Pianist/composer Dave Brubeck, designated a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress and a 2009 Kennedy Center honoree, continues to be one of the most active and popular musicians in both the jazz and classical world, whose experiments in odd time signatures, improvised counterpoint, polyrhythm and polytonality remain hallmarks of innovation. Born December 6, 1920, into a musical family in Concord, California, he first studied piano with his mother. Having moved to a cattle ranch with his family, he originally intended to study veterinary medicine at the University of the Pacific. Simultaneously working as a pianist in local nightclubs, he found the lure of jazz irresistible and changed his major to music. After serving in the Army, he studied composition with French composer Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland, California. Milhaud encouraged him to pursue a career in jazz and to incorporate jazz elements into his compositions. With like-minded Milhaud students, he formed the Dave Brubeck Octet in 1947. In 1949 Brubeck, with fellow octet members Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty, cut their first award-winning Dave Brubeck Trio recordings. After suffering a near-fatal diving accident in 1951, Dave formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet with alto saxophonist and octet member Paul Desmond, establishing a legendary collaboration. The quartet’s recordings and concert appearances on college campuses introduced jazz to thousands of young people. The group also played in jazz clubs and toured with such artists as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Stan Getz. In 1954 Dave Brubeck’s portrait appeared on the cover of Time Magazine with a story about the jazz renaissance. The quartet’s numerous international tours inspired some of the exotic elements incorporated into their repertoire. The 1959 recording Time Out experimented in time signatures; it became the first jazz album to sell over a million copies, and “Blue Rondo a la Turk” and “Take Five” became jukebox favorites. Early in his career Brubeck wrote primarily for this quartet, and some of those pieces, such as “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke,” became jazz standards. His first orchestral composition, Elementals, for jazz combo and symphony orchestra, was premiered and recorded in 1962. In 1959 Dave’s quartet premiered and recorded his brother Howard’s Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra with the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein conducting. The “classic” Dave Brubeck Quartet (Paul Desmond, alto sax from 1951; Eugene Wright, bass from 1958; Joe Morello, drums from 1956) was dissolved in December 1967. Baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan joined a newly formed Dave Brubeck Trio (with Jack Six, bass, and Alan Dawson, drums) the following year. This group recorded and toured the world together for seven years. In this period Brubeck also performed with three of his musical sons—Darius, Chris, and Dan—billed as “Two “Generations of Brubeck,” frequently with Gerry Mulligan or Paul Desmond as guest artists. In the ’80s Brubeck led a quartet that featured clarinetist Bill Smith, a former octet member, with his son Chris on electric bass and Randy Jones on drums. This group toured the Soviet Union in 1987 and, along with former bassist Eugene Wright, performed in Moscow at the 1988 Reagan-Gorbachev Summit. Shortly after the dissolution of the “classic” quartet, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra under Erich Kunzel premiered Brubeck’s oratorio The Light in the Wilderness (February 1968). The following year his cantata The Gates of Justice, based on the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Old Testament, was also premiered by Kunzel in Cincinnati. Dave Brubeck has performed with most of the major American orchestras and with choral groups and orchestras in Europe and America. His 1990 performance with the Boston Pops was telecast on PBS’s Evening at Pops. Career highlights include the premiere of his composition Upon This Rock for Pope John Paul II’s visit to San Francisco and the performances of his mass To Hope! A Celebration in St. Stephan’s Cathedral in Vienna and in Moscow with the Russian National Orchestra and Orloff choir. In 2002 the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices recorded his Easter oratorio Beloved Son and other works under the baton of Russell Gloyd, who since 1976 has been associated with Brubeck as conductor, producer, and manager. A mini-opera based on Steinbeck’s Cannery Row was presented at the 2006 Monterey Jazz Festival. While increasingly active as a composer, Brubeck continues to record for Telarc and perform with today’s version of the Dave Brubeck Quartet—Bobby Militello, sax and flute, Randy Jones, drums, and Michael Moore, bass. He has received countless national and international honors, including the President’s Medal of Achievement from his alma mater, the University of the Pacific, where he also serves as chairman of The Brubeck Institute established in his honor. His recent recordings include Indian Summer and Jazz Manifesto.
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