David Warren "Dave" Brubeck (December 6, 1920 – December 5,
2012) was an
American
jazz pianist and composer, considered to be one of the foremost
exponents of
progressive jazz. He wrote a number of
jazz standards, including "In Your Own Sweet Way" and "The
Duke". Brubeck's style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting
his mother's attempts at
classical training and his
improvisational skills. His music is known for employing unusual
time signatures, and superimposing contrasting rhythms,
meters, and
tonalities.
His long-time musical partner,
alto saxophonist
Paul Desmond, wrote the saxophone melody for the
Dave Brubeck Quartet's best remembered piece, "Take
Five",[1]
which is in 5/4 time and has endured as a jazz classic on one of the
top-selling jazz albums,
Time Out.[2]
Brubeck experimented with
time signatures throughout his career, recording "Pick Up Sticks" in
6/4, "Unsquare
Dance" in 7/4, "World's Fair" in 13/4, and "Blue
Rondo à la Turk" in 9/8. He was also a respected composer of
orchestral and
sacred music, and wrote soundtracks for television such as
Mr. Broadway and the animated
mini-series
This Is America, Charlie Brown.
Early life and
career
Brubeck was born in the
San Francisco Bay Area city of
Concord, California,[1]
and grew up in
Ione. His father, Peter Howard "Pete" Brubeck, was a
cattle rancher, and his mother, Elizabeth (née Ivey), who had
studied piano in England under
Myra
Hess and intended to become a
concert pianist, taught piano for extra money.[3]
His father had
Swiss ancestry (the family surname was originally "Brodbeck"), while
his maternal grandparents were
English and German, respectively.[4][5][6]
Brubeck originally did not intend to become a musician (his two older
brothers, Henry and Howard, were already on that track), but took
lessons from his mother. He could not read
sheet music during these early lessons, attributing this difficulty
to poor eyesight, but "faked" his way through, well enough that this
deficiency went mostly unnoticed.[7]
Intending to work with his father on their ranch, Brubeck entered the
College of the Pacific in
Stockton, California (now the
University of the Pacific), studying
veterinary science, but transferred on the urging of the head of
zoology,
Dr. Arnold, who told him "Brubeck, your mind's not here. It's across the
lawn in the
conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours".[8]
Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered
that he could not read music. Several of his professors came forward,
arguing that his ability with
counterpoint and
harmony
more than compensated. The college was still afraid that it would cause
a scandal, and agreed to let Brubeck graduate only after he had promised
never to teach piano.[9]
After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was
drafted into the army and served overseas in
George Patton's
Third Army. He was spared from service in the
Battle of the Bulge when he volunteered to play piano at a
Red Cross show; he was such a hit he was ordered to form a band.
Thus he created one of the U.S. armed forces' first
racially integrated bands, "The Wolfpack".[9]
While serving in the military, Brubeck met
Paul Desmond in early 1944.[10]
He returned to college after serving nearly four years in the army, this
time attending
Mills College in the
San Francisco Bay Area and studying under
Darius Milhaud, who encouraged him to study
fugue and
orchestration, but not classical piano. While on active duty, he
received two lessons from
Arnold Schoenberg at the
University of California, Los Angeles in an attempt to connect with
High Modernism theory and practice.[11]
However, the encounter did not end on good terms since Schoenberg
believed that every note should be accounted for, an approach which
Brubeck could not accept.
