PAUL DESMOND - by Joe Goldberg

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“There is also a Scandinavian version of the ever-famous story which Sir Walter Scott told to Washington Irving, which Monk Lewis told to Shelley and which, in one form or another, we find embodied in the folklore of every land — now, Tommy, pay attention —the story of the traveler who saw within a ruined abbey, a procession of cats, lowering into a grave a little coffin with a crown upon it. Filled with horror, he hastened from the spot; but when he had reached his destination, he could not forbear relating to a friend the wonder he had seen. Scarcely had the tale been told when his friend's cat, who lay curled up tranquilly by the fire, sprang to its feet, cried out, ‘Then I am the King of the Cats!’ and disappeared in a flash up the chimney."

- THE KING OF THE CATS — STEPHEN VINCENT BENET

“Unlike most jazz musicians, Desmond is an intellectual. As much of his energy as he devotes to his music is consumed in living the gracious, if somewhat lonely, life. The theater, foreign films, ballet, good books, and good food count for much with him, and his friends are likely to be well-known in areas of show business other than his own. A diffidently epigrammatic conversationalist whose acquaintances pass his casual remarks back and forth as if they were suppressed literature, he has all the qualifications for the perfect extra man at a dinner party, and only two essential differences; he doesn't bother with details like pressed pants and shined shoes, and he is an exceptionally gifted musician.” ...

“Then, as now, the main point of interest was in the contrast which the two men provide for one another. Brubeck's approach is essentially rhythmic and harmonic; rarely does his solo depend on melody for its impact. Desmond, on the other hand, is one of the supreme creators of original improvised melody. He can create an exquisite melodic line without seeming to try, carrying a long, logical melody of sometimes chilled perfection past the point where other musicians would falter. He is all delicacy and subtlety, endlessly fascinating and intricate. He depends a great deal on facility and a rare sense of how one song is related to another (he loves to quote musically, to interpolate recognizable fragments of other melodies, and he does it with great humor).” 

- Joe Goldberg

Joe Goldberg’s Jazz Masters of the 50s [1965] is a gem in the Jazz literature for two reasons: [1] Joe knew what the heck he was talking about and [2] he could write - well.

I have previously posted his insightful analysis of Gerry Mulligan’s 1950s music on these pages.

Here’s his  - at times, highly sympathetic - take on alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who, in the 1950s was so closely associated with Dave Brubeck, that it took someone with a discerning eye such as Goldberg’s to see him as a distinctive stylist and to feature him in a chapter in his seminal  Jazz Masters of the 50s. 

“ONE MARCH AFTERNOON in 1955, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond and some friends were sitting in a restaurant in Chicago when someone saw a headline in the paper: 

BOP KING FOUND DEAD IN BARONESS’ APARTMENT. The Story told of Charlie Parker's death. Desmond didn't spring to his feet and cry out "Then I am the King of the Cats!" — it is doubtful that he springs or cries out under any circumstances. But even that long ago he was probably resigned to the fact that he was never going to be the King of the Cats.

"Unfashionable" is a word that crops up frequently in Desmond's conversation. "I was unfashionable," he says, before anyone knew who I was." Today, everyone has known who he is for quite a while. He is the other solo voice of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which is the most maligned, and possibly the most affluent, small group in jazz. As such, he is in an almost unique position. He has been a sideman in the same group for over ten years, although he could undoubtedly lead his own combo whenever he wished. He is greatly admired by several musicians, critics, and fans who have far less use for his employer's playing. And he is acutely aware of his situation.

Unlike most jazz musicians, Desmond is an intellectual. As much of his energy as he devotes to his music is consumed in living the gracious, if somewhat lonely, life. The theater, foreign films, ballet, good books, and good food count for much with him, and his friends are likely to be well-known in areas of show business other than his own. A diffidently epigrammatic conversationalist whose acquaintances pass his casual remarks back and forth as if they were suppressed literature, he has all the qualifications for the perfect extra man at a dinner party, and only two essential differences; he doesn't bother with details like pressed pants and shined shoes, and he is an exceptionally gifted musician.

