Brubeck’s Career Doesn’t ‘Take Five’ : Jazz: Musician is approaching 70, and the beat keeps on going. He’s playing tonight at Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay.

As he approaches 70, pianist Dave Brubeck has achieved most of the things a jazz musician could want: a pair of million-selling records (the single “Take Five” and the album “Time Out”), a prodigious composing and recording career and a worldwide following.

Brubeck, who plays tonight at 7:30 at Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay, has been one of jazz’s leading experimenters. Beginning with his innovative octet in the late 1940s, he embarked on a series of groups that were vehicles for his compositions. The songs often blended classical music, sounds from world cultures and jazz.

The best-known Brubeck band was the 1951 to 1967 quartet that featured lyrical saxophonist Paul Desmond. In fact, it was Desmond who wrote 1958’s “Take Five.”

Over the years, Brubeck’s many bands have included a variety of musicians, ranging from Desmond to his own sons, Danny and Chris. For the past eight years, though, Brubeck’s regular band mates have been three of his longtime associates. Clarinetist Bill Smith first played with him in the late 1940s; bassist Jack Six, in the late 1960s. Drummer Randy Jones is a 12-year veteran of Brubeck bands.

The group’s live dates give the inventive Brubeck plenty of elbow--make that finger--room. The performances usually include new unrecorded pieces, several of Brubeck’s signature tunes, excerpts from commissioned works that make good improvising grounds for the quartet, plus a few surprises. At a show last Saturday, Brubeck opened with “Shine On Harvest Moon.” For a television special earlier this year, he surprised everyone, including his band, by breaking into theme music from the movie “Gone With the Wind.”

Besides writing music for his groups, Brubeck has composed classically oriented music based on religious themes, often on a commission basis. Last week, he was working on two such pieces for a community choir in Ohio. He is also composing an “American contemporary” work for the Hartford Symphony and chamber music for the New York-based and internationally known quintet Andiemusik.

Despite his obvious talents, Brubeck, who has put out about 100 albums, has had his critics, especially during the height of his popularity in the 1950s. They said that Brubeck didn’t swing. That his music was too intellectual, not emotional. That his solos were built from ponderous chords instead of the inventive melodic lines used by other top jazz pianists.

But, when confronted with these accusations, Brubeck, always calm and tactful, doesn’t get too excited. But he does offer his own best defense.

“People like John Hammond, Nat Hentoff, all the top writers--they all gave me great reviews,” he said. “If you win the first Downbeat (magazine) critics’ poll, and public polls year after year, you must be doing something right. I also won the first black jazz poll done by the Pittsburgh Courier in the 1950s,” he added, exploding the myth that white jazzmen can’t swing.

‘If you think of who I’ve recorded with, like Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington--Duke was one of my first big supporters. Basie, at the end of his life, asked me to send him a tune I’d written. Miles Davis has recorded my stuff. Almost all the top players have recorded my tune ‘In Your Own Sweet Way.’ ”

Brubeck attributes some of the early criticism to the fact that his music was so different. “Take Five,” in 5/4 time (five beats to a measure), is Brubeck’s best-known song using an unconventional time signature, but there are many more songs in unconventional signatures, including “Blue Rondo a La Turk” and “Unsquare Dance.”

“Songs like those confused a lot of critics. I happen to think that African music is not in 4/4 all the time, like a European march,” he said.

Instead, Brubeck wanted to explore the many subtleties of African music, the root of American jazz.

“I was into discovering this, and the critics didn’t know what I was doing, unless they were bright.”

“Blue Rondo” was also one of the earliest songs to capitalize on Brubeck’s vast travels. Just last week, the pianist revisited Turkey, where he found the initial inspiration for that song more than 30 years ago.

“It came right out of the street musicians of Istanbul,” he said. Brubeck’s 1988 tour of the Soviet Union climaxed with a performance for Soviet and U.S. dignitaries, including then-President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. “Moscow Night,” his last album, was recorded live during the tour.

Brubeck has a long history of playing for U.S. presidents. His association with them began fortuitously in San Francisco during the 1950s. At a club called the Geary Cellar, beneath the Geary Theater, he met a newspaper reporter and sometime classical pianist named Pierre Salinger. Salinger went on to become President John F. Kennedy’s press secretary and invited Brubeck to the White House to play for his boss.

Since then, Brubeck has serenaded every president, although he is still waiting for a call from President George Bush, whom he has met.

Brubeck, who turns 70 on Dec. 6, has two albums in the works: a live recording of his upcoming birthday celebration with the London Symphony Orchestra later this year, and a project tentatively titled “When I Was Young,” to feature favorite jazz tunes from band members’ formative years.

Last year, he played songs on two albums: “Big Band Hit Parade” with the Cincinnati Pops, and “Happy Anniversary, Charlie Brown,” both featuring several top jazz players.

“Time Out,” which includes “Take Five,” remains his most popular album. It continues to sell thousands of copies a year.

“It was a big seller, but it wasn’t something that would make you able to quit working the rest of your life,” Brubeck said.