By Paul Freeman [ 1999 Interview]

Cool. The Dave Brubeck Quartet helped define that term in the 50s. But Brubeck's career as a pianist and composer spanned nearly 70 years and cut across genre borders. He's a jazz legend, but also excelled at creating symphonic pieces, chorales, sacred music, musicals and soundtracks.

A native of the Bay Area, Brubeck formed the quartet in 1951, with Paul Desmond shining on alto sax. The combo became a West Coast sensation, soon spreading throughout the country and eventually, across the globe.

Desmond wrote the combo's iconic hit, "Take Five." Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" also resonated with mainstream audiences. The group, which often used unusual time signatures, made a huge impact and Brubeck was emblazoned on the cover of Time magazine in 1954.

For decades to follow, Brubeck continued to explore innovative music in both the jazz and classical worlds, often mingling the two.

We interviewed Brubeck in 1999, reaching him by phone at his home in Connecticut. Columbia had recently released his "Buried Treasures," a live album recorded during the quartet's 1967 tour of Mexico. It was part of a spate of reissues the label pulled from its vaults in 1998. Brubeck passed in 2012 at age 91.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
Overseeing the remastering and remixing, was there any sense of rediscovery for you?

DAVE BRUBECK:
Well, I had never heard the "Buried Treasures." So that was a surprise, yeah. And then everything sounding better than the originals, all the things.

PCC:
This marks the 50th year you've been recording?

BRUBECK:
For me? It is. I hadn't even thought about that. First recording was '49.

PCC:
Does it seem like it's been half a century? Has it all gone by in a blur?

BRUBECK:
[Chuckles] There's so much been going on, I just try to keep my head above water. There's so much happening. I never can catch up.

PCC:
What's keeping you busy these days?

BRUBECK:
Today I was proof-reading, before something comes out in print, the Langston Hughes poems that I've just set. That's keeping me busy. [Brubeck was commissioned to write a choral work based on Hughes' poetry.]

PCC:
The composing, is that something you immerse yourself in when there's project like that in the works? Or is it an everyday discipline for you? Are you always working on something?

BRUBECK:
Wherever it comes from. Whether I'm writing for the quartet -- I've written a lot of new stuff for the quartet -- then I've been working on the fugue, "I Dream a World," from Langston Hughes, getting that ready for publication. So it never stops.

PCC:
When you begin a career, it must seem like the possibilities are infinite. Does it still seem that way, having already explored so many avenues, musically?

BRUBECK:
Oh, sure. There's more going on now than ever. The more I compose, the more possibility is there. I try to get further ahead.

PCC:
So the challenge is to keep moving forward.

BRUBECK:
Oh, sure.

PCC:
Do you prefer to not linger on your past any more than you have to? Do you prefer to just look ahead?

BRUBECK:
Well, you know, sometimes you've got to go back and listen to the old things. Like when we put out the box set [1992's "Time Signatures: A Career Retrospective"], I listened to everything on there. There's four CDs. So you've got to listen. And it started with '49 and went up to '91. So you cover the entire scope with something like the box set.

PCC:
Do you learn something about your own evolution as you listen to something of that scope? What were you reactions, when you heard all of those tracks again?

BRUBECK:
I was amazed at how good the recordings were, technically. The old Fantasy material is wonderful, considering when it was done. And the octet was still something that you could think is contemporary. And some of the trio things, I enjoyed very much how adventurous the trio was. And then came the quartet.

PCC:
Some artists play it safe after they achieve success. You've always maintained that sense of adventure, creatively.

BRUBECK:
Oh, that's important to me. We've just made two new CDs. The current album now is called "So What's New?" And there's 11 new tunes. And one not too far behind that was one I wrote for the Young Lions & Old Tigers. And the Brodsky String Quartet just recorded a new quartet of mine. And John Salmon, the piano wizard from North Carolina, just recorded most of my ballets on solo piano. And the Paratore Brothers are going to record a CD of my two-piano pieces. And then I'm trying to get some of my choral pieces recorded. People who follow me in jazz, often don't know about ballets and piano and string quartets and oratorios. And every day, I'm working more.

PCC:
Were you always into classical? Or was jazz the main focus?

BRUBECK:
Jazz was always the main thing. And then I started to write, compose for bigger things like symphonies and choruses.

PCC:
When you began in jazz, did you feel classical was too confining? Why was jazz more attractive?

BRUBECK:
Well, both of them were attractive.

PCC:
You had conservatory training. Some musicians claim it would stifle their creativity. Do you think the formal training is a huge benefit?

