Brubeck discography - the early years

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Brubeck's earliest releases (between 1946 and 1954) on Fantasy and other labels often suffer from a lack of precise information on dates, venues, and personnel. Bob Coughlin has put together a list of all Dave's recordings before he signed to the Columbia label. The lists were originally prepared in 1988 for Dave's 4-CD retrospective box-set released on Columbia. Here's what Bob says:

This first list is the master list, all of my best guesses about who played what and when, regardless of what was written on the album jackets. Darius Brubeck helped with the guesses on the curious, misdated Sandy Hook bootleg tracks. Paul Desmond used to sit in with the Trio when there was enough money paid for the gig. The Sandy Hook cuts were clearly recorded after Dave's long hospitalization, but very early in the life of the quartet. They have a curious mix of the old Trio arrangements, plus the new stuff that Dave and Paul were working out for the Quartet's first singles. While the album producer clearly got the years wrong, he may have gotten the months right. So I've positioned both broadcasts right after the October 1951 studio and concert sessions.


Here is the master list. (14k textfile)

Here is a table of just the pre-Columbian tracks, in the same order as the full list. (7k textfile)

Here is a listing of all the albums packaging the pre-Columbian cuts, at least all the ones I found between 1961 and 1988. Additional listings would be appreciated. (6k textfile)


This page last updated: 1997.08.26