It is a gift that has long been overlooked or taken for granted for several reasons. One of them, Desmond feels, is that "I'm not hostile enough to be currently acceptable." And indeed, in a period characterized by musical anger, his essentially melodic, lyrical talent was as unlikely to find favor as the delicate tone which complements it so well. (Eddie Condon, who is not fashionable either at the moment, said, "He sounds like a female alcoholic,” and Miles Davis, who is probably the most fashionable of jazz musicians, has said, "I just don't like the sound of an alto played that way," even though Davis' fans might be shocked at the similarity in the way he and Desmond play the blues.) 

Also, the Dave Brubeck Quartet has so long been summarily dismissed by most people involved with jazz that very few of them any longer give themselves the opportunity to hear Desmond play. And he is white ("the real underground," in his phrase), which, in his profession, doesn't necessarily help. As successful as he is, he pays dues, which are no less costly for being of a different nature than those of his colleagues.

Desmond was born Paul Emil Breitenfeld on November 25, 1924 in San Francisco. His father was a musician, accompanying vaudeville acts and silent movies. Because of an illness of his mother's, Paul went to live with relatives in New Rochelle, New York. Moderately interested in music, he took the mandatory courses, but nothing more. It was not until 1936, when he was going to high school back in San Francisco, that he began to study with any seriousness. The instrument he chose was the clarinet. "I was a real clarinet-nik," he says. "I could play entire Artie Shaw choruses." His teacher was a pit-band associate of his father's, and Desmond found himself being steered toward that kind of music ("I could have been Al Gallodoro."). Except for that and an elementary course in music theory, he never had any formal training, and attributes such knowledge as he has to 'looking over the shoulders of piano players."

The shoulder he has looked over for most of his professional life belongs to Dave Brubeck, whom he met in 1943 through a mutual friend, Dave Van Kreidt. Tenor saxophonist Van Kreidt and Desmond had both been in the reed section of an army band stationed in San Francisco ("It was a great way to spend the war"), and one night Van Kreidt's friend Brubeck, also in the army, played a session with them. Desmond, whose conversation is made up of equal parts of Holden Caulfield, Mort Sahl, and James Joyce, is pleased to relate his initial confrontation with Brubeck as follows: "I went up to him and said, 'Man, like Wigsville! You really grooved me with those nutty changes.'" If that were actually what was said, it would be a partial explanation for the fact that the two men didn't meet again for four years.

Later Brubeck was working in a San Francisco club for Darryl Cutler, a tenor saxophonist. Desmond recalled their second meeting for Marian McPartland in Down Beat: "I went down and sat in, and the musical rapport was very evident and kind of scary. A lot of things we've done since, we did then, immediately - a lot of the counterpoint things - and it really impressed me. If you think Dave plays far out now, you should have heard him then. He made Cecil Taylor sound like Lester Lanin." Shortly afterward, Desmond got a job for a Paul Desmond Trio, and since such a group was nonexistent, he hired Cutler's bass player, Norman Bates, and his pianist. The difficulties involved were sufficient to make Desmond recoil — as he remarked to Mrs. Mc-Partland, "That's when I decided I really didn't want to be a leader." But he also said, "A lot of the things we did later with the quartet began there  - that's where the empathy between Dave and me began, and it's survived a remarkable amount of pulling and pushing in the eleven or so years since."

