Album Notes

BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE REVIEW: For Lydia and the Lion

There’s something hugely inviting about the mellifluous and tuneful style of this offering from yet another member of the Brubeck dynasty, mixing originals with, for want of a better term, covers rather than standards. All hold up very nicely with the possible exception of Brubeck’s take on Bob Dylan, which may raise a cheer from baby boomers in the audience but sounds too much like a college exercise for its own good. However it is the only clunker in an appealing programme that skilfully juggles African lilt, Latin frisson and welcoming modern-to-mainstream arrangements. My only sonic gripe is an occasional clangorousness to the piano sound.

Roger Thomas BBC Music Magazine, February 2009

BRAZILIAN BLOGGER REVIEW OF LIVE CONCERT FEATURING TRACKS FROM CD

The Darius Brubeck Quartet played a world wide music selection, jazz standards, Darius' own compositions and a repertoire with African and Brazilian influences. I feel privileged to attend to this show and mostly happy to notice that the song he made to Lydia, the beloved grand-daughter, is a Bossa Nova Song. And the one that opened the show, by Abdullah Ibrahim is a Xaxado, a rhythm from Brazilian Northeast.

Thanks Darius for this marvelous show - you and your young musicians are excellent!

Marilena for Cat8YourTongue.com

Darius brubeck's liner notes:

About the CD:

We simply played everything twice in this London recording, hoping to capture the feeling of the live gigs that we've played in the last couple of years. Some takes were edited together to include the best of both, but the immediacy of live performance remains.

Tsakwe, Baby I Don't Know and my own tunes, Monkey's Wedding and The Lion at the Bar are from my South African period teaching at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban. I believe that Blowin' in the Wind, so often heard during the Vietnam war, is still relevant and asks the significant question, "how many times?"

For Lydia is new and the standard I'll Be Seeing You is old, flavored with hints of Bach and Monk.

My thanks and appreciation to Mike, a long-time comrade in many bands and many places and to Wes and Matt for their great contribution. And, special thanks always to Catherine Brubeck, Executive Producer, Manager and wife, for conceiving of this project and making it happen.

"For Lydia and The Lion" is a double dedication, to a multi-talented and musical grand-daughter, Lydia Elmer and to Glynis Malcolm-Smith, Program Administrator at UKZN's Centre for Jazz, where she also presided over the very popular bar for 15 years with sagacity and authority.

- Darius Brubeck
October, 2008