Search - Dave Brubeck Quartet :: The Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond

Pianist Dave Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond go together like peas and carrots; the two had a psychic musical understanding that conjured up its own universe when they played. The two improvised together as if playing a brilliant chess match. The music was as cerebral as it was modern when it was made in the early 1950s, its passion subsumed by its ineluctable logic. It's easy to see why the Brubeck/Desmond groups were so popular on college campuses at the time. "Trolley Song," which appears in both its rehearsal form and final version, offers a fly-on-the-wall illustration of the process that took place when these two musical intellects hooked up. --John Swenson