After many years of reviewing shows, I ventured to the other side. I was on the production crew for a concert.

Legendary jazz musician Dave Brubeck is from Concord, California, of course. He joins the ranks of people born in Concord that include Olympic gold medalist Natalie Coughlin, Carlos Alazraqui (“Reno 911,” “Rocko’s Modern Life”), Blake Anderson (“Workaholics”), Tom Hanks, who you’d better know—and me, who writes this column.

When he was about 11, Brubeck played the Masonic Temple here. It was one of the first stages on which he ever performed. The Masonic Temple eventually came into the possession of the Concord Historical Society, which restored it and turned it into its Event Center. And it did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself (which I do, because my dad, Marc Willis, was the contractor in charge of the restoration).

Back to Dave Brubeck. It was decided to dedicate the stage to him, so after a plague-related delay the Brubeck Brothers Quartet—featuring Chris Brubeck on bass and trombone and Dan Brubeck on drums—were on hand to play a show to make the dedication to their dad official.

I’m biased, of course, being involved in it, but the show was amazing. Writing a proper review would apparently be “unethical,” or whatever, but I assure you that you missed out by not getting tickets when you had the chance. And if the quartet ever comes through the Bay Area again, you should go see it. And you should join the Historical Society to support its work.

Anyway, this is supposed to be a music column, so on to music. After the show, I realized that I’ve been doing this column for over four years and I don’t think I’ve given jazz its due. So it’s time to rectify that with five of my favorite jazz songs. Aficionados will probably criticize for being too mainstream, but fortunately, I don’t care.

Dave Brubeck — “Take Five”

Look, I can’t spend a couple weeks listening to Brubeck’s music to rehearse video cues and not put him first on the list. “Take Five” is his most famous song, of course, and for good reason. But don’t sleep on “Blue Rondo à la Turk.”

You know what, just listen to all of Time Out. It’s a classic from beginning to end and I don’t just say that because of the close association to Tom Hanks and me.

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Duke Ellington — “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”

From Brubeck, let’s go to his friend Duke Ellington.

A story I heard before the show in a talk by Brubeck’s son Chris was about Dave’s appearance on the cover of Time Magazine. Time was going to put a jazz musician on the cover for the first time ever and it was between Brubeck and Ellington, who were on tour together at the time. Ellington saw the magazine with Brubeck on the cover first and brought it to him, and when Brubeck saw it his reaction was, “It should have been you.”

You may make assumptions about a white jazz musician in the ’50s, but Brubeck did as much as he could to fight segregation. He was a passionate supporter of civil rights and used his position to do some things that were pretty radical at the time. But that will have to be a different column.

Miles Davis — “Moon Dreams”

All I have to say about Miles Davis is that he called an album Birth of the Cool and it was an accurate description. “Cool” as a slang term in the modern sense started in the ’30s, but Miles Davis really gave it meaning.

Miles Davis went to Juliard—admittedly before it was called that—but dropped out because it focused too much on European (i.e. white) music and started performing full time. Three years later, he was recording the songs that would later be compiled on Birth of the Cool and releasing them as singles, which really kinda serves to prove his point. If Miles Davis tells you that you’re doing music wrong, listen.

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Charles Mingus — “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat”

If you know of any Charles Mingus songs—and you should, you philistines—it’s probably this one. Pretty much all his songs are great, but this one is really great.

Without the backstory, the title may just sound weird and surreal, but fortunately for you this is a music column so I’m gonna give you the backstory: Mingus wrote the song as a tribute to Lester Young, saxophone innovator and inventor of what you think of as ’30s jazz slang. Young was known for his pork pie hats, which is a style of hat; look it up.

Also, read about Lester Young. He’s not on the list because I only had five slots, but he’s cool, too.

Thelonious Monk — “Straight No Chaser”

Let’s get this out of the way: Thelonious Sphere Monk has one of the all-time great names. He just does and we need to appreciate that.

Thelonious Monk was a genius, obviously, but he was also delicately described as “quirky” in his life. There’s dispute whether that was just the odd behavior of a genius or mental health issues; he was rejected from the military during WWII for psychiatric reasons and had variously been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but others in his life contend that he had neither of those conditions and it was the medications prescribed to treat them that caused problems.

Like many great artists, Monk’s music didn’t sell well when it was new. It wasn’t until other artists loved it and learned from it that it become retroactively appreciated for being ahead of the time. It never pays to be so good you’re a decade ahead of the audience, I guess. But he was one of the five jazz musicians ever on the cover of Time, along with Brubeck, Louie Armstrong, Wynton Marsalis and… Duke Ellington. If Brubeck was right and it should have been Ellington on that first cover, they got there eventually.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.