After completing his studies under Milhaud, Brubeck helped to
establish
Berkeley, California's
Fantasy Records. He worked with an
octet (the recording bears his name only because Brubeck was the
best-known member at the time), and a
trio including
Cal
Tjader and Ron Crotty. Highly experimental, the group made few
recordings and got even fewer paying jobs. The trio was often joined by
Paul Desmond on the
bandstand, at Desmond's own insistence.[citation
needed]
In 1949, Jack Sheedy, the owner of a
San Francisco-based record label called Coronet, was talked into
making the first recording of Brubeck's octet and later his trio. (This
Coronet Records should not be confused with either the late 1950s New
York-based budget label, nor the
Australia-based
Coronet Records.) Sheedy's label had previously recorded area
Dixieland bands, but Sheedy was unable to pay his bills and in 1949
turned his masters over to his record stamping company, the Circle
Record Company, owned by Max and Sol Weiss. The Weiss brothers soon
changed the name of their business to
Fantasy Records and met an increasing demand for Brubeck recording
by recording and issuing new records. Soon the company was shipping
40,000 to 50,000 copies of Brubeck recording a quarter, making enormous
profits.[12]
Quartet era
Dave Brubeck, featured on
TIME magazine cover, "The
Man on Cloud No. 7".
November 8, 1954[13]
Following a near-fatal swimming accident which incapacitated him for
several months, Brubeck organized
The Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951, with Desmond on
alto saxophone. They took up a long residency at San Francisco's
Black Hawk nightclub and gained great popularity touring
college campuses, recording a series of albums with such titles as
Jazz at Oberlin (1953),
Jazz at the College of the Pacific (1953), and Brubeck's debut
on
Columbia Records,
Jazz Goes to College (1954).
When Brubeck signed with
Fantasy Records, he thought he had a half interest in the company
and he worked as a sort of
A & R man for the label, encouraging the Weiss brothers to sign
other contemporary jazz performers, including
Gerry Mulligan,
Chet Baker and
Red
Norvo. When he discovered that all he owned was a half interest in
his own recording, he was more than willing to sign with another label,
Columbia Records.[14]
In 1951, Brubeck damaged his spinal cord and several vertebrae, while
diving in the surf in
Hawaii.
He would later remark that the paramedics who attended had described him
as a "DOA" (dead on arrival). Brubeck recovered after a few months, but
suffered with residual nerve pain in his hands for years after.[15]
In 1954, he was featured on the cover of
Time, the second jazz musician to be so honored (the first was
Louis Armstrong on February 21, 1949).[16]
Brubeck personally found this accolade embarrassing, since he considered
Duke Ellington more deserving of it and was convinced that he had
been favored for being Caucasian.[17]
Early bassists for the group included Ron Crotty, Bob Bates, and
Bob's brother
Norman Bates; Lloyd Davis and Joe Dodge also held the drum chair. In
1956 Brubeck hired drummer
Joe Morello, who had been working with
Marian McPartland; Morello's presence made possible the rhythmic
experiments that were to come. In 1958 African-American bassist
Eugene Wright joined for the group's
U.S. Department of State tour of Europe and Asia. Wright became a
permanent member in 1959, making the "classic" Quartet's personnel
complete. During the late 1950s and early 1960s Brubeck canceled several
concerts because the club owners or hall managers continued to resist
the idea of an integrated band on their stages. He also canceled a
television appearance when he found out that the producers intended to
keep Wright off-camera.[18]
In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded
Time Out, an album about which the record label was enthusiastic
but which they were nonetheless hesitant to release. Featuring the album
art of
S. Neil Fujita, the album contained all original compositions,
almost none of which were in
common time: 9/8, 5/4, 3/4, and 6/4 were used inspired by
Eurasian
folk music they experienced during that Department of State sponsored
tour.[19]
Nonetheless, on the strength of these unusual time signatures (the album
included "Take
Five", "Blue
Rondo à la Turk", and "Three To Get Ready"), it quickly went
platinum. It was the first jazz album to sell more than a million
copies.[20]
Time Out was followed by several albums with a similar
approach, including
Time Further Out: Miro Reflections (1961), using more 5/4, 6/4,
and 9/8, plus the first attempt at 7/4; Countdown: Time in Outer
Space (dedicated to
John Glenn) (1962), featuring 11/4 and more 7/4;
Time Changes (1963), with much 3/4, 10/4 (which was really 5+5),
and 13/4; and
Time In (1966).
