Background
Dave Brubeck was born on December 6, 1920 in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Concord, California, and grew up in a city located in the Mother lode called Ione, California.
(An amazingly comprehensive anthology-thanks to Brubeck, w...)
An amazingly comprehensive anthology-thanks to Brubeck, who personally selected the tracks! You get 31 tracks on 2 CDs, spanning 24 albums and 53 years. Take Five; Blue Rondo a la Turk; The Duke; In Your Own Sweet Way; Audrey; Stardust; Unsquare Dance , and more Brubeck brilliance!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00008NGAF/?tag=2022091-20
(A live set featuring Paul Desmond and lots of daring expe...)
A live set featuring Paul Desmond and lots of daring experimentation! Includes Lover; Little Girl Blue; Sometimes I'm Happy; Love Walked In , and more, plus the bonus tracks Taking A Chance on Love and Closing Time Blues !
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003O5MO3E/?tag=2022091-20
(Their legendary 1963 performance! His eminent quartet pla...)
Their legendary 1963 performance! His eminent quartet plays the tune they made famous- Take Five -plus Blue Rondo a la Turk; Three to Get Ready; It's a Raggy Waltz; Pennies from Heaven , and more.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005AWMW/?tag=2022091-20
(CD Description With over 20 classic songs, this compilati...)
CD Description With over 20 classic songs, this compilation features The Dave Brubeck Quartet at their best with highlights including 'Blue Rondo A La Turk', 'Everybody's Jumpin', 'Pick Up The Sticks' and their most famous number and title track 'Take Five'. All tracks have been digitally remastered for optimum listening.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004J0SRU2/?tag=2022091-20
(One of the watershed jazz albums-1960's Time Out -plus th...)
One of the watershed jazz albums-1960's Time Out -plus the four LPs that followed its lead: Time Further Out ('61), Countdown: Time in Outer Space ('62), Time Changes ('64) and Time In ('66). Don't try to dance to these crazy time signatures-just enjoy the brilliance of Brubeck, Desmond and company as they do the immortal Take Five plus Blue Rondo a la Turk; Countdown; Three's a Crowd; Unsquare Dance; It's a Raggy Waltz; Elementals; World's Fair; Time In; Lost Waltz , and more!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003924NZ4/?tag=2022091-20
Dave Brubeck was born on December 6, 1920 in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Concord, California, and grew up in a city located in the Mother lode called Ione, California.
Brubeck entered the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California (now the University of the Pacific), studying veterinary science. He changed to music 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. " Later, Brubeck was nearly expelled when one of his professors discovered that he could not read music on sight. Several of his professors came forward, arguing that his ability to write counterpoint and harmony more than compensated, and demonstrated his familiarity with music notation. 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.
After graduating with a degree in music and serving in the U. S. Army during World War II, Brubeck studied composition under Milhaud at Mills College for three years. From this classical instructor, Brubeck learned one important point about composing, as he explained to Michael Bourne in Down Beat: "One lesson was never give up jazz. And he told me I would be a composer on my own terms…. He said, 'If you don't reflect your own country and use the jazz idiom, you'll never be a part of this culture. ' And, of course, Copland used it, Bernstein used it. Most of the important American composers have used jazz. " But it seems that jazz was just a tool used to build his compositions, for in addition, Brubeck learned from Milhaud the usage of modern European polytonal harmonies on which he was to base his style.
On October 18, 2008, Brubeck received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the prestigious Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.
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.
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.
After his apprenticeship under Milhaud, Brubeck sought a group sound for his compositions in 1949, first with an octet, then pared down to a trio. He also helped form Fantasy Records, the label on which he first recorded. But his definition of jazz—"an improvised musical expression based on European harmony and African rhythms, " as he described it in Down Beat—was not fulfilled until Brubeck added alto saxophonist Paul Desmond to the group in 1951. "Desmond's yearning lyricism proved the perfect foil for Brubeck's percussive approach, " Amy Duncan pointed out in the Christian Science Monitor. Another indication of Brubeck's keen judgement was his decision at the time to forego the night club circuit in favor of college campuses. The 1954 recording of one such tour, Jazz Goes to College, was the quartet's breakthrough, selling over a million copies and earning Brubeck the cover of Time's November 8, 1954, issue.
