Just before that Roundtable he recorded a number of sessions for his upcoming album and started to perform them before live audiences who found it a challenging listening experience. It didn’t hurt at all to have him defend me in public.” Time signatures of the odd flavor where top of mind for Dave Brubeck and his quartet in 1959. He explained that if you go back to the field hollers, they go right back to Africa, and why shouldn’t I be doing what I’m doing, that it was in the tradition of Africa to play in complicated time signatures. Years later he still cherished that event: “That was my big moment of glory. It was in five-four time, and the Dave Brubeck Quartet is on the right track.”ĭave Brubeck was elated when he heard that endorsement. James follows: “That was an American work song. At the end of his performance he asks the audience ‘Can any of you tell me what time signature that was in?’ The audience, including notable musicians of that era, is silent. James is an authority of African folksongs and their connection to the tradition of jazz. Willis James is on the stage, demonstrating an African chant. The event is the Jazz Roundtable, a series of talks and discussions about music, founded by professor Marshall Stearns in the early 1950s. It is the summer of 1959, and jazz enthusiasts are gathered at the Music Inn, a music venue in the heart of the pastoral Berkshires region in Western Massachusetts.
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