It was at age 10 that Bobby Militello discovered his mother's jazz collection. He would slip on the headphones, lie in front of the stereo and listen to whole albums from beginning to end. He had two favorite artists in those formative years: trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and pianist Dave Brubeck. Little did the pre-teen know that both jazz titans would play a major role in his future.
"Ferguson was one of the first albums that we had that just the sound of it and the soul knocked me out," Militello recalls over the phone, two days after Christmas. Militello had just begun learning to play music, and those days spent in front of the stereo were not merely idle fadeouts. "I memorized everybody's solos: I could scat all their solos," he says. "I would just lay there and listen over and over again."
The year of Militello's discovery was 1960, amid his upbringing in Buffalo, N.Y., and though the concentrated listening was crucial to his development as a player and a jazz fan, it was not academic. "I wasn't cognizant of what I was listening for," he remembers. To this day, he describes players he admires with words like "soul," rather than using technical jargon.
It was passion that he responded to in the playing of Ferguson and Brubeck. It's still the main standard by which he judges his own work and that of others. "You have to try to play a different solo every time you play," he says.
Militello — now 56, and with 24 years as Brubeck's saxophonist behind him — maintains his zest for the fresh discoveries to be found in jazz. Responding to my comment that it must be cool to still have his passion for the music, he corrects me. "It's more than cool; it's amazing. I like playing as much now as when I was 16 years old."
By the mid-'50s,
the Dave Brubeck Quartet was one of the most popular jazz acts in the nation, with a strong following among college kids who flocked to their on-campus gigs.
Surprisingly, Brubeck's popularity didn't lead to the usual artistic stagnation. And while his catalogue is cluttered with one-offs of little value — Dave Digs Disney anyone? — the quartet rarely relied upon comforting the audience with familiar sounds.
In fact, the major breakthrough of Brubeck's career, 1959's Time Out, began as an experiment in odd time signatures like 9/8 and 5/4, but never forgot that beauty and elegance count too. From that album, "Take Five" would eventually become the biggest-selling jazz single in history, and "Blue Rondo Á La Turk" still has currency today: It popped up on the soundtrack to Wedding Crashers.
Militello learned his chops
on the saxophone from a private teacher while he was in high school; he learned to play the solos that he scatted as a youngster. The budding musician began a stint in college studying law, a stint that would be ever-so-brief.
"I got offered a road gig and went on the road to make enough money to pay for school," Militello says, but after getting the cash he bagged college. He then played in various bands to support himself until he got the chance to tour and record on baritone saxophone with one of his childhood idols, Ferguson, whose stratospheric high notes represented the height of talent to some, a symbol of excess to others. "That was the best education I could have gotten at the time," he says of his years in the trumpeter's band.
After some time, though, Militello was itching to ditch the bari and take up his preferred horn, alto sax. Unfortunately, Ferguson wanted to keep him where he was, so Militello left the ensemble on good terms. Hot (1979) was the last Ferguson album Militello played on, after which he spent a year living here in Sarasota, where he performed six nights a week at a local party joint called T.R. Murphy's. Did he enjoy it? He scoffs: "Are you kidding? It was great."
Brubeck first heard Militello
at the Sugarbush Jazz Festival in Vermont in the late '70s when he was soloing with Ferguson's band. Brubeck disbanded his original foursome in 1967, and had been working on religious music and pieces for large orchestras, but had recently begun to work in the quartet format again.
While immediately impressed with Militello's talent, there wasn't an available slot in the combo until 1981. "He asked his wife, 'Remember that [saxophone] player?'" Militello recounts, still sounding amazed that Brubeck had been so impressed as to remember that years-old gig. Brubeck contacted Militello and asked a simple question: "Would you be willing to come to New York?"
He hardly needed to wait for an answer.
For a few years after signing on with Brubeck, Militello alternated with clarinetist Bill Smith, performing between a third and a half of Brubeck's concerts. Smith eventually retired, and since then Militello has been the primary horn on all of the legendary pianist's records and concerts.
Nowadays, the sax man has a thick white beard and a ample belly, but still talks like he probably did back in his early days as a jazzbo. He uses words like "cat" and "dig" in an un-ironic fashion, and is remarkably warm and polite without ever sounding fake. He tells me about his history in Brubeck's quartet with glee.
"When I first got with Dave, I found it hard to play, because I was looking up to him," he says. "You sort of felt like you were second-guessing everything … It took a good year before that went away. I can honestly say to this day: I look up to Dave as much as when I joined him. But he's still the piano player onstage. If you look at it any other way, you second guess too much. Off the stage, he's Dave Brubeck."
Militello recognizes that Brubeck is the main draw at the shows, but he doesn't sell his own talent short. He's confident, and should be. His playing on 2005's London Flat, London Sharp consistently demonstrates a willingness to extend and to challenge, without resorting to atonality or abrasiveness.
He bristles at the idea of mimicking the solos from Brubeck's seminal recordings. "I don't play people's solos, I play the melody," he says. "I don't think I've ever played 'Take Five' the same way twice and neither has Dave … that's what we're there for. We're not there to be carbon copies."
It's an admirable stance, and one that deserves special reward in our town, drowning as it is in mediocre smooth and lounge jazz. Bobby Militello and the Dave Brubeck Quartet give us a chance to come up for air.
This article appears in Jan 11-17, 2006.