The first strain on that empathy occurred soon afterward, when Desmond was offered a summer resort job and disbanded his trio, leaving Brubeck out of work and in no strong position to re-apply to Cutler. They were reunited in 1949 for the Dave Brubeck Octet. Half the membership of that group — Brubeck, but not Desmond, included — had studied with the composer Darius Milhaud (Desmond has referred to this contingent as the Four Frenchmen), and the music attempted a fusion of jazz and classical techniques. The Octet was able to get only two days' work that year, and so disbanded. One more job playing a wedding accounted for all of Desmond's musical income for a while, and so, when he was offered a job with pianist Jack Fina, who had become so popular playing "concertos" with Freddy Martin's hotel band that he formed his own, Desmond took it. He hoped to get to New York with Fina and then leave, but found to his dismay that most of the musicians he talked to in New York wanted his job.

Brubeck, in the meantime, had been leading a trio in Honolulu, and had formed, with the Weiss Brothers, San Francisco plastics manufacturers, Fantasy Records. Largely through the help of disc jockey Jimmy Lyons, Brubeck got himself an engagement at an important San Francisco nightclub, The Blackhawk. The group included Desmond.

Desmond says of the fortunes of the group, "It was timing, and luck, and a lot of very careful planning." It is easy to forget, now that Brubeck has become so famous that he can be safely ignored, the very considerable achievements of his quartet. He was, for example, the first leader to discover the financial and sociologically symbolic opportunities of the college circuit. It was probably necessary that someone like Brubeck, who is in many ways the antithesis of the stereotyped jazzman, be the one to establish this as a pattern. It was also Brubeck who first realized the musical and commercial potential of recording these concerts, a practice the quartet has since largely abandoned. "If we record a concert now," Desmond says, "Columbia is out there with two sound trucks, and a vice-president, and stereo. But when we first started recording, the record business was different, and the sound from one little home tape recorder was acceptable." A series of three recordings, made either in concerts or at clubs, provided the first major breakthrough for the quartet, and still, to some, represents the musical highpoint of their achievement.

They were Jazz at Storyville, Jazz at Oberlin, and Jazz at College of the Pacific. On them, the format the group usually uses was employed: an opening solo by Desmond, followed by a Brubeck solo, then Desmond either took the tune out or engaged with Brubeck in the improvised counterpoint which has become one of their trademarks. Then, as now, the main point of interest was in the contrast which the two men provide for one another. Brubeck's approach is essentially rhythmic and harmonic; rarely does his solo depend on melody for its impact. Desmond, on the other hand, is one of the supreme creators of original improvised melody. He can create an exquisite melodic line without seeming to try, carrying a long, logical melody of sometimes chilled perfection past the point where other musicians would falter. He is all delicacy and subtlety, endlessly fascinating and intricate. He depends a great deal on facility and a rare sense of how one song is related to another (he loves to quote musically, to interpolate recognizable fragments of other melodies, and he does it with great humor). 

From the time of his first recordings, he could play anything on his horn that anyone else could, and many things that no one else would even attempt (Brubeck has said that Desmond used to have another octave in range until he explained to someone how he did it and, in figuring out the technique, lost the ability). When one stops to consider that what he plays comes from a relatively unschooled musician it is rather surprising. Not surprising, though, is the answer Desmond gives to questions about his facility: "It's all a fraud."

By 1954, when Brubeck got a Columbia recording contract and his picture on the cover of Time, many people were beginning to cry "Fraudl" about the quartet. The situation has since become such that Desmond says, "Most jazz fans wouldn't be caught dead listening to us any more. But we've picked up a whole new audience. Just people."

Ever since the end of 1954, Brubeck and Desmond have been fighting, in various ways, an unending battle against the perils of success. They continue to make albums which continue to sell, and have been involved in various promotional schemes and searches for new material, the latter concerned mainly with the use of unusual rhythms. But though critical interest picked up for a time when Brubeck hired drummer Joe Morello, the jazz writer and the jazz fan are apparently gone forever, a fact that Brubeck, who feels that some of his former close friends are now in the vanguard of the enemy, is particularly bitter about.

