Went to another fantastic jazz concert tonight.

Dave Brubeck is a master jazz musician, and the originator of such standards as Take Five. He also plays some classical music, and some very original compositions that fuse ethnic music (such as traditional Japanese music) with jazz.

I went to see him and his quartet tonight.

He was awesome. He is 83 years old, walks very stiffly, has a headful of white hair, and an old man's quavery voice. But when he sits down at his piano he plays with the intensity and force and limberness of a twenty year old. He also seemed to be a genuinely nice person. He talked about how happy he was to meet with music students the day before and answer all of their questions (he mentioned that a lot of the questions were about his Japanese/jazz fusion album). One of his army buddies from WW2 was in the audience and he had him stand up and told a story about how they had once been trapped behind German lines in the war, and dedicated a wonderful classical piece, Elegy to him.

It was amazing. It was remarkable. I feel honored and privaleged to have heard him play his music.