Private Brubeck returns to D-Day in emotional musical memoir

Noel Coward commented memorably in Private Lives on 'the potency of cheap music'. The line tends to be quoted out of context, but it refers to the power to move that a song can acquire because of associations the listener attaches to it, the effect of which can be far more profound than a simple tune or set of chord changes might otherwise seem to warrant.

Often the jazz musician's job is to build on the associations a popular song or standard has in the mind of the listener and take the 'cheap music' to another level.

Consider Coleman Hawkins breathing exciting new life into Body and Soul. Consider the melancholy evocation that is Miles Davis' muted trumpet getting right to the heart of My Funny Valentine. And now consider Dave Brubeck tinkling the ivories on Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me.

Surprisingly enough, the last is probably a better example than the first two. Cheap music doesn't get a lot cheaper than that, and the tune is the nearest thing to a throwaway on Brubeck's fine new solo piano set, Private Brubeck Remembers, on Telarc, but even to that novelty piece he brings a bluesy twist to remind the listener that there's a subtext.

It's there because he used to have to play it with the forced jollity that went into entertaining troops who were going into combat from which many of them would not return, and like all the tunes here it means more to him than a younger audience, perhaps, can easily understand.

Private Brubeck Remembers is a musical memoir of the pianist/composer/bandleader's experiences with the US Army during the second world war, before and after D-Day. It was released in the US and Europe on the anniversary.

Brubeck is best known for pieces with tricky time signatures such as Blue Rondo a la Turk and Take Five (composed by Paul Desmond, but substantially arranged by Brubeck). He's also composed choral and orchestral music. Because of the enormous commercial success of the Dave Brubeck Quartet he tends to be associated with small-group jazz, often heavily influenced by 20th-century classical music, and he's always enjoyed introducing unexpected twists and dissonances to standards and more offbeat material. The son of a rancher, he grew up in the saddle in California and still knows his cowboy tunes.