Billboard : 09/16/1957

Generally excellent “live” performances by the quartet, particularly altoist Paul Desmond. Brubeck’s piano work on One Moment Worth Years is high spot of album. Considering that Brubeck’s last set made the charts, and all of his LPs do well, dealer would be wise to stock this in depth.

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Cashbox : 09/21/1957

This latest Brubeck jazz entry, actually recorded at two junior colleges, is a follow-up to the remarkably successful Brubeck Jazz Goes To College pressing, and could create equal sales activity. The quartet, brilliantly featuring pianist Brubeck and alto saxist Paul Desmond, get off a series of wonderfully fertile ideas on three standards and two Brubeck originals. Norman Bates (bass) and Joe Morello (drums) are the two other skilled members of the crew. Must for the jazz shelf.

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Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)
Nell Lawson : 10/07/1957

The first gentleman of modern jazz, and its finest practitioner, is Dave Brubeck. He is heard these days in a new Columbia LP, Jazz Goes to Junior College, a natural corollary to last year’s Jazz Goes to College. Campus jazz really began in 1952 and Brubeck’s Quartet was the first to enter the halls of learning.

The Junior College album was recorded in concerts at Fullerton and Long Beach Junior colleges (near Los Angeles) by the quartet composed of Paul Desmond, alto sax miracle-man; Norman Bates on bass; Joe Morello on drums, and maestro Brubeck at the piano.

There are only five numbers on the record, but all are classic jazz configurations and each is interspersed with bursts of applause from the young audience. My favorite number is Bru’s Blues, with a new approach to the traditional 12-bar pattern. Other numbers: St. Louis Blues; These Foolish Things Remind Me of You; The Masquerade Is Over; One Moment Worth Years, all played in Dave’s long-limbed striding progression of melody spiced with counterpoint and wondrous improvisation.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : November, 1957

The reconstituted Brubeck Quartet, with Joe Morello on drums, stumbles occasionally this time but makes up for everything with a performance of One Moment Worth Years which brings out the best in every member of the group, including Brubeck, who is quite convincingly swinging in a subdued vein. The version of St. Louis Blues included here suggests the merit of letting an idea season before it is recorded. Not that there is anything wrong with this St. Louis in itself — it is a pleasantly gentle and wistful performance. But this was only the second time that the group had tackled the piece. Since then it has been refined and developed — Morello’s drum solo, a brief passage in the recording, has become a delightfully subtle and humorous exploration of the drummer’s equipment — and it is now far superior to what, unfortunately, will probably stand as the permanent version.

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Jazz Journal (UK)
Gerald Lascelles : February 1958

Charlie Parker once expressed a liking for Brubeck, and admired his perfectionist attitude. With profoundest respect for the “Bird” and his expressed views, I don’t. I will allow that Dave Brubeck is an imaginative pianist, but he tries to string his ideas out along a very long and slender line, and encourages at least one of his soloists to do likewise. I doubt whether there are many small groups who can successfully spin their musical thoughts on Foolish Things to a full ten minutes without becoming boring. Paul Desmond’s alto searches, flute-like, for a counter-melody which will not come, and reminds me of a sad old man bemoaning the loss of his last tooth.

Masquerade is faster and livelier, and I almost detect a warm note in the solos. The chorded piano chorus is typical of Dave, slick and accurate, but infuriatingly late on the beat so much of the time. One Moment is a Brubeck original, opening with a piano chorus of simple concept, which is perhaps the most compact track on the record. The determination to be original causes Mr. Brubeck to lose sight of too many jazz fundamentals, most noticeable where one has a measurable yardstick, such as St. Louis Blues beloved of pianists and all small groups. This is soul-less music, where I demand warmth of conception and execution. Admirers of “Coolth” will enjoy this, whilst I take myself off to warmer waters.

