[Dixielandjazz] Lack of Melody - Deja Vu

[Steve Barbone]

Coming home from a gig this afternoon, I had Philadelphia's Jazz Station,
90.1FM playing on the car radio. Suddenly I heard Dave Brubeck & Paul
Desmond playing "These Foolish Things" from the album Jazz at Oberlin. It
sent chills up my spine.

Like Bean's "Body and Soul" circa 1939, and Parker's "Embracaeble You" a
decade or so later, there was no original melody. The performance(s) begins
and ends with a brand new melody based upon the chordal structure of this
beautiful Gershwin tune.

Yet it is, like the other two, a superb compositional improvisation. In this
case done, circa 1953, on the campus of Oberlin College which had a renown
musical degree program and probably still does.

Does lack of melody hurt the performance? Certainly not if we judge it by
the applause of the audience which included quite a few students who knew
something about music, given the venue.

I first heard it on the record some 50+ years ago. A group of guys and girls
were hanging out on the plush shag rug of a friend's house in Great Neck
Long Island. We were just college kids, (though I was older, attending on
the G.I. Bill) and listening to jazz records in a group was something we did
on a regular basis. (Remember when you used to do that?)

The person in charge of the records that night brought the newly bought
"Oberlin" album. It blew us all away. These Foolish Things sent chills up my
young spine then, same as it did to my old spine today. None of us worried
about what Gershwin might have thought about it except to think he would
have absolutely adored it. Talk about "Classical Jazz".

Both Desmond and Brubeck take the tune into wonderful places. It was a given
that all of us that night, musician or not, understood the new melody. We
replayed it several times and then again in future months.

That album, and the earlier "Jazz At The College Of The Pacific" sold very
well and help Brubeck take his magical journey through the world of College
kids. Talk about how music communicates. Man this was something else.

If you have the album, dig it out and replay "These Foolish Things". If not
and you want to find out about it, or listen to a clip, just Google search
for: <Brubeck + These Foolish Things>

Cheers,
Steve Barbone