Desmond himself has reacted differently at different times to Brubeck's music, but he is most likely to laugh and say, "Ambivalent City. I think he's great on ballads. Maybe I feel that way because I'm a secret German romantic myself. A lot of people have never heard Dave under the right circumstances. If you catch one set at Basin Street East or Newport, you won't really hear what he does." He pauses for a moment, trying to think of a recorded example, shrugs, and goes on. "He's done some wonderful things with polytonality and has a fantastic harmonic sense. You know, he's not as well schooled on the piano as people think. Things he plays, Chopin and Rachmaninoff, he may never have actually played. His mother is a piano teacher, and he probably heard her play them, but he never played them himself.

"We have occasional disagreements, but basically it's been just about an ideal relationship. There's certainly nobody else with whom I would have stuck around all this long. Aside from everything else, Dave can really be fantastic as an accompanist, which is getting to be something of a dying art. He plays behind you in a very self-effacing, intuitive way — sometimes you can even pick the wrongest note imaginable on a certain chord and he'll revoice the chord around it so it sounds beautiful. Not too many guys play this way — usually they just run through the same changes, chorus after chorus, like a hand-organ. Or, worse yet, they wait for you to leave a hole and play some tricky little thing that sounds great for them but hangs up your line of thought. As I said, it's a dying art. And that quality of Dave's alone is really enough to make up for the occasional arguments we get into about tunes, tempos, or whatnot."

Brubeck, on the other hand, has called Desmond "the best saxophone player in the world," and told Marian McPartland, "I've heard him play more than anyone else has, and even after all these years, he still surprises me. There are so many imitators of Charlie Parker, and to me Paul is one of the few true individuals on his instrument. . . . Paul's big contribution is going to be that he didn't copy Charlie Parker."

Over the years, Desmond has evolved into the musical magician, the juggler par excellence. The most curious aspect of his playing is a seeming detachment, a disinvolvement that enables him to play as well as he does with his mind, apparently, on something else. This quality translates itself in the minds of some of Desmond's critics into hesitancy and lack of assurance (in the case of a jazz writer of whom he is particularly fond, Desmond solves what might become a personal problem by reading his reviews as little as possible). Rather than hesitancy, the quality seems almost the same one Truman Capote described in the book Writers at Work: "My own theory is that the writer should have considered his wit and dried his tears long, long before setting out to invoke similar reactions in a reader. In other words, I believe the greatest intensity in art in all its shapes is achieved with a deliberate, hard and cool head." This approach sometimes works to Desmond's disadvantage. His average solo is a highly ordered, logical melodic flow, and the man playing it sounds and looks as though he might be reading the stock reports at the same time. Before audiences accustomed to having passion signaled for them with physical action, Desmond's best work sometimes goes by unnoticed.

Fans, though, are somewhat less disenchanted than the critics. Starting in 1955, Desmond began to win the Down Beat and Metronome readers' polls with monotonous regularity (Parker, the King of the Cats, was, according to the rules of these polls, no longer eligible because of his death that year). He also won the Playboy poll when it began in 1957, and continued to win them all until 1960, when the heavy odor of funk replaced Desmond with one of the most notable of the soul-brothers, Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. In 1962, however, he again won the Down Beat Readers' Poll.

Desmond seems little disturbed by his fluctuating popularity and has one brief, but extremely revealing, remark to make about his total situation: "There are many parallels with the Modern Jazz Quartet."

Aside from such obvious similarities as the use of some classical devices and simultaneous improvisation, the main parallel between the two units is in the personal situations and attitudes of the major soloists.

Desmond has a lucrative percentage deal with Brubeck, and a guaranteed minimum annual wage. And he is disinclined to form his own group because "You could wind up on the road with two junkies and a guy who can't play." But, like Milt Jackson, he makes his own records, although Brubeck was less than happy about it ("I wanted people to know that when you hear Desmond you hear Brubeck, and when you hear Brubeck you hear Desmond," the pianist says), and he has done so, with what seems to him a crushing lack of success.

