Search Results for: Dave Brubeck

  At the very moment that last evening’s memorial service for Dave Brubeck got underway, the rumble of thunder penetrated the massive Gothic walls of New York City’s Cathedral of St. John The Divine. A murmur ran through the throng filling the 120-year-old church. With dignity and a commanding presence, Iola Brubeck read Langston Hughes’ poem “I Dream a World.” She said that it echoes the core of her husband’s belief in the equality of all peoples. An … [Read more...]

For my first New York visit in too long, nature trumped the forecasters and gave us a beautiful morning. This was the view from my host's apartment across the Hudson River to Fort Lee, New Jersey Let's hope that the weather holds for the Dave Brubeck memorial tomorrow. The service is late in the day. The Rifftides plan is to post a report on Sunday. … [Read more...]

There will be a public memorial service for Dave Brubeck in New York City next Saturday, May 11. Brubeck died last December at the age of 91. Along with, no doubt, hundreds of others I will be at the service in the cavernous Cathedral Of St. John The Divine on the upper west side of Manhattan. A little known video of a Brubeck quartet performance recently surfaced. The other musicians are Jerry Bergonzi, tenor saxophone; Chris Brubeck, electric bass; and Randy Jones, drums. The piece is … [Read more...]

The Brubeck Institute Festival—underway since Monday—gets into full swing tonight in Stockton, California, with a concert by the Tom Harrell Quintet. Other major musicians involved include The Brubeck Brothers Quartet, Gunther Schuller, Wynton Marsalis and Joe Gilman. Paul Conley reports about the festival for Capital Public Radio and KXJZ in Sacramento. To hear Paul's story about the first major Brubeck Institute event since Dave’s death in December, click here. For a compete … [Read more...]

Thanks to Michael Cuscuna and his colleagues at Mosaic Records for a reminder in their Daily Gazette of an interview with the forthright Miles Davis. Nat Hentoff spoke with the 29-year-old Davis for a 1955 Down Beat article. Full of opinions, the trumpeter took on conventional wisdom about a number of players and genres. For instance, this observation about a hot new band, the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet: I don’t like their current group too much because there’s too much going on. I … [Read more...]

It is not news that J.S. Bach influenced John Lewis. The Modern Jazz Quartet pianist and his wife Mirjana recorded two-keyboard albums of pieces by Bach, and many of Lewis’s compositions for the MJQ contain harmonic and fugal elements that are direct reflections of Bach. The Baroque master introduced into music so many structural, rhythmic and harmonic aspects beloved by jazz players that Dave Brubeck, among others, said if Bach had lived in the 20th century, he would have been a jazz … [Read more...]

Since his death on December 5, the tributes to Dave Brubeck keep appearing all over the world in print, on the air and through the internet. His oldest son Darius, who was with his father at the end, sent us a link to the article he wrote at the request of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper. This excerpt touches on the social consciousness that guided Brubeck from the earliest days of his career: I lived in South Africa from 1983 to 2005, teaching jazz at the University of … [Read more...]

Rifftides is on hold, as explained in the previous post. However, I’m taking a moment for a couple of timely alerts. Chris Brubeck posted a memoir about life with his father, Dave. Chris’s article is packed with family anecdotes about the patriarch of American music who died on December 5 at age 91. Here’s a sample: We were really poor in those early days. When we went on the road, we would stay in old hotels that had cavernous closets—most times the closets were the best … [Read more...]

Journalist and occasional Rifftides commenter Ken Dryden (pictured) works nationally and lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Among other activities, he conducts a radio program. Mr. Dryden sent an alert to a special edition of his show remembering Dave Brubeck. If you are one of the unfortunate millions who do not live within broadcast earshot of Chattanooga, there’s good news; Ken’s show will be streamed tomorrow evening on the web. Here is his announcement. Please join me for … [Read more...]