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Kansas City Star (Kansas City, MO)
R.K.S. : 09/29/1957

As nonchalantly as a professor out for a campus stroll Dave Brubeck meanders around the keyboard in a new album, Jazz Goes to Junior College. Accompanying Professor Brubeck in his unhurried walk are his confreres Paul Desmond on alto, Norman Bates on bass and Joe Morello on drums. This is all very relaxing. You probably won’t throw your hat in the air and cheer, but you may stop biting your fingernails. Brubeck and his boys get more mellow as time passes. If the people must have a tranquilizer, let it be something like this. The tunes Bru’s Blues, These Foolish Things, The Masquerade Is Over, One Moment Worth Years and St. Louis Blues. The recording was made at two junior college concerts.

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Oakland Tribune (Oakland, CA)
Russ Wilson : 09/29/1957

In many respects, this is the best album ever made by a Dave Brubeck Quartet. Recorded during concerts at Long Beach and Fullerton Junior Colleges, it swings from beginning to end, has a funky, bluesy feeling, and is replete with fine solos by Brubeck and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond. Drummer Joe Morello keeps a steady beat and also contributes one of his always tasteful drum solos on St. Louis Blues, one of the best numbers in the LP. One Moment Worth Years, on which Brubeck plays a long and exciting piano solo marked by exceptional feeling, and These Foolish Things also are standouts.

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Portland Oregonian (Portland, OR)
John A. Armstrong : 12/01/1957

This one isn’t quite up to the last couple of Brubeck albums. Maybe it suffers by comparison, coming not too long after the superb Jazz Impressions of the U. S. A. album.

These are numbers recorded live this year at concerts given at Fullerton and Long Beach junior colleges near Los Angeles. Perhaps the audience did not inspire the quartet to its best. Whatever the reason, the usual rapport of the foursome that results in such superb inventiveness and interplay of instruments just doesn’t seem to be quite here.

For one thing, the group included St. Louis Blues in this album. Dave called for it one night in the midst of a concert, without any warning or rehearsal. The next night he called for it again, and it was recorded for this album. It leaves a lot to be desired.

Summing it up: You can’t be perfect, at least not all of the time.

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San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, CA)
C.H. Garrigues : 11/03/1957
Brubeck’s Fans Learned About Jazz in College

If there is one person who, more than any other, is responsible for the present high economic state of jazz in the Bay area, that person is probably Dave Brubeck.

A few years ago there were two regular jazz spots in San Francisco and one in the East Bay. Today there are eight or nine in San Francisco alone and all of them are apparently making it financially, even though midweek business is sometimes sparse.

Some clue to what has happened in that half dozen years will be gained if you make a tour of the city’s jazz spots, paying particular attention to the man on the stands and the men and women in the audiences.

New Kind Of Audience

As you travel from the Blackhawk on Turk (where you will find Brubeck himself holding forth) down Market to the Showcase, then make the loop and end up in North Beach, you will see that this is a new kind of audience. Here is no audience of tired business men making whoopee to the accompaniment of loud and brassy noise, masquerading as music. Here are few tourists, seeing the “bright spots” of the town.

Here are, instead, audiences (and musicians) of an average age of between 25 and 30; the musicians playing seriously, the audiences listening attentively; here are, for the most part, college men and women-undergraduates or recent graduates—lately come of age, men and women who learned about jazz at college concerts which, before Brubeck, were almost unknown.

Started With Brubeck

Now it is not true, of course, that Brubeck was the first man to take jazz into the colleges but he was the first man to take it there and make it stick. Because he played the kind of jazz that swung without swinging too hard, that was novel but never for novelty’s sake, that was cool without being abstract, he caught the attention of a whole generation of college men and women.

It is these men and women who are providing the audiences of today, packing the clubs with serious listeners, filling the halls at college concerts, providing a great reserve force from which the audiences- and musicians–of tomorrow will be drawn. And, in a sense, it all started with Brubeck.

