DAVE BRUBECK QUARTET, THE - At Carnegie Hall (Sealed) (2LP)

Recorded at the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City on Friday, February 22, 1963 this LP is simply one of the great live jazz albums of the 1960s. A date that showcases the finest elements of the storied Brubeck Quartet, which featured, alongside Brubeck's piano, alto innovator Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and Joe Morello on drums. This LP is perhaps the one essential Brubeck live album. While "Take Five" is rightfully a classic in that it changed everything, AT CARNEGIE HALL reveals the band at the epitome of its musical - harmonic, rhythmic, melodic, improvisational - strength with near telepathic communication. It swings like a mother and offers an entirely new dimension to the definition of "melodic improvisation."