![]() ![]() The classic lineup came together in 1958 with Dave and Paul, bassist Eugene Wright (who'd led his own band, The Dukes of Swing) and drummer Joe Morello (a former violinist who performed with The Boston Symphony Orchestra during his childhood). Drummer Joe Dodge contributed to these and Brubeck Time, a top seller in 1955. A prolific quartet of five (Crotty and Bob Bates alternated bass duties), Dave's band regularly put out three or four albums each year. It was a distinction that puzzled him, as he felt Duke Ellington deserved the distinction (Duke finally got his due in August 1956). Dave found himself on the cover of Time magazine the week of November 8, 1954, the second jazz artist to make the publication's cover ( Louis Armstrong had been first, in 1949). Leaving Fantasy in 1954, the quartet signed with Columbia Records and albums like Jazz Goes to College and Dave Brubeck at Storyville: 1954 sold above the levels of earlier efforts. Desmond and Brubeck started the Dave Brubeck Quartet, which would undergo a few changes in the bass and drum spots before the permanent band set themselves up to famously make history. Cal Tjader joined George Shearing's outfit on his way to making a name for himself. Several records were issued that year, most of them reconfigured versions of standards ( "Singin' in the Rain," "Body and Soul"), before the trio broke up. Then the Brubeck Trio landed with a new label, Fantasy, named after The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which had begun in 1949 (at first they used the Fantasy mag's logo on record labels later, the company added Galaxy Records, named after another popular sci-fi magazine of the era). The trio made its recording debut in 1949 with a 78 RPM on the Coronet label, "Laura" backed with "Indiana." These and two other tracks (second single "Blue Moon" and "Tea For Two") were recorded in just a half hour, demonstrating the sort of excellence one might expect to hear at a live show, Dave's uniquely energetic piano work (particularly on the latter two selections) the selling point for jazz aficionados. Out of this experience grew the Dave Brubeck Trio, with drummer Tjader and bassist Ron Crotty. The band's public performances numbered just four: two 1946 concerts at Mills College, a gig opening for Woody Herman in San Francisco the following year and one final appearance in '48 at Dave's former college, the COP in Stockton (a number of recordings were made on acetate and were released in various forms a few years later). They rehearsed often, applying classical structure to the modern jazz style. In 1950, the Octet included Desmond and Brubeck, clarinetist and baritone saxophonist Bill Smith, tenor saxophonist David van Kriedt, trumpeter Dick Collins, trombonist Bob Collins, bassist Jack Weeks and a drummer that would one day be a major jazz star specializing in Latin percussion, Callen "Cal" Tjader. Eventually they became known as The Dave Brubeck Octet. At school, Dave became part of a cavalier bunch of student experimenters who called themselves "The 8." Like him, they were interested in stretching the rhythmic and harmonic boundaries of music, if for no other reason than to see where it might lead. Opportunities arose for him to sit in as pianist with a few San Francisco area jazz bands one was called The Three D's and sometimes featured alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, who'd been playing clubs around the area. After his discharge in the mid-'40s, he attended Mills College in Oakland and studied under French composer and teacher Darius Milhaud. He married another student, Iola Whitlock, while on leave shortly after he'd joined the Army in 1942. But a career in music seemed unlikely as he struggled through music courses, as a result of his vision, at the College of the Pacific in Stockton. ![]() As a result of some early eyesight problems, Dave never learned to properly read music, admitting to often "faking it."ĭave liked to alter the rhythms of songs when he played piano, sometimes catching the ire of musical purists. His mother, Bessie Brubeck, a former concert pianist, gave him piano lessons when he was a youngster. ![]() To fend off boredom he would make up melodies, using the rhythm of the ranch (galloping horses, the sounds of machinery and so on) as inspiration. During his teenage years he was a ranch hand, working for his father, Pete Brubeck, in the San Joaquin Valley. Born in 1920 in Concord, California, he possessed a natural rhythm. Musically speaking, timing was everything to Dave Brubeck. ![]()
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