It was in recognition of some of these facts that Columbia has just issued another in the “college” series of Brubeck albums. This one, titled Jazz Goes to Junior College was recorded during a recent Brubeck tour at Fullerton and Long Beach junior colleges.

It is a funkier and in many ways better album than he has made during the last year or so: in a definite effort to get a more swinging feeling into his work he has turned for the first time to the blues form on two tracks.

But, essentially, it is the same Brubeck that burst upon the startled world in 1954: suave, imaginative, brilliantly cohesive, filled with delightful interplay between piano and alto-definitely not jazz at its greatest but just as definitely the sort of jazz which will make greater and greater audiences for greater jazzmen.

And, meanwhile, for the next few weeks, a look at the Blackhawk audiences reveals a switcheroo. For here, again, “College Goes to Jazz,” which is as it should be.

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Toronto Star (Toronto, ON)
Roger Feather : 10/12/1957
Five stars

Brubeck over the past few years has become one of the most controversial figures in jazz. Although he leads one of the more commercially successful groups in the business the critics have been none too kind. The lack of growth in the group and a rather erratic, sometimes incoherent, drummer provided much of the criticism. If this record is any indication of the group at present, and I think it is, then both these problems seem to have been eliminated with the addition of Joe Morello.

This album is one of the finest the group has ever made. From the opening Bru’s Blues to the wonderful swinging St. Louis Blues closer the group is cohesive, relaxed and wonderfully satisfying. The best tune on the album is When The Masquerade Is Over. Desmond, who is brilliant throughout, plays one of his best solos on record on this selection. Showing more depth than usual, he is still very lyrical and the ideas flow effortlessly from his horn. Brubeck’s solo on this tune is excellent but even more surprising is his “comping” behind Desmond.

The heavy chording which seemed to produce so much sameness in Dave’s previous work is spelled on this record by many building, single-line solos. On his original One Moment Worth Years, he plays a long, fresh and inventive solo. Morello’s drumming perfectly underlines all the group’s work and his articulate and humorous solos are a delight.

This group is at Eaton Auditorium next Monday and if they play as well as they do on this LP it should be an excellent concert. This album, by the way, was recorded in concert and the balance and sound is surprisingly good.

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Down Beat : 11/14/1957
Dom Cerulli : 4.5 stars

These five tracks were taken from concerts at Fullerton and Long Beach junior colleges, near Los Angeles.

There’s the concert atmosphere here, the relaxed flow of creativity from Desmond, the often tense counterpoint of Bates, and some easy-swinging drumming by Morello. Dave’s playing is, as usual, firm and assured.

It’s been said that the test of a jazzman is how (or if) he plays the blues. The two blues tracks here, particularly St. Louis Blues, certainly qualify Brubeck. I find his construction on St. Louis, almost wholly in blocks of percussive chords, very satisfying. As Dave builds to the climax, he varies his sound texture with keyboard dynamics, enhancing the culmination. The group individually shines on this number.

If, in the past, Brubeck was criticized for carrying his solos sheerly on their rhythmic structure way past the climactic point, that tendency is not present in this collection. In Bru’s Blues, Dave builds on cascades of melody leading into a climactic series of chords, after which he and Desmond wander fugally, one of their most refreshing devices.

While the pace of this album doesn’t vary too much from the easy-tempo norm, it’s a rewarding listening experience. Note, too, how Morello’s drumming heightens the climax of Desmond’s solo on Foolish Things.

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Liner Notes by George Avakian

The 1950’s saw the emergence of a new kind of audience for jazz — one which existed all along, but had never before been brought together in its native habitat.

This was the college jazz audience; more precisely, the audiences which were already present on college campuses throughout the country, but who had not been given the chance to assemble to hear jazz on the home grounds. Campus concerts prior to the early fifties consisted of classical music series sponsored by the schools; beginning in 1952, student organizations, or small groups of students acting with the faculty permission but independently of an official university group, began to engage jazz artists to appear on individual concerts. From the beginning, these concerts were a success, and today virtually all colleges have at least one jazz concert a year in the campus auditorium or gymnasium.