"Nobody ever found out about them," he says. They usually follow a musical pattern similar to Gerry Mulligan's, as Desmond is quick to point out. "I like to work without piano," he says, "and Dave feels there's less confusion if I don't work with another piano player." He has recorded twice with Mulligan, as one of the countless artists who "met" the baritonist on Verve, and on Desmond's own RCA Victor album. "He met everybody," Desmond says, "but I only met him."

His most musically successful small-group effort under his own name, Paul Desmond and Friends, appeared on the Warner Brothers label. He is more satisfied with the music than is usual for him. The rhythm section, interestingly enough, was made up of Percy Heath and Connie Kay from the MJQ, and the other soloist is Jim Hall, whom Desmond calls "the Pablo Casals of the guitar." Hall is as lyrical a musician as Desmond, and an element of contrast, so evident with Brubeck, is missing. And Desmond, even though he is unusually sensitive to what his fellow musicians are playing, relies, as a result of having played for over ten years with one group, on techniques that have their greatest effect with that group, and have become favorites with him. The difference is most noticeable when Desmond, the master of re-entering after another man's solo, does so in his familiar way; it is as if he were replying to a statement which has not been made.

On You Go To My Head Desmond evidently decided that he had to be more than a contrasting element, and that, in this case, the passion and involvement would have to come from him. Midway in this solo, the best on the record, the hesitancy is gone, and there is a dominant, assured voice, which shows that Desmond might be capable of leading an excellent jazz group — if he chose to.

Whether or not he ever will is an open question. Brubeck has become increasingly more involved with composition, and wishes to perform less frequently. The problem, Desmond feels, is one of having men with whom he can get along personally as well as musically, and it is because he has that sort of rapport with Brubeck that he has remained so long and is so reluctant to leave. "Eventually," he says, "it will probably have to happen, if only because of the way Dave's career goes."

"He stays," Brubeck says, "because he can't find as much creative freedom anywhere else. If he ever does, he should leave." Desmond has any kind of freedom in the quartet, creative or otherwise, that he is willing to take; when he does not get what he wants, it is invariably because he has chosen to walk away rather than fight. Joe Benjamin, who was the group's bassist for a time, recalls a pertinent incident: "When he wants to, Paul can play so much more than he does. One night, we were playing an average set, and Joe Morello and I really got something going together. When it came time for Paul's solo, I started to dig in harder. Paul felt it — he looked over at me — and then he started to play. For chorus after chorus. I think Dave was a little troubled, he didn't expect it. But that doesn't happen very often. I wish it did, though, because Paul's one of the loveliest guys in the world,"

Desmond himself says, "It might sound arrogant, but I'm never satisfied with my playing, partly because of some technical things I've never mastered. I don't feel I've played up to my potential capacity." Another reason might be the personal and musical tensions that exist in the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Since Brubeck hired Morello in 1956, the group has undergone a significant change, one that greatly pleases Brubeck. "The character of the group changed when Joe Morello became our drummer," he says. "Before that, I'd never had a rhythm section that allowed me to do what I wanted. Morello is the best drummer in the world for rhythms." Originally, Brubeck had been the star of his own group, but by 1956, most astute listeners were in Desmond's camp. Then, with the arrival of Morello, Brubeck began the rhythmic experiments with the out-of-the-way time signatures and meters he is so fond of. Morello is a flashy, crowd-pleasing drummer, and he began to dominate the situation, particularly before the musically naive audiences Brubeck often plays to, to the extent that many might think they were watching the Joe Morello Quartet. Desmond's personal diffidence in such matters sometimes manifests itself as musical diffidence; much of the harsh excitement that was present on the old recordings is gone. He stands apart from his associates at a concert, both literally and figuratively: they seem part of a friendly garnering from which he has excluded himself. Crowds cheer Morello's stickwork and Brubeck's rhythmic pounding; some of Desmond's most intricate lines get only token appreciation. If he does not always do his best work, there is ample reason.

