"It was early Sunday afternoon, October 2, 1952, at George Wein's Storyville in Boston. Wyatt Ruther, who was then bassist for Brubeck, was unable to make the first set and Dave, Paul Desmond and drummer Lloyd Davis began to experiment in a mildly curious way. The bulk of the audience had not yet arrived and so they were playing entirely for and between themselves.

The result, as you shall hear, was the best realization yet recorded of what these musicians are trying to do in terms of jazz and themselves. Dave Brubeck, like most first-rate musicians, is hypercritical of his recorded work, but about this session he is uncharacteristically enthusiastic. Paul Desmond, in his non-vocal way, is equally pleased.

The tunes at this Sabbath self-exploration were Over The Rainbow, You Go To My Head and Lady Be Good. Of the first, Brubeck recalled later: 'The entire approach to Over The Rainbow was new to me as I played except that I knew the themes would go together as they did in the third chorus, but I'd never imagined it that way before.' Like all essentially improvising artists Dave is continually struck -- it sometimes seems physically so on the stand -- by the immanent wonders of musical-emotional discoveries.

You Go To My Head is an essay on several levels by Paul Desmond. Harmonically Desmond has the kind of ear and imagination that even social scientists have so far been unable to diagram, let alone account for. As John McLellan of Boston's WHDH, one of the nation's most musically aware radiomen, says: 'Paul is the only musician who sounds as if he's playing at least duets with himself.'

Melodically, Paul is incapable of banality even when the basic content of a tune may be pedestrian. As he improvises, he transmutes. Rhythmically, he swings with a pulsative sureness that is never frenzied nor flaccid. In terms of music as communication of states of mind and emotion, Paul has much more to say than most, and few communicate with his implacable honesty and linear humor.

Of Lady Be Good, Dave remembers: 'This is a schizoid Lady. Paul started by playing Give A Little Whistle to the bridge and then on the bridge, the chord changes were Lady Be Good. After the chorus, it was all definitely Lady. On the end, however, we go out on an old Goodman tune -- something about the entireness of felines.'

On this as on other numbers, Dave illustrates the quality in his work that makes a Brubeck chorus almost as exciting for the attentive listener as it is for Dave. Everything he does is in terms of organic form -- he's always building, always constructing firm, though often warmly fanciful, dwellings for his musical and emotional ideas. Dave never collapses in the middle of a chorus, and he's never satisfied with a chorus unless he's realized as many of the potentialities of an idea-pattern as he can. That he does this constantly while improvising is an index of both his musicianship and his courage.

This is also true of Paul, and anyone who has heard Desmond and Brubeck improvise on fugal subjects in the course of an evening knows the amazing musical empathy these men possess, an empathy that leads to frequently startling mutual inspiration.

The Tea For Two that concludes the album is part of a later session at Storyville -- this time with bass. Ron Crotty had returned to the group by February of 1953 and Lloyd Davis, avocational San Francisco Symphony percussionist, was again on drums. It was included because it is almost of the same spirit and freshness as the earlier session.

The unique pleasure afforded by the Brubeck unit is allied to that provided by all important artists. In the insight of Wallace Stevens, they play 'a tune beyond us, yet ourselves.' More fully, Stevens' Man With A Blue Guitar could sit in with Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond any time..."

Nat Hentoff/Fantasy Records