These albums (except the last) were also known for using contemporary
paintings as cover art, featuring the work of
Joan
Miró on Time Further Out,
Franz Kline on Time in Outer Space, and
Sam Francis on Time Changes.
A high point for the group was their 1963 live album
At Carnegie Hall, described by critic
Richard Palmer as "arguably Dave Brubeck's greatest concert".
In the early 1960s, Brubeck and his wife Iola developed a jazz
musical,
The Real Ambassadors, based in part on experiences they and
their colleagues had during foreign tours on behalf of the Department of
State. The soundtrack album, which featured
Louis Armstrong,
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, and
Carmen McRae was recorded in 1961; the musical was performed at the
1962
Monterey Jazz Festival.
At its peak in the early 1960s, the Brubeck Quartet was releasing as
many as four albums a year. Apart from the "College" and the "Time"
series, Brubeck recorded four
LPs featuring his compositions based on the group's travels, and the
local music they encountered. Jazz Impressions of the USA (1956,
Morello's debut with the group), Jazz Impressions of Eurasia
(1958),
Jazz Impressions of Japan (1964), and
Jazz Impressions of New York (1964) are less well-known albums,
but all are brilliant examples of the quartet's studio work, and they
produced Brubeck standards such as "Summer Song," "Brandenburg Gate,"
"Koto Song," and "Theme From
Mr. Broadway." (Brubeck wrote, and the Quartet performed, the
theme song for the
Craig Stevens CBS drama series; the music from the series became
material for the "New York" album.)
In 1961, Dave Brubeck appeared in a few scenes of the British
jazz/beat film
All Night Long, which starred
Patrick McGoohan and
Richard Attenborough. Brubeck merely plays himself, with the film
featuring
close-ups of his piano fingerings. Brubeck performs "It's a Raggy
Waltz" from the Time Further Out album and duets briefly with
bassist
Charles Mingus in "Non-Sectarian Blues".
In the early 1960s Dave Brubeck was the program director of WJZZ-FM
radio (now
WEZN). He achieved his vision of an all-jazz format radio station
along with his friend and neighbor John E. Metts, one of the first
African Americans in senior radio management.
The final studio album for Columbia by the Desmond/Wright/Morello
quartet was Anything Goes (1966) featuring the songs of
Cole Porter. A few concert recordings followed, and The Last Time
We Saw Paris (1967) was the "Classic" Quartet's swan-song.
Later career
Brubeck in a 1972 performance in
Hamburg
Brubeck's disbanding of the Quartet at the end of 1967 allowed him
more time to compose the longer, extended orchestral and choral works
that were occupying his attention (to say nothing of Brubeck's desire to
spend more time with his family). February 1968 saw the premiere of
The Light in the Wilderness for
baritone solo, choir, organ, the
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Erich Kunzel, and Brubeck improvising on certain themes within. The
piece is an
oratorio on Jesus's teachings. The next year, Brubeck produced
The Gates of Justice, a
cantata
mixing
Biblical scripture with the words of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Personal life
Five of Brubeck's six children have been professional musicians.
Darius, the eldest, is a pianist, producer, educator and performer. (He
was named after Dave Brubeck's mentor
Darius Milhaud.[21])
Dan is a percussionist, Chris is a multi-instrumentalist and composer.
Matthew, the youngest, is a cellist with an extensive list of
composing and performance credits. Another son, Michael, who died in
2009, was a saxophonist.[22][15]
Brubeck's children often joined him in concerts and in the recording
studio.
Brubeck believed that what he saw during his time as a soldier in
World War II contradicted the
Ten Commandments, and the war evoked a spiritual awakening.[citation
needed] He became a
Catholic in 1980, shortly after completing the Mass To Hope
which had been commissioned by Ed Murray, editor of the national
Catholic weekly
Our Sunday Visitor. Although he had spiritual interests before
that time, he said, "I didn't convert to Catholicism, because I wasn't
anything to convert from. I just joined the Catholic Church."[23]
In 1996, he received the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, Brubeck was awarded the
University of Notre Dame's
Laetare Medal, the oldest and most prestigious[24]
honor given to American Catholics, during the University's commencement.
