Dave Brubeck’s music is alive.
If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting Dave, you should know that to many people listening in the 1950’s and 1960’s, Dave Brubeck was jazz; one of the few jazz players to become truly famous in the mainstream.
He was inventive and rebellious even by the standards of bop. When I think of Dave, I think of the way he’d sometimes play solos that sounded almost classically pretty and then slowly turned strange, brewing dark, angular thunderheads that would sometimes disperse, other times explode.
Did I mention Dave was famous? That’s no joke. Clint Eastwood directed a documentary about the guy. They even put Dave’s photo on the cover of Time magazine. Dave felt a bit uncomfortable about that, given that they put him on Time years before they’d featured Duke Ellington. Said Dave: “It just bothered me.”
Jazz isn’t a style of music, by the way. I know that when I say “jazz”, some people immediately think of saxophones and smoky nightclubs and film noir. But jazz is not any of those things–jazz at its core is just a way of playing with music, regardless of genre or style. It’s a way of learning music so deeply and so thoroughly that you’re truly free to be spontaneous, to make up melodies from thin air, to have such sharp tools that at any given moment you don’t have to play the song as it’s written–you can take flight instead, playing what’s on your mind and what’s in your heart right now.
So jazz is full of surprises–Dave especially. He’d compose in odd meters. He’d improvise counterpoint. He’d improvise polytonality. Musicians with that level of fluency play so often and so deeply that they don’t need to rehearse. They don’t even need to meet each other beforehand. They can just hit the stage and pull pure magic from thin air.
This video below is from Dave’s visit to Moscow back in the 80’s. The translator explains that an audience member has just asked Dave to improvise on a piece of Russian music. Dave starts sounding out a melody, and the crowd stirs–they know this song. It’s a Russian folk tune. A few choruses in, Dave’s bending the melody, composing on the spot, changing the chords, and turning the rhythm of the piece inside out the way Dave does.
Then, suddenly, from somewhere in the room: the sound of a violin?
You’ve gotta see what happens next.
As always when a legend dies, Dave Brubeck’s passing will introduce more people to his music. There’ll be a burst of interest, almost like his catalogue’s all new again. The guy’s like a blown dandelion–as we speak, seeds of his music are spreading apart, drifting far, far out…
Tomorrow would have been Dave’s 92nd birthday. It’s his birthday, and here’s Dave giving us the gift. What can we say to that?
Thank you, Dave, for a lifetime of amazing music. Rest well, man.
Well said, Tozier. Dave brought so much nuance to jazz beyond the fiery bebop era using odd meters and what I might describe as “colorful use of space”. Being that his sons accompanied him for years, the Brubeck legend will carry forth. I’m not an aficionado by any means, but most certainly appreciate how Dave’s “west coast” style expanded the horizons of jazz in such meaningful ways.
Thanks for taking time to honor him so eloquently… love the video!
Amazing video.
Oh, that is a joy, thank you so much for posting this. My father played Brubeck’s albums to me when I was a kid in the late 60s, a wonderful introduction to jazz.
Wow! Great video. Sometimes on a solo gig (piano/voice) I might be improvising on a pop or bluesy tune. Eventually (and usually) someone will ask for “Take Five”. That tune is a joy to improvise on. “In Your Own Sweet Way” is another favorite. Brubeck lives on. Thanks for posting.