The pioneer combo that broke this field wide open was the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Working mostly in the Middle West, with a certain degree of concertizing on the west coast as well, Dave almost singlehandedly opened up this market, and by 1953 enjoyed what amounted to a personal college circuit. Many other jazz artists have followed in his wake, but none so intensively as Dave. It is reasonable and fitting that his Jazz Goes to College album (CL 566) is still his biggest all-time seller, and is in fact the most popular album the modern jazz field has ever known.

Dave, who has five children of his own, is keenly interested in youth programs of all kinds, and has played innumerable concerts for high school audiences, and even for grade schools. It is fitting, then, that the luck of getting good performances at various concerts which Columbia recorded during Dave’s 1957 tours broke in such a way that the five outstanding Brubeck Quartet interpretations in this set came from two concerts at junior colleges — Fullerton and Long Beach junior colleges, to be specific. These schools, located near Los Angeles, are only two of the many junior colleges at which Dave has played.

Dave finds it particularly satisfying that young audiences enjoy his music. “We like playing in clubs,” he says, “and the audiences are certainly appreciative there too. But youngsters can’t come to night clubs where liquor is served, unless their parents bring them, and understandably enough most parents don’t want to do that. It’s better in every way for us to go to the kids, and play in their own schools under concert conditions, which are much better for the audiences and usually much better for us, too. What’s more, we feel as though we’re really doing something to help the students learn about the jazz heritage which is theirs to enjoy. It’s a good feeling, too, to realize that their teachers also recognize the good things in jazz, so that they welcome the appearance of a jazz group on the campus and don’t think of jazz — as so many of the past generations of educators did — as something to be ignored or considered undignified or downright bad.”

The Brubeck Quartet, as constituted in this album, is made up of Dave at the piano, Paul Desmond on alto sax, Norman Bates on bass, and its newest member, Joe Morello, on drums. (That’s Dave’s voice introducing them on the first number in this album.) While the group’s approach to improvisation appears on the surface to be forbiddingly difficult —it frequently employs many of the elements of classical composition, as those familiar with its previous Columbia albums well know—in practice it is not only the most popular modern jazz group of the day, but also one of the easiest and pleasantest to listen to. Melodically, harmonically, and rhythmically, there is always something doing in this foursome, and its spinning improvisations have long been recognized as a source of seemingly endless delight.

The oldest material in this set — the blues — is the newest to Brubeck fans, in that the sprightly Bru’s Blues is an approach to the traditional 12-bar pattern which the Quartet has undertaken only recently, and this performance of St. Louis Blues happens to be only the second time the group had ever played this venerable favorite. With no preparation beforehand, Dave had “called” the tune for the first time the night before this concert, and it had gone off so well that he tried it again at Long Beach. This is the way it was played that second time, and it certainly proved to be worth preserving on records.

The Masquerade Is Over has been in the “book” for several years, but has not been recorded until now. It is a tune which is all but forgotten by the present generation, but as often happens, it lends itself to improvisation and although it is seldom played by anyone else these days, it has always been a favorite of the Quartet’s. These Foolish Things is an even more popular Brubeck item. Dave and Paul have played some great versions of this fine pop tune of the thirties, but this particular “take” struck us all as being particularly outstanding.

One Moment Worth Years will be remembered by those who have Dave’s only solo piano album to date (Brubeck Plays Brubeck, CL 878). This Quartet version re-emphasizes the piano to such a degree that it is virtually a piano solo, and as such it makes for an interesting comparison with the familiar original. Dave’s vastly different treatment makes a virtually new piece out of it.

These performances all contain one underlying quality which runs throughout the album — the long-lined, logical flow of melody which has often characterized the improvisations of the Quartet, but has seldom been so strongly apparent as in the present collection.