He performed "Travellin' Blues" for the graduating class of 2006.
Brubeck founded the Brubeck Institute with his wife, Iola, at their
alma mater, the
University of the Pacific in 2000. What began as a special archive,
consisting of the personal document collection of the Brubecks, has
since expanded to provide fellowships and educational opportunities in
jazz for students, also leading to having one of the main streets on
which the school resides named in his honor, Dave Brubeck Way.
[25]
Recognition
Dave Brubeck (third from left), among
Kennedy Center honorees 2009, flanked by President and
Mrs. Obama at the Blue Room,
White House, December 6, 2009 (his 89th Birthday)
Brubeck recorded five of the seven tracks of his album Jazz Goes to
College in Ann Arbor. He returned to Michigan many times, including a
performance at Hill Auditorium where he received a Distinguished Artist
Award from the
University of Michigan's Musical Society in 2006.
On April 8, 2008,
United States Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice presented Brubeck with a "Benjamin Franklin Award
for Public Diplomacy" for offering an American "vision of hope,
opportunity and freedom" through his music.[26]
"As a little girl I grew up on the sounds of Dave Brubeck because my dad
was your biggest fan," said Rice.[27]
The
State Department said in a statement that "as a pianist, composer,
cultural emissary and educator, Dave Brubeck's life's work exemplifies
the best of America's cultural diplomacy."[26]
At the ceremony Brubeck played a brief recital for the audience at the
State Department.[26]
"I want to thank all of you because this honor is something that I never
expected. Now I am going to play a cold piano with cold hands," Brubeck
stated.[26]
California Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady
Maria Shriver announced on May 28, 2008, that Brubeck would be
inducted into the
California Hall of Fame, located at
The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. The induction
ceremony occurred December 10, and he was inducted alongside eleven
other famous Californians.[28]
In 2008 Brubeck became a supporter of the
Jazz Foundation of America in its mission to save the homes and the
lives of elderly jazz and blues musicians, including musicians who
survived
Hurricane Katrina.[29]
Brubeck supported the Jazz Foundation by performing in its annual
benefit concert "A Great Night in Harlem".[30]
On October 18, 2008, Brubeck received an honorary Doctor of Music degree
from the prestigious
Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.
In September 2009, the
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Brubeck as a
Kennedy Center Honoree for exhibiting excellence in performance
arts.[31]
The Kennedy Center Honors Gala took place on Sunday, December 6
(Brubeck's 89th birthday), and was broadcast nationwide on
CBS on
December 29 at 9:00 pm EST. When the award was made,
President Barack Obama recalled a 1971 concert Brubeck had given in
Honolulu and said, "You can’t understand America without
understanding jazz, and you can’t understand jazz without understanding
Dave Brubeck."[15]
On September 20, 2009, at the
Monterey Jazz Festival, Brubeck was awarded an honorary
Doctor of Music degree (D.Mus. honoris causa) from
Berklee College of Music.[32]
On May 16, 2010, Brubeck was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music
degree (honoris causa) from
The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. The ceremony
took place on the National Mall.[33]
On July 5, 2010, Brubeck was awarded the Miles Davis Award at the
Montreal International Jazz Festival.[34]
In 2010,
Bruce Ricker and
Clint Eastwood produced
Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way, a documentary about Brubeck
for
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) to commemorate his 90th birthday in
December 2010.[35]
Death and tributes
Brubeck died of heart failure on December 5, 2012, in
Norwalk, Connecticut, one day before his 92nd birthday. He was on
his way to a cardiology appointment, accompanied by his son Darius.[36]
A birthday party had been planned for him with family and famous guests.[37]
It was recast as a memorial tribute.[38]
The
Los Angeles Times noted that he "was one of Jazz's first pop
stars," even though he was not always happy with his fame,
uncomfortable, for example, that Time Magazine had featured him
on the cover before it did so for
Duke Ellington, saying, "It just bothered me".