In Time's accompanying profile Brubeck was described as "a wigging cat with a far-out wail" who produces "some of the strangest and loveliest music ever played since jazz was born. " His music and approach, which the article proclaimed heralded a new jazz age, "is neither chaotic nor abandoned. It evokes neither swinging hips nor hip flasks. It goes to the head and the heart more than to the feet. "
But accompanying the rising acclaim was also rising derision. The debate over the purpose and sound of jazz divided the critical camps. Metronome's Zeiger lauded Brubeck's technique: "his texture has a refinement and lightness to it which, at times, is characteristic of the grace and elegance of Mozart"; but Jazz Journal's White stressed that "the unavoidable lack of beat, the absence of the jazz spirit—these indispensable jazz attributes—bring defeat to an otherwise highly intelligent and musicianly artist. " Dave Gelly, writing in his book The Giants of Jazz, summed up the reasons for critical disapproval: "Brubeck's studious manner, his copious references to Milhaud and Hindemith in press interviews, his little lectures at concerts on how very complicated and demanding the next number was going to be, his quotations from Bach, the galloping pomposity of his piano solos. " The public, however, continued its almost unanimous approval of the quartet. "The fact that it is admired by the public may explain the fact that it is scorned by many of the adepts, " Rice assessed in the New Yorker. "'Popular' is an extreme [negative] in certain jazz circles. "
With the substitution of Joe Morello on drums and Eugene Wright on bass in the late 1950s, Brubeck formed the classic Dave Brubeck Quartet, which performed unchanged for almost ten years. Len Lyons and Don Perlo, in their book Jazz Portraits: The Lives and Music of the Jazz Masters, described the basic elements of the quartet's music: "Fuguelike interplay among the instruments; clear (sometimes simplistic) thematic statements; excursions into polytonality; and a tight group sound. " This definitive Dave Brubeck Quartet sound also bore the mark of irregular time signatures. Brubeck's belief that "new and complex rhythm patterns, more akin to the African parents, is the natural direction for jazz to develop, " as he wrote in Down Beat, was fully realized on his famous 1959 recording, Time Out, which featured the hits "Take Five" (in 5/4 meter) and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (in 9/8 meter). "Take Five" was so well received that it even made the popular music charts, unheard of for an instrumental jazz recording. Time Out went on to become the first instrumental jazz album certified gold.
The quartet continued to record and tour successfully until 1967, when Brubeck decided to disband the group to fully concentrate on composing sacred music and jazz-influenced symphonic works. Among his compositions is the cantata Truth Is Fallen, commissioned in 1971 and dedicated "to the slain students of Kent State University and Jackson State, and all other innocent victims caught in the cross fire between repression and rebellion, " Leonard Feather noted in his book The Pleasures of Jazz.
But Brubeck couldn't stay away from the quartet format and the improvisational element of jazz. "Jazz stands for freedom, " he told Duncan of the Christian Science Monitor. "It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances. " Since the early 1970s, Brubeck has recorded and toured with his quartet composed of various musicians, including a combination of his sons, and labeled Two Generations of Brubeck. Although not quite the force he was in the 1950s and 1960s, Brubeck continued to produce vital music, as Stereo Review's Chris Albertson attested to in a review of Brubeck's 1986 offering, Reflections, stating that "the album only partly reflects the past: the present is also strongly represented, and the blend is good…. There was always a lyrical side to Brubeck, and that—as several selections here demonstrate—is an aspect of his music that time has enhanced. "
For over four decades Dave Brubeck has created music, both written and unwritten. He led one of the most successful quartets in the history of jazz without pandering to either popular or critical dictates, remaining "a paragon of obstinacy, and [playing], stolidly or not, as he pleases, " Rice observed in the New Yorker. He has persisted in seeking a voice for his creations with an informed intellectual purpose. "Far from being a born jazz man, Brubeck is a creative artist, an artist who uses jazz as his means of self-impression and as a source of unbounded inspiration, " wrote Jazz Journal' s White, adding that "the fundamental reason for Brubeck's failure to convince the jazz masses is simply that he attempted to bring something new into jazz. "
(CD Description With over 20 classic songs, this compilati...)
(A live set featuring Paul Desmond and lots of daring expe...)
(Their legendary 1963 performance! His eminent quartet pla...)
(One of the watershed jazz albums-1960's Time Out -plus th...)
(An amazingly comprehensive anthology-thanks to Brubeck, w...)
Dave Brubeck married jazz lyricist Iola Brubeck in September 1942, remaining married for 70 years up until his death. Four of Brubeck's six children have been professional musicians.