Dave Brubeck RIP

Modern jazz wasn't really my thing, but if any jazz man successfully crossed the gap to the mainstream it was pianist and composer Dave Brubeck, who has died a day before his 92nd birthday. The Dave Brubeck Quartet, with Paul Desmond on sax and Joe Morello on drums, produced some of the most well known jazz numbers of all time, including the massive hit Take Five and other numbers in odd time signatures such as Unsquare Dance and Blue Rondo A la Turk.
In fact, San Francisco-born Brubeck made a string of successful albums for Columbia from the 1950s onwards, including Jazz Goes To College, Jazz Impressions of Eurasia, Time Further Out, Jazz Impressions of New York, Time In and dozens of others. He was without doubt the best known and most accessible jazz man of the late 20th century and his death is a sad loss.