[39]
The New York Times noted he had continued to play well into his
old age, performing in 2011 and in 2010 only a month after getting a
pacemaker, with Times music writer Nate Chinen commenting
that Brubeck had replaced "the old hammer-and-anvil attack with
something almost airy" and that his playing at the
Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City was "the picture of judicious
clarity".[22]
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, music journalist Ivan Hewett
wrote: "Brubeck didn’t have the réclame of some jazz musicians who lead
tragic lives. He didn’t do drugs or drink. What he had was endless
curiosity combined with stubbornness", adding "His work list is
astonishing, including oratorios, musicals and concertos, as well as
hundreds of jazz compositions. This quiet man of jazz was truly a
marvel."[40]
In The Guardian, John Forhdam said "Brubeck's real achievement
was to blend European compositional ideas, very demanding rhythmic
structures, jazz song-forms and improvisation in expressive and
accessible ways. His son Chris told the Guardian "when I hear
Chorale, it reminds me of the very best
Aaron Copland, something like Appalachian Spring. There's a sort of
American honesty to it."[41]
Robert Christgau dubbed Brubeck the "jazz hero of the rock and roll
generation".[42]
Awards
Discography
- Brubeck Trio with
Cal Tjader, Volume 1 (1949)
- Brubeck Trio with Cal Tjader, Volume 2 (1949)
- Brubeck/Desmond (1951)
- Stardust (1951)
- Dave Brubeck Quartet (1951)
- Jazz at the Blackhawk (1952)
- Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond (1952)
- Jazz at Storyville (live) (1952)
- Featuring Paul Desmond in Concert (live) (1953)
- Two Knights at the
Black Hawk (1953)
- Jazz at Oberlin (1953)
Fantasy Records
- Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond at Wilshire Ebell (1953)
-
Jazz at the College of the Pacific (1953) Fantasy
Records
-
Jazz Goes to College (1954)
Columbia Records
- Dave Brubeck at Storyville 1954 (live) (1954)
-
Brubeck Time (1955)
- Jazz: Red Hot and Cool (1955)
-
Brubeck Plays Brubeck (1956)
- Dave Brubeck and Jay & Kai at Newport (1956)
- Jazz Impressions of the U.S.A. (1956)
-
Plays and Plays and... (1957) Fantasy Records
- Reunion (1957) Fantasy Records
- Jazz Goes to Junior College (live) (1957)
- Dave Digs
Disney (1957)
- In Europe (1958)
- Complete 1958 Berlin Concert (released 2008)
- Newport 1958
- Jazz Impressions of Eurasia (1958)
-
Gone with the Wind (1959) Columbia Records
-
Time Out (1959) Columbia Records/Legacy (RIAA:
Platinum)
- Southern Scene (1960)
- The Riddle (1960)
- Brubeck and
Rushing (1960)
- Brubeck a la Mode (1961) Fantasy Records
- Tonight Only with the Dave Brubeck Quartet (1961,
with
Carmen McRae)
-
Take Five Live (1961, Live, Columbia Records, with
Carmen McRae, released 1965)
- Near-Myth (1961) Fantasy Records
-
Bernstein Plays Brubeck Plays Bernstein (1961)
-
Time Further Out (1961) Columbia Records/Legacy
- Countdown—Time in Outer Space (1962) Columbia Records
-
The Real Ambassadors (1962)
- Music from West Side Story (1962)
- Bossa Nova U.S.A. (1962)
- Brubeck in Amsterdam (1962, released 1969)
- Brandenburg Gate: Revisited (1963) Columbia Records
