Classic Brubeck Therapy

[chicks]

My wife's mother, who's in her 80's, suffered a mild stroke a couple of weeks back, and has been recovering at a facility. We visit daily, but stay for a good 3-4 hours on the weekends, outside in the very nice courtyard. My wife was reading that music can be therapeutic for the infirm, so today I took along my mp3 player and a set of portable Sonic Impact speakers that I had picked up a while back for about $6 at Tuesday Morning.

http://www.si5.com/products.php?pID=4022

I rarely listen to the mp3 player, can't stand earphones, but loaded it up with some lite jazz, Hawaiian slack key guitar, anything I could find that folks in their '80's and '90's wouldn't be offended by. The wife kept telling me how boring my choices were, and her mother was not really listening. "Don't you have anything with more beat? Put in some Michael Jackson!" (yeah, right).

So, I put on Dave Brubeck's classic Time Out. Wow - her mom immediately started listening, moving to the beat, really getting into it. Even my teenage son was clearly enjoying the sounds. An old guy at the next table came over and said, "Dave Brubeck?". Yep. This album is about 50 years old, but still sounds fresh, and can be enjoyed across generations.

Now I know how to enjoy spending the afternoon at the old folks home.

 

[no1maestro]

Nice story about the power of music. I have visited and have entertained at such places and I am in agreement with you. You have picked out a classic piece of recorded history to use. It is almost universal in it's acceptance as many folk's idea of jazz.

Jazz fans will say that this is simplistic and they might be right but you just can't listen to "Take Five", "Unsquare Dance" or "Blue Rondo A La Turk" without tapping your toes. Brubeck is a treasure and I can't personally think of jazz without him being included.

You did everyone a big favor!!