time.

Dave has been a giant of the jazz world for more than half a century. He made his mark in the 50s by introducing a generation of college students to cool jazz even before the album Time Out catapulted him to the top of the charts and the cover of Time Magazine. (Yesterday the xm/sirius jazz station did a set of jazz musicians who had made the cover, and there were only five.) His legendary explorations in time signatures that until then were alien to jazz solidified his reputation as an innovator. For most fans, Brubeck’s music is “about time”; but it’s also about counterpoint and improvisation, interpretations of Disney and Japan, even cantatas and oratorios. 

The cruel irony of Dave’s career is that the one tune with which he became forever associated, “Take Five,” was written by his late partner, saxman Paul Desmond. It must be bittersweet to be best known for somebody else’s composition when you’ve written so many outstanding ones of your own. (For me, Brubeck will always mean “Blue Rondo à la Turk” from the same album.) But he’s kept it in his repertoire long past Desmond’s departure.

Now here’s the rub: as it happens, tomorrow is also Dave’s 89th birthday. 89!!!! Why did the Kennedy Center take so long to honor this legendary artist? Especially since previous honorees include Brit rockers Elton John, Pete Townshend, and Roger Daltrey. What a travesty!

You deserve it, Dave. You swing.