With Dave Brubeck’s passing, interesting bits of arcana about his life and music are rising to the surface. BBC Radio 4 replayed a portion of an interview from 2000 on the network’s Front Row program with John Wilson. Brubeck tells Wilson about the role of vitamin B-6 in saving his hands and the unusual use of a bungee cord in his exercise routine. He illustrates polytonality by playing a bit of Duke Ellington's “Things Ain’t What They Used To Be” in C and E-flat, simultaneously. To … [Read more...]

There's a way of playing safe, there's a way of using tricks and there's the way I like to play, which is dangerously, where you're going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven't created before. I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired, where you almost have an out-of-body experience. Damn it, when I'm bombastic, I have my reasons. I want to be bombastic: take it or leave it (Photo of Dave Brubeck at the Stockholm Jazz Festival by … [Read more...]

There is no guarantee that a great artist will be an admirable person. Many sublimely gifted musicians, painters, sculptors, writers and actors fail as human beings. Dave Brubeck was on the positive end of the scale. Among the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of obituaries and remembrances of Brubeck that have emerged since his death yesterday morning, a thread becomes clear: those who knew him emphasize that his extraordinary musicianship went hand in hand with kindness, generosity, humor and concern … [Read more...]

The Columbia University radio station WKCR is playing Brubeck recordings around the clock and will until 9:00 EST tonight. To hear the station, click here, then on one of the connecting links in the WKCR site’s upper right corner. It is impossible to individually thank the Rifftides readers who have sent comments about Dave Brubeck's passing; there are too many of you. As the comments come in, we post them with thanks to all. More later on Brubeck. … [Read more...]

Dave Brubeck died this morning. He would have celebrated his 92nd birthday tomorrow. Russell Gloyd, Brubeck’s manager and conductor of the pianist and composer’s extended orchestral works, said that Brubeck suffered cardiac arrest. In fragile health for several years, he was being driven from his home in Wilton Connecticut to an appointment with his heart doctor in nearby Norwalk. For a comprehensive obituary tracing the career that made Brubeck one of the few jazz artists to achieve … [Read more...]

The vacation is over. I’m getting back into some kind of routine, if not yet what could be called a groove. Before that happens, I’m hitting the road again to spend a bit of time with my brother, who is less than well. In the meantime, here’s a followup to a post that attracted considerable comment. The item about Paul Desmond’s 88th birthday included a link to a track called “Pilgrim’s Progress” from a 1956 Dave Brubeck Quartet concert recording. The piece is a close relative … [Read more...]

Nearly four years ago, Rifftides reminded you of the bassist Ron Crotty, whose brief season of renown came in the early 1950s. Andrew Gilbert, a free lance writer and critic in the San Francisco Bay area, sought out Crotty recently and published an update in The Monthly, an East Bay magazine. Here’s an early paragraph from Andy’s article. Crotty’s autumnal creative resurgence would be heartening in any context, reminding us that it’s never too late to make a mark, but his … [Read more...]

Paul Desmond was born on this date in 1924. As I was contemplating how to observe his 88th birthday without repeating material from the previous seven Rifftides observances of the occasion, a reader came to the rescue. Frank Roellinger sent a link and the following message. There is an ever-so-slight chance that you may not have heard this track before. I first became aware of its existence in 1963 when I saw that it was on a 2-LP set called "Playboy Jazz All-Stars", or something like … [Read more...]

Responding to the Brubeck-Desmond item in the previous exhibit, David Evans writes: Thanks for sharing that! Desmond always kills me. It takes tremendous strength and control to play with such a beautiful sound and such balanced phrasing. It sounds easy, but believe me, it’s not. Classical dancers make it look easy, too, like they are effortlessly floating around, but it takes great strength and toughness to create that illusion. And Desmond’s solo construction is always so … [Read more...]

The following item ran on Rifftides more than five years ago, with a link to video that later disappeared from the web. The clip has been restored. In light of recent discussions about the blues theme that frequently appeared when the two men played together, even after the Brubeck Quartet dissolved in 1967, the item is worth presenting again. This time, the video is on your screen. The picture quality is bad. The quality of the sound and the music is good. June 29, 2007 By Doug Ramsey Dave … [Read more...]