The man who introduced higher mathematics to jazz has trouble with technology.

This thing called an iPod? Not sure what it is, says Dave Brubeck, 87, but he's just taped a podcast for Apple. The Internet gizmo? Amazing! The other day he saw a, whattayacallit, a YouTube video of himself, Joe Morello, Paul Desmond and Eugene Wright playing "Take Five" in 1961. Phenomenal!

"I didn't know we were that good!" he says, then calls to his wife, Iola, to remind him about that DVD series that just came out.

Iola Brubeck is in the adjoining room at the Holiday Inn in Athens, working on a laptop, busy writing the history of the man she married 65 years ago. A laptop? Dave Brubeck doesn't mess around with that kind of keyboard. Says his longtime conductor Russell Gloyd, "Dave has trouble with the pause button on his tape player."

The tape player may outfox him, but Brubeck handles larger forces with aplomb. During a weeklong residency at the University of Georgia, which continues through Friday, he will (with Gloyd's assistance) command a 140-voice choir, a full-sized symphony orchestra, a big band, a jazz vocal ensemble and his quartet.

The centerpiece comes tonight with a presentation of "The Light in the Wilderness," a sacred oratorio utilizing the chorus, orchestra and quartet and meshing notated and improvised music. Written in 1968, it is Brubeck's first major classical piece, and it presaged a career as a symphonic and choral composer that has been at least as productive as his jazz incarnation.

The scale of the hour-plus composition is gargantuan. The chorus, arrayed in a loft above and behind the orchestra during a rehearsal Monday, seems to fill the towering interior of the Hodgson Concert Hall, and the score similarly fills the sonic space, from extreme to extreme. "It uses all the notes," says Gloyd.

UGA senior Gretchen Swanson, a soprano, agrees. "It's scary," she says.

Next door, associate choral director Mitos Andaya is rehearsing Classic City Jazz, the university jazz vocal group that will open Thursday's jazz show and join Brubeck for the inevitable 5/4 encore, "Take Five."

Alto Kelly Frizzell, 21, had heard the Brubeck name before, but not his music. Preparations for this concert have won a new convert. "I think he's great," says the Tifton native. "I wish I would have known more about him earlier."

History and chemistry

At the center of this whirlwind is the calm, leonine presence of Dave Brubeck, his hair a shaggy white mane, his Roman-nose profile worthy of Rushmore, his expression the same genial half-smile familiar to audiences from Siberia to New Zealand. He's pushing 90, but he's still strong, still, apparently, playing outside time.

In 1954 Brubeck became the first jazz artist to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and six years later he and his classic quartet released "Time Out," an adventurous album that would become one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time and define '60s cool.

The single, "Take Five," was stocked in jukeboxes and became a pop hit, a rare occurrence for a jazz instrumental. The abstract art cover, the odd time signatures, the egghead frontmen in their horn-rimmed glasses and flannel suits —- you couldn't invent a more unlikely formula for commercial success.

"We thought we were making an experimental album," says Brubeck.

They were making history, and chemistry.

In the opening tune, "Blue Rondo A La Turk" (the name was too long for a jukebox single), Brubeck launches into a 9/8 wind tunnel like a hurrying angel, eventually pounding 10-finger chords on every triplet. Suddenly, from the frenzy, a solo Paul Desmond vaults into a lazy 4/4 blues. The moment is quintessential Brubeck: cool and hot, classical and improvised, structured and free and impeccable.

'He never stops'

Though he broke up the classic quartet in 1967, with the idea of retiring from jazz and becoming a composer, retiring didn't suit him. He's stayed in constant motion since then.

Currently, jazz lover Clint Eastwood has a Brubeck documentary film in the works; "Elemental Brubeck," a ballet choreographed by Lars Lubovitch, is in production in Seattle (after performances in Paris and New York); and Brubeck has just completed his score for a symphonic multimedia tribute to photographer Ansel Adams.

Last August he released an album of solo piano performances called "Indian Summer" that some have hailed as his most emotional work ever.

"He never stops," says alto saxophonist Bobby Militello, a member of Brubeck's quartet since 1983. "He's always writing something."

And his playing remains undiminished. Eminent jazz bassist Michael Moore, a seven-year member of the quartet, says, "Every night we play, the best thing that happens in the evening is usually something Dave has played."

HEARING DAVE BRUBECK

Dave Brubeck at the University of Georgia

> Music: Oratorio, 8 tonight. $20-$25; $10-$12.50, students. Jazz, 8 p.m. Thursday. $40-$45; $20-$22.50, students. UGA Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4400, www.music.uga.edu.

> Lectures: "Experience in the Music Business." 3:30 p.m. Thursday. "The Sacred Choral Music of Dave Brubeck." 10:10 a.m. Friday. Free. Hugh Hodgson School of Music, UGA East Campus. 706-542-3737, www.music.uga.edu.