Brubeck a La Mode
It's easy to forget that Dave Brubeck ever recorded any fascinating music with a horn player other thanPaul Desmond. But in clarinetist William O. Smith, Brubeck had another foil, another thorough, highly developed (and well-regarded) composer with aerated tone and brilliance of ideas. This 1960 set, likeNear Myth, features only Smith's compositions, all of them modal, and all of them showing melted edges and gentle bursts of creative improvising. Brubeck is his usual stalwart player, with his stark chords played so that they sound charming. Drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright, Brubeck's best rhythm section, step up to Smith's demanding works, playing latticed harmony so that it rumbles a bit beneath the wood-toned clarinet--whose range sounds ever so Desmond-like. This is a sleeper in the Brubeck catalog, but don't let that imply anything negative. It's astounding.--Andrew Bartlett