A typical incident occurred one day in New Jersey, when the quartet played late afternoon and evening concerts at a summer theater, Morello and Wright were nearly always talking together; Brubeck was taking care of several different details; Desmond was alone. At the end of his final solo of the first concert, he capped his mouthpiece and was out the door before the piece was finished. When Brubeck, having patiently signed autographs afterward, walked into the town's best restaurant, Desmond had nearly finished eating. During the second concert, while Morello was in the midst of a ten-minute drum solo on Desmond's piece Take Five, then high on the popularity charts, the composer was seated backstage, reading a paperback collection of Dostoevsky short stories. "It was supposed to be a drum solo,” he remarked wearily, "but it wasn't supposed to be a hit record."

These might sound like the actions of a man who is doing exactly what he is paid to do and no more, but after the concert, Brubeck advanced another theory. "Paul was fighting to say something all night," he said, "but in that one place, when Joe started that conga rhythm, he let it stop him. Every once in a while, though, when he gets stopped, he gets mad, and sort of says, I'm Paul Desmond, and the hell with you.7 That's when he plays best. He's achieved so much, even if he'd never done anything but not play like Parker, but he's capable of so much more. He could be a composer, he could be a lyricist, he could be a writer, but he doesn't seem to have the ambition." Part of Morello's value, Brubeck feels, is that he may someday goad Desmond into realizing his potential.

Desmond did begin to show signs of more activity on his own. When A&R man George Avakian joined RCA Victor, he signed Desmond to a contract calling for two albums a year— three if he should leave Brubeck. The first release, with attendant publicity unlike any the saxophonist has received before, was Desmond Blue — a quartet featuring Jim Hall played over a string section conducted and arranged by Bob Prince. The set also contains a lovely Desmond composition, Late Lament. After so many years, both Desmond and Milt Jackson, with Riverside, signed recording contracts with companies other than the ones to which the Brubeck quartet and the MJQ are committed.

Desmond professes unconcern with the final results of his albums, saying, "There is a hard core of three hundred and twenty-four people who will buy any album I put out, and maybe they'll like it," but unconcern is his standard pose. He is resigned to being unfashionable, and seems not to care. At the same time, he has given up other things that once interested him deeply. He is an excellent amateur photographer; at one time Desmond and his camera were inseparable, and he used to amuse himself at jazz festivals by taking pictures of the people who were taking pictures of him. But he has given that up. "It happens," he says. "You see a guy, and he always has a camera around his neck, and then one day he just shows up without the camera." At one time, he wanted to be a writer — that was his major when he attended San Francisco State College — but that, too, has apparently gone by the boards. "You can't say I gave that up, because I never started it." His standard reason for not pursuing a literary career, which his conversation and letters indicate might have been a considerable one, is: "I could only write at the beach, and I kept getting sand in my typewriter." His only professed ambition is to make a record on which he would play successive choruses like Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker, Cannonball Adderley, and Ornette Coleman.

So perhaps Desmond will continue to be the "illustrious sideman," as he puts it sardonically, living the urbane bachelor's life that suits him so well, keeping a distance between himself and whatever he might actually feel about his musical and personal situations, and making the music that comes so easily to him. "I will become the Mantovani of 55th Street," he says. "I will make a series of lush string albums and retire into fashionable obscurity." Taking a cue from Charlie Mingus’ phrase "rotary perception," he calls his music "Kiwanis Perception." But perhaps he only says that because, as he wrote in the notes for his first Fantasy album, "the uncrafty approach doesn't always get it these days."”

Selected Discography

Dave Brubeck: Jazz at Storyville, FANTASY 3240. 

Dave Brubeck: Jazz at Oberlin, FANTASY 3243. 

Dave Brubeck: Jazz at College of Pacific, FANTASY 3233. 

Paul Desmond and friends, WARNER BROTHERS 1356. 

Desmond Blue, RCA VICTOR LPM-2438.