Biography Paul Desmond

Without trying to imitate the currents and trends, he created his unique style, unmistakably recognizable among many. Possessing the exceptional sense of humor, with his self -irony, Paul Desmond repeatedly said that he received the first prize for the slowest game on the saxophone, as well as for the quietest performance. And, answering the question why he decided to engage in music, jokingly stated that he never liked to wake up early, and therefore the musician’s night work in the club was the most suitable for him.

His father was an organist and a taper in the cinema, and therefore he met music from an early age. However, his musical training was very fragmented. Several lessons of the game on the piano, the basics of harmony in the college and a few classes on the alt saxophone in youth. The main school for the floor was musical notes and live performances of musicians, which he watched very carefully.

This observation and the ability to listen have been preserved in his life. The time for gender studies in the college took the years of World War II. From the first year he was drafted into the army - this happened in the year. But, fortunately, he ended up in the San Francisco military orchestra, where he served three years until the end of hostilities. At this time, he changed his name Breitenfeld, which, according to him, sounded “too Irish,” to Desmond.

It is interesting that it was then that his first meeting took place with Dave Brubek Dave Brubeck, which, also being drafted into the army, came to listen to the orchestra in the hope of avoiding sending to the front. This is how Dzmond himself later described the impression of this meeting: “We went to our rehearsal to play a short session. They started with a blues in See Bemol, and the first chord he played the salt of Major.

Knowing nothing at that time about political names, I decided that I was dealing with a violently obsessed ignoramus. Its appearance at that time perfectly corresponded to such a judgment. With disheveled hair, a fierce look, he pounded on the keys like a pile apparatus with the expression of a ruthless Indian of Siu, however, after the war, the paths crossed them again.

Desmond, who also played at that time in clubs, often came to their performances and later, when Brubek organized octet, became one of the participants in his team. It is interesting that most of the musicians of October, including primarily Brubek himself, were students of the famous French composer Darius Miyo Darius Milhaud, fr. According to Brubek, Miyo was the first composer to love jazz and used jazz tricks in his works.

Desmond, in turn, called himself "musically illiterate in the octet", as the theory has always preferred practice. With the engagement, in those days it was ineffective. Therefore, Desmond, trying to somehow earn money, made an attempt to independently organize a group into which Brubek invited. However, having received a job at the Feather River Inn hotel in the resort town on the state border, he went there with his musicians, hiring another pianist.

As a result, Brubek remained in San Francisco without work, without money, with his wife and two young children, as well as with a great desire to never have any business with a person named Pol Desmond. The quartet but fate ordered otherwise. Having worked for some time in Jack Fina Jack Fina G. Brubek by that time organized a new trio, and also made several successful records, having heard which, Desmond decided to restore old connections at all costs.

By long persuasion and promises to “sit with children, wash the car and do everything that they will ask him about”, he got the opportunity to join the Brubek team. And fortunately, since this was the beginning of one of the longest and successful creative unions in the history of jazz. During the years, the groups that performed with a saxophone were an infrequent phenomenon, especially in San Francisco.

Basically, their composition was limited to double bass, drums and piano. The saxophone Paul Desmond gave a block of Brubek a fresh sound and a unique personality. A great success for the musicians was the idea of ​​performances at university concert venues. Young people perceived everything new well and then again wanted to hear their favorite performers. Some of these performances went out in separate discs: these are “Jazz at Oberlin”, “Jazz at the College of the Pacific”, “Jazz Goes to College” of them “Jazz at Oberlin” became one of the most successful quartet albums.

It really was an event. Jazz came out of small clubs to a wide audience and became the object of real intellectual attention. The new direction in jazz music was not copied by Bibop, which had very popularity at that time, but represented its own line of free and rhythmically complex improvisation using the heritage of world classics and innovative experiments of the modern school of the composition.

In the quartet, from time to time, the performers at the double bass and drums changed, but the duet of Desmond and Brubek remained unchanged.Despite the opposite of the temperaments and styles of the game of these two geniuses, there was exceptional musical understanding between them. Desmond himself spoke in an interview that this mutual understanding was literally from the first meeting.

Everyone could develop their line during the performance, but at the right time they always found themselves in the right place. And so it always happened. Improvisation of the sound of the saxophone Paul Desmond with its purity and melody expressively contrasted with the energetic chords of the barbecue. The favorite musical technique of the two musicians were counterpoints that were born spontaneously, never planned or discussed in advance, but always sounded maximum consistently.