BRUBECK:
Well, I would say that most of the great players I know would never make a remark like that. North Texas State is full of wonderful young musicians that are getting wonderful training. The training is basically the same in Berklee College of Music and Indiana, Illinois. All the big universities -- my old alma mater in Stockton, California, that conservatory, they're all interested in jazz. And Stravinsky said that composition is selective improvisation.

PCC:
So that process of experimentation, is that always enjoyable?

BRUBECK:
Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and Chopin and on and on, were great improvisers. So you're trying to separate the two. And they're not that easily separated.

PCC:
Music is music.

BRUBECK:
Yeah.

PCC:
The 50s was that an exciting time, in terms of jazz reaching new audiences, expanding the base?

BRUBECK:
Well, we were out there, doing everything, the Haig in L.A., all the jazz clubs, like Birdland in New York and the Blue Note in Chicago and the Black Hawk in San Francisco, just go right across the country. We were doing things with people like Bernstein and playing at the Apollo in Harlem. We were opening up the college and university concerts more than anybody, I think. So it was a great time. It's still going.

We're still doing the same thing, playing universities, playing symphonies, with symphony orchestras. My 80th birthday, I'll be with the London symphony, with four of my sons. We were there for my 75th birthday and also for my 70th.

PCC:
Do your four sons tour regularly with you now -- Darius, Dan, Matthew and Chris?

BRUBECK:
No, they get together for special things like my 80th birthday with the London Symphony.

PCC:
You have other children as well?

BRUBECK:
Yeah. There are six.

PCC:
Are the others involved in music, as well?

BRUBECK:
Not now. They've moved away. My daughter Catherine has three young children, so she's not playing anymore. And my son Michael stopped playing. He trains horses.

PCC:
At home, when they were growing up, did you try to give them all an appreciation of music? Or did they just absorb that naturally?

BRUBECK:
When they were growing up? They just heard it all the time.

PCC:
And when they showed interested in pursuing careers in music, you weren't worried about the possible challenges? You just felt it's a good life?

BRUBECK:
Oh, yeah. They're having a great life. Darius is teaching in South Africa. He's been down there 12 years at the University of Natal [as professor and head of the Centre for Jazz and Popular Music]. Next year he'll be Nottingham University in England. And Chris has just recorded his trombone concerto with the London Symphony and has done a concert at Carnegie Hall. And Chris and I wrote a piece for the Pittsburgh Symphony. And Matthew's on the road with Sheryl Crow. He also plays with the Berkeley Symphony. And Danny often plays at the Highland Inn in Carmel. And he often plays with David Benoit. So they all do a lot of different things. Then they have the Brubeck Brothers jazz combo. And tour with that and they record with that. You can get a recording called "In Their Own Sweet Way," on Telarc, that's the four sons with me.

PCC:
It must be a special feeling for you to share the stage with them.

BRUBECK:
Oh, yeah, it's wonderful. When they were growing up, I'd sometimes wake up in the morning and there'd be sleeping bags all over my front room, with a whole rock group, where the only person I knew was my son. The house would be full of music. They'd be on the road and they wouldn't to stay at a hotel and they'd just crash here. And all of the kids have had their own bands. And they've all done things like that.

PCC:
So they did get into rock for a while?

BRUBECK:
Oh, yeah. Whatever was happening at the time. Darius, he was involved in folk music. But he majored, at Wesleyan University, in ethnomusicology. And he's just recorded with Deepak Ram, an Indian flute player and tabla player. Where Darius is in South Africa, it's like the crossroads of World Music going on there.

PCC:
So once you realized that your children were moving in the direction of music careers, was there any particular lesson you wanted to impart, any piece of advice?

BRUBECK:
No, I didn't have to. They loved music... and that's all you have to do. You love it, then you sacrifice a lot of other things. But it comes back to you in this great happiness.

PCC:
What's been the most rewarding aspect of career for you?

BRUBECK:
Oh, there are so many things, so many things that have happened. The Congressional Medal of the Arts. National Endowment just gave me an award. And playing and writing music for the Pope -- that was great. And the summit conference with Gorbachev and Reagan in Moscow. We've just done my Mass in Russia, on Russian television. And that was wonderful with Russian chorus and orchestra. There are so many things.

PCC:
It must be gratifying to hear so many young musicians citing you as a key influence.

BRUBECK:
Oh, there's a lot of young kids out there who will come up to me and say their first influence was some of my recordings. And then there's a lot of great professionals that will tell me the same thing.

PCC:
Was there a particular musician who made a big impