Dave Brubeck, 89

I’ve always had a little thing for jazz, ever since a co-worker at my internship who was the bassist for a jazz quintet spun a CD or two for me in his office on Friday afternoons. He even played with trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis once (brother of some guy named Wynton). And reading Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays recently -- wherein he talks of his experiences at age 5 in a ballroom/jazz club his dad managed in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where jazz giants "Miles, Monk, Dizzy and Coltrane" and the like played with regularity -- only re-awakened my interest in what is still the only purely American form of music.

Dave Brubeck, a jazz legend himself that revolutionized the genre with unique time signatures like 5/4 and 9/8 (you no doubt have heard "Take Five" in your local Starbucks), turned 89 today.

Now I don't pretend to be capable of understanding all of his contributions, as I am only a casual jazz fan, but I do know that his then-controversial but now-legendary album Time Out regularly finds its way into my playlist. I must be doing right be listening to him, because in the words of President Obama: “You can’t understand America without understanding jazz, and you can’t understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck.”

Astoundingly chill “Kathy's Waltz”, from Time Out: