Dave Brubeck Trio - Live at the Wiener Konzerthaus

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Label: Edition Ö1 - ORF
Year: 1967
Released on LP: Yes
Released on CD: No

Tracks

1 St. Louis Blues
2 One Moment Worth Years
3 Swanee River
4 La Paloma Azul
5 Someday My Prince Will Come
6 Take The "A" Train

Personnel

Dave Brubeck (piano)
Joe Morello (drums)
Eugene Wright (bass)

Notes

This wonderful European audiophile LP release is issued by ORF - the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and is fully authorised by the Brubeck family.

Note: The ORF LP includes a code to download digitally.

The US album will be distributed later on in 2021 by the Brubeck Family label - Brubeck Family Editions.

Production notes:

On November 12, 1967, Dave Brubeck made a guest appearance in Vienna as part of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's last European tour in an unexpected formation: Together with double bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello, but without saxophonist Paul Desmond, he played two concerts at the Vienna Konzerthaus, one of which has since been stored in a recording in the archive of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF.

The reason given for Desmond's absence was an illness - which took its beginning the night before on Hamburg's Reeperbahn. More details about this and the role Vienna played in Dave Brubeck's artistic life can be read in the liner notes of the production.

The Vienna trio concert has the status of a rare document. Not only is it one of the few published recordings from the Brubeck Quartet's European farewell tour, the recording also offers one of the rare opportunities to experience Dave Brubeck in a classical piano trio setting.

Record Label notes:

Ulrike Tina Leitner - Edition Ö1 ©

"Edition Ö1" is the house label of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, ORF.

It presents selected broadcasts, recordings and archive productions on CD and LP as well as digitally in order to make the broadcaster's diverse programme audible to its audience beyond the transience of the radio format. ORF publish a mixture of productions from various areas of the station (15-20 productions per year).

Currently ORF have a focus on jazz, where young Austrian jazz musicians are celebrated in the series "Ö1 Jazz contemporary". The Dave Brubeck album starts the series "Ö1 Jazz treasures" on vinyl, which will be continued in autumn 2021 with another release Jazz record.

UPDATE 2022

Brubeck Editions releases Live From Vienna 1967

Dave Brubeck Trio – Live From Vienna 1967, is the newly discovered recording of the extraordinary evening when the iconic Dave Brubeck Quartet was forced to take the stage as a trio. This electrifying album marks the only recording of jazz luminary Dave Brubeck, celebrated drummer Joe Morello and acclaimed bassist Eugene Wright performing in a trio context. During this performance at Vienna’s famed Konzerthaus, the pared-down instrumentation proves only to exemplify the genius of Brubeck and his legendary rhythm section.

Reviews

Liner notes by Darius Brubeck, Chris Brubeck.

Dave said of the classic quartet that their best concerts were when he was angry. This time Dave was mad because Paul was unaccountably absent. This unplanned Trio turned in a performance charged with energy, dynamics and confident shifts of style and feel, opening with four up-tempo numbers with extended improvisations and usually featuring bass and drum solos. Dave’s late trio style celebrates earlier influences. "One Moment Worth Years", the only original, was composed as a tribute to Fats Waller and Dave’s choruses demonstrate modern freedoms with old school pianistic devices. Sans sax, melodic ideas are secondary to variations of rhythms and texture, and the audience appreciates this. The piano roars like a bluesy big band on the up-tempo numbers, is delicate on "La Paloma Azul" and flashy on "Someday My Prince Will Come". This is a rare, revealing and indeed accidental addition to the Brubeck legacy. In the end, everyone was happy.

Darius Brubeck

Since I had been the bass player in his band for many years, I enjoyed the privilege to perform with my father in front of large audiences on Vienna’s most famous historical stages. From backstage before the performance Dad would look out into the venue and marvel that he was going to have the good fortune to play in the same building where the greatest musicians and composers bad performed centuries before. Dave also knew that the Vienna audiences were musically sophisticated and had enough know- edge of the jazz art form to appreciate and follow the group’s musical explorations. It is safe to say Vienna was one of Dave Brubeck’s favorite places to play in the world. Dave often said that the audience was the fifth member of his quartet. In this unique situation, the trio played a very unusual and inspired set that was no doubt influenced by this concert’s fourth member of the ensemble - the Viennese audience.

Chris Brubeck



Brubeck Editions 2022 release notes

The date was November 12, 1967 and the Dave Brubeck Quartet was nearing the end of their very last tour of Europe. They had played in Hamburg on November 10th, but saxophonist Paul Desmond got “distracted” after going out on the town for one last evening to explore Hamburg with an old friend. When the rest of the quartet went to the airport on the morning of November 11th, Paul was missing. He didn’t make the lobby call or the flight and the rest of the group traveled to Vienna without him.

Grammy nominated composer and son of Dave, Chris Brubeck notes “Knowing my father, he was probably worried about Paul. However, Dave also would have suspected that Paul may have been out celebrating too hard.” Brubeck must have felt assured that Desmond would show up, as Chris indicates, “ there were later flights Paul could take to get to Vienna in time for the concerts”. But Paul never made it to Vienna, and the remaining members of the quartet were reluctantly pushed into an exciting place of spontaneous invention and exploration.

As Chris notes “Dave often said that the audience was the fifth member of the Quartet. In this unique situation, the Trio played a singular and inspired set no doubt influenced by this particular concert’s fourth member of the ensemble – the Viennese audience. There was suddenly more solo space for all three musicians to explore with their inspired improvisations. These performers instinctively utilized the great sound and dynamics of this hallowed concert hall both to rattle the rafters and float gentle melodies up to the balconies.” The recording highlights the late “Senator” Eugene Wright, who sadly passed away December 30, 2020. The last surviving member of the quartet, he was always appreciated as the foundation upon which the other members of the quartet relied, but on this recording, he has more space to show off his formidable bass chops.

As Chris Brubeck espouses, “I think if our dad were alive to hear this Brubeck Trio recording now, he’d be flashing his famous big smile. He would be extremely proud to hear how, more than half a century ago, he, Gene and Joe got thrown a curve ball and knocked it out of the park!”

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