-
At Carnegie Hall (1963)
-
Time Changes (1963)
- Dave Brubeck in Berlin (1964)
-
Jazz Impressions of Japan (1964) Columbia Records/Legacy
-
Jazz Impressions of New York (1964) Columbia
Records/Legacy
- Angel Eyes (1965)
- My Favorite Things (1965)
- The 1965 Canadian Concert (released 2008)
- Time In (1966) Columbia Records
- Anything Goes (1966)
- Bravo! Brubeck! (1967)
- Buried Treasures (1967, released 1998)
- Jackpot (1967) Columbia Records
- The Last Time We Saw Paris (1968)
- Adventures in Time (Compilation, 1972) Columbia
Records
- The Light in the Wilderness (1968)
- Compadres (1968)
- Blues Roots (1968)
- Brubeck/Mulligan/Cincinnati (1970)
- Live at the Berlin Philharmonie (1970)
- The Last Set at Newport (1971)
Atlantic Records
- Truth Is Fallen (1972)
- We're All Together Again for the First Time (1973)
- Two Generations of Brubeck (1973)
- Brother, the Great Spirit Made Us All (1974)
- All The Things We Are (1974)
- Brubeck & Desmond 1975: The Duets
- DBQ 25th Anniversary Reunion (1976)
A&M Records
- The New Brubeck Quartet Live at Montreux (1978)
- A Cut Above (1978)
- La Fiesta de la Posada (1979)
- Back Home (1979)
Concord Records
- A Place in Time (1980)
-
Tritonis (1980) Concord Records
- To Hope! A Celebration by Dave Brubeck (A Mass in the
Revised Roman Ritual) – Original now out-of-print 1980 recording
conducted by Erich Kunzel. Pastoral Arts Associates (PAA) of
North America, Old Hickory, Nashville, Tennessee 37187 LP record
number DRP-8318. Music Copyright 1979 St. Francis Music.
Recording Copyright 1980 Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.
-
Paper Moon (1982) Concord Records
- Concord on a Summer Night (1982)
- For Iola (1984)
-
Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz with Guest Dave Brubeck
(1984, released 1993)
- Reflections (1985)
- Blue Rondo (1986)
- Moscow Night (1987)
- New Wine (1987, released 1990)
-
The Great Concerts (Compilation, 1988)
- Quiet as the Moon (Charlie Brown soundtrack) (1991)
- Once When I Was Very Young (1991)
- Time Signatures: A Career Retrospective (Compilation,
1992) Sony Columbia Legacy
- Trio Brubeck (1993)
- Late Night Brubeck (1994)
- Just You, Just Me (solo) (1994)
- Nightshift (1995)
- Young Lions & Old Tigers (1995)
Telarc
- To Hope! A Celebration (1996)
- A Dave Brubeck Christmas (1996)
- In Their Own Sweet Way (1997)
- So What's New? (1998)
- The 40th Anniversary Tour of the U.K. (1999)
- One Alone (2000)
- Double Live from the USA & UK (2001)
- The Crossing (2001)
- Vocal Encounters (Compilation, 2001)
Sony Records
- Classical Brubeck (with the London Symphony
Orchestra, 2003) Telarc
- Park Avenue South (2003)
- The Gates of Justice (2004)
- Private Brubeck Remembers (solo piano + Interview disc w.
Walter Cronkite) (2004)
- London Flat, London Sharp (2005) Telarc
- Indian Summer (2007) Telarc
- Live at the Monterey Jazz Festival 1958–2007 (2008)
- Yo-Yo Ma & Friends Brubeck tracks: Joy to the World,
Concordia (2008)
Sony BMG
- Everybody Wants to Be a Cat: Disney Jazz Volume 1
Brubeck tracks: "Some Day My Prince Will Come", "Alice in
Wonderland" (with Roberta Gambarini) (2011)
- Their Last Time Out (DBQ recorded Live, 12/26/67)
(2011)