A wonderful improviser, Desmond could organically include quotes from other popular or classic works in his compositions. Sometimes he himself created the illusion of a counterpoint during execution, jumping to the upper register and immediately responding to himself in the lower. Paul Desmond said that for him the performance is like a trip to an empty castle, a complete door, each of which leads to a corridor, where more and more doors are located.

And on some evening, the game is nothing more than a journey from one door to another, in places, hitherto unknown and amazing. And on another evening, all the doors can be closed, and there is nothing left to wander in an empty corridor alone with oneself. One of these magic travels was the incredibly beautiful and delicate Melody of Audrey, created by Desmond literally in one breath.

This happened on the filming of the film dedicated to the release of the new album of the quartet "Brubek Time". At the end of the filming, producer George Avakyan George Avakian asked the musicians to perform a slow blues in Minor. And the photographer Gion Mile Gjon Mili, covering his eyes and expressively raised his hands said that he would like to see Audrey Hepburn walking through the forest.

And then a melody was born, which still touches with its purity and lyricism. Although Paul Desmond and Audrey Hepburn were never familiar, this melody tied them with an invisible thread. According to her husband Audrey, she listened to this music every evening before bedtime, and when she walked around the garden next to the house, this topic sounded in her headphones.

Take Five in total, Desmond created some compositions. Despite this, there is one among them who made him famous throughout the world and still does not lose its popularity. This is the famous Take Five. It all started with experiments with a musical size, which were always interested in both Brubek and the rest of the collective musicians. Joe Morello was ready to rhythm, and the floor spun two motives in his head, but there was no single melody.

Paul sat down to the piano and played what soon became the hit of all radio stations at all points of the world. Success in Eva Brubek’s quartet was one of the most famous jazz groups. They climbed to the tops of all possible charts in America and Europe, for several weeks occupying the upper positions, gave concerts a year. In England in the concert hall, Odeon at 3, thousands of spectators, they played two concerts a day three days a week.

For several years, Paul Desmonde dominated in the charts of the authoritative publication “Download Magazine”. The musicians copied his style, trying to adopt the melodicity and purity of the sound of his saxophone. It was a grand success. The block of Brubek successfully lasted up to a year, when its founder decided to dissolve the group and change concert activities to the composer.

Indeed, the touring schedule of the musicians was so dense that he practically did not leave free time for anything else. Creativity after the quartet after the collapse of the quartet Paul Desmond received a kind of respite. Possessing a wide horizons and a sharp mind, he decided to engage in literary work. His plans were to write a book of memoirs in a jokes, the name of which “how many are you there in the quartet?

However, the case was limited to one chapter, which was published in the journal Punch in the year. After some time, Desmond again returned to concert performances and studio records, however, not as intense as it was the times of working with Brubek. He admitted in an interview that during this period of relative rest he realized that "playing on a saxophone is, indeed, the best thing in the world." There were few live performances during this period.

An exception is his performance in the orchestra of all stars at the birthday of Duke Ellington in the White House in April, in which he took part at the invitation of President Richard Nixon. At the beginning of X, Desmond began to sign up at CTI studio as a leader and Sidman, creating his best album of this Pure Desmond period. The same time is his joint musical project with the guitarist Ed Bictort, who at one time took part in the recording of the album “Pure Desmond”.

With a new quartet, Dzmond gave several brilliant concerts in Toronto.Guitarist Stewart Nicholson Stuart Nicholson spoke so about the game of the Desmonde of that period we are talking about solo in the composition “Wendy”: “It is built like a card house. One fragile phrase is applied to another, more and more, the development of the melody completely depends on the connections with what preceded.

This creates an exciting stress associated with the expectation that the further its solo develops, the more likely the chance that with the next card everything will collapse to Earth. But this never happens, of course. Instead, he combines a series of absolutely beautiful ideas into a single whole, which are the essence of his art. ” Of course, friendship and joint performances with Dave Brubek continued.

In the year, Desmond and Brubek organized a jubilee tour dedicated to the lady of the quartet. Traveling around the cities of America by bus, the musicians in the same team gave 25 concerts in 25 days. In the same year, Paul Desmond was diagnosed with lung cancer. He remained a year. In this difficult period, the Brubek family, whose sons were very attached to the floor, considered him a greater support, considering him almost a relative.

To one of them, Michael, Desmond bequeathed his saxophone. Despite the disease and worsening well -being, Paul Desmond did not leave creativity.