Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck (1920–2012) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He is often seen as a leading figure of cool jazz. His music often used unusual time signatures and mixed different rhythms, meters, and tonalities. He also blended styles such as classical music, jazz, and blues. For the album, see Dave Brubeck Quartet (album).

Brubeck was born in Concord, California. He was called up to serve in the US Army, but he did not have to fight in combat. A show he had played for the Red Cross became popular. In the Army, he formed one of the first racially diverse bands. In 1951, he formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which kept its name even as its members changed. The quartet was most successful between 1958 and 1967. At that time, it included saxophonist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright, and drummer Joe Morello along with Brubeck. A 1958 tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State inspired several of his later albums, most notably Time Out from 1959.

Time Out was unusual because of its unusual time signatures. Even so, it became Brubeck's best-selling album and the first jazz album to sell over one million copies. Its lead single, "Take Five", was written by Desmond in a rare 5/4 time. It became the best-selling jazz single of all time. Other songs from the same album, such as "Blue Rondo à la Turk" and "Unsquare Dance", also became hits. Brubeck kept releasing music until his death in 2012.

Brubeck's music ranged from refined to bold, and he drew on his mother's classical training. Together with Desmond, he used elements of West Coast jazz near the height of its popularity. He was also influenced by the French composer Darius Milhaud. Brubeck's blend of classical music and jazz became known as "third stream." John Fordham of The Guardian wrote that Brubeck's real achievement was to blend European composing ideas, demanding rhythms, jazz song forms, and improvisation in ways that were both expressive and easy to enjoy. Brubeck received many honors. These included a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, induction into the California Hall of Fame in 2008, and an honorary doctor of music degree from Berklee College of Music. His album Time Out was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2005. The Los Angeles Times called him "one of Jazz's first pop stars." He did not enjoy being so famous, and he felt uncomfortable when Time put him on its cover ahead of Duke Ellington.

Ancestry and early life

Brubeck's father's family had Swiss roots, and the family name was first spelled Brodbeck. His mother's parents were English and German. Brubeck was born on December 6, 1920, in Concord, California. He grew up in the small country town of Ione, California.

His father, Peter Howard "Pete" Brubeck, was a cattle rancher. His mother, Elizabeth (née Ivey), had studied piano in England with Myra Hess. She had planned to become a concert pianist. She also taught piano to earn extra money. Brubeck did not plan to become a musician. His two older brothers, Henry and Howard, were already moving in that direction. Brubeck still took lessons from his mother. He could not read music during those early lessons. He blamed his poor eyesight, and he "faked" his way through well enough that few people noticed.

Brubeck planned to work with his father on the ranch. So in 1938, he enrolled at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California to study veterinary science. The head of zoology at the time, Dr. Arnold, encouraged him to change his major to music. He told Brubeck, "Brubeck, your mind's not here. It's across the lawn in the conservatory. Please go there. Stop wasting my time and yours."

Later, Brubeck nearly got expelled when one of his music professors found out that he could not sight-read. Several others spoke up for him. They said his skill at writing counterpoint and harmony more than made up for it, and that it showed he understood music notation. The college was still worried. However, it agreed to let Brubeck graduate if he promised never to teach.

Military service

After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the United States Army. He served in Europe with the Third Army under George S. Patton. He volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show. The show went very well, and he did not have to fight in combat. He helped form one of the first racially integrated bands in the U.S. armed forces. It was called "The Wolfpack." In the army in 1944, he met Paul Desmond. After almost four years of service, he went back to California to study at Mills College in Oakland. There he studied with composer Darius Milhaud. Milhaud encouraged him to study fugue and orchestration, but not classical piano.

Earlier, while he was still in the army, Brubeck took two lessons with Arnold Schoenberg at UCLA. He hoped to learn high modernist ideas. The lessons did not go well. Schoenberg believed every note should have a clear purpose, and Brubeck could not agree with that way of working.

Brubeck's son Chris said that a twelve-tone row appears in The Light in the Wilderness, Dave Brubeck's first oratorio. In it, Jesus's twelve Disciples are introduced, and each one sings his own notes. In 1949, Jack Sheedy, who owned Coronet Records in San Francisco, agreed to record Brubeck's octet and later his trio. Coronet Records had recorded local Dixieland bands. Sheedy could not pay his bills, so he gave up his masters to his record stamping company, the Circle Record Company. Max and Sol Weiss owned that company. The Weiss brothers soon renamed their business Fantasy Records. Brubeck's first records sold well. He made new records for Fantasy, which soon shipped 40,000 to 50,000 copies of his records each quarter and made a good profit.

Career

In 1951, Brubeck formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone. The group played at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub and toured college campuses. They recorded several live albums. The first was Jazz at Oberlin, recorded in March 1953 at Oberlin College. Its live sound helped make jazz respected at Oberlin. It is one of the earliest examples of cool jazz. Brubeck later recorded Jazz at the College of the Pacific. Then he signed with Fantasy Records, thinking he would own part of the company. He worked as an artists and repertoire promoter and helped the label sign Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and Red Norvo. When he learned the deal was only for half interest in his own recordings, he left and signed with Columbia Records. In June 1954, the quartet released the album below, which was a collection of its college visits.

Main article: Jazz Goes to College

Jazz Goes to College included songs recorded at Oberlin College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Cincinnati. In November 1954, Brubeck was on the cover of Time. He was the second jazz musician to appear there, after Louis Armstrong. Brubeck felt this honor was embarrassing, because he thought Duke Ellington deserved it more. When Ellington came to show him the cover, Brubeck said, "It should have been you." Over the years, the group's bassists included Norman Bates and others. In 1956, Brubeck hired drummer Joe Morello. In 1958, African-American bassist Eugene Wright joined for a Department of State tour of Europe and Asia. He became a permanent member in 1959. Brubeck strongly supported Wright being in the band. He canceled several concerts when some club owners did not want a mixed-race band. In January 1960, he canceled a 25-date tour of colleges in the American South, because 22 of the schools would not let Wright perform.

Main article: Time Out (Dave Brubeck Quartet album)

In 1959, the quartet recorded Time Out, which used unusual time signatures, which were rare in jazz. Columbia Records president Goddard Lieberson agreed to release it on one condition. The group also had to record a more traditional album, Gone with the Wind, to lower the risk of Time Out being a commercial failure. The album, with cover art by S. Neil Fujita, received mixed reviews from critics. Still, it quickly went gold and was later certified double platinum. It reached number two on the Billboard 200. It was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. Its single "Take Five" became a jazz standard. Later albums followed a similar approach, including Time Further Out: Miro Reflections, Countdown—Time in Outer Space (dedicated to John Glenn), Time Changes, and Time In. Several of these used paintings by Joan Miró, Franz Kline, and Sam Francis as cover art. In the early 1960s, clarinetist Bill Smith replaced Desmond on a few albums. In 1961, Brubeck and his wife, Iola, created the jazz musical The Real Ambassadors. It was performed at the 1962 Monterey Jazz Festival. Brubeck also appeared in the British film All Night Long, which starred Patrick McGoohan and Richard Attenborough. While recording with the quartet, he worked as program director of WJZZ-FM (now WEZN-FM). In 1968, he produced The Gates of Justice, a cantata that mixed Biblical scripture with words by Martin Luther King Jr.. In 1971, Columbia Records decided not to renew his contract, because it wanted to focus on rock music. He then moved to Atlantic Records. His music was also used in the 1985 film Ordeal by Innocence.

Personal life

Brubeck started the Brubeck Institute in 2000 with his wife, Iola, at their school, the University of the Pacific. It began as a place to keep the Brubecks' personal papers. Today it offers fellowships and jazz lessons to students. One of the streets near the school is named Dave Brubeck Way to honor him. In 2008, Brubeck supported the Jazz Foundation of America. This group helps older jazz and blues musicians keep their homes and their lives, including people who lived through Hurricane Katrina. He played at its yearly benefit concert, "A Great Night in Harlem."

Brubeck married jazz lyricist Iola Whitlock in 1942. They were married for 70 years, until his death in 2012. Iola died in 2014 at age 90, in Wilton, Connecticut. The couple had six children. Four sons became professional musicians: Darius, a pianist, producer, and teacher; Chris, who plays many instruments and writes music; and Matthew, a cellist. In 1980, Brubeck became a Catholic. This happened soon after he finished the Mass To Hope, which Ed Murray, editor of Our Sunday Visitor, had asked him to write. In 1996, he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, he was given the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame. It is the oldest and most respected honor the university gives to American Catholics.

Death

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 heart doctor appointment with his son Darius. A birthday party had been planned for him, with family and famous friends.

A memorial tribute was held in May 2013. Brubeck is buried at Umpawaug Cemetery in Redding, Connecticut.

Legacy and honors

The Los Angeles Times said that he "was one of Jazz's first pop stars," though he was not always happy with his fame. He was bothered that Time put him on its cover before it did so for Duke Ellington. He said, "It just bothered me." The New York Times noted that he kept playing well into his old age. He performed in 2011 and in 2010, only a month after getting a pacemaker. Its writer described his playing at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City as "the picture of judicious clarity." In The Daily Telegraph, Ivan Hewett wrote that Brubeck had "endless curiosity combined with stubbornness" and called him "truly a marvel." In The Guardian, John Fordham praised how Brubeck mixed European ideas, strong rhythms, and jazz with improvisation. Brubeck's son Chris compared one of his pieces to the best work of Aaron Copland, such as Appalachian Spring. Robert Christgau called Brubeck the "jazz hero of the rock and roll generation." The Economist wrote that he was a modest family man who could not live without performing. After Brubeck died, Chick Corea and Gary Burton paid tribute to him on tour in Toronto by playing "Hot House." Corea also played "Strange Meadow Lark" from the album Time Out. In the United States, May 4 is informally called "Dave Brubeck Day." It is written "5/4" in the format most used in the U.S., which recalls the time signature of "Take Five."

In 1975, the main-belt asteroid 5079 Brubeck was named after him.

Brubeck received many honors. In 2008, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave him a Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver announced that he would join the California Hall of Fame at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. He also received honorary music degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, Berklee College of Music, and the George Washington University, where he received a doctor of music degree (DMus honoris causa). In 2009, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts named him a Kennedy Center Honoree. President Barack Obama said, "You can't understand America without understanding jazz, and you can't understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck." In 2010, he received the Miles Davis Award at the Montreal International Jazz Festival. Bruce Ricker and Clint Eastwood produced the documentary Dave Brubeck: In His Own Sweet Way for Turner Classic Movies. His other honors included the National Medal of Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame, a BBC Jazz Lifetime Achievement Award, and an honorary fellowship from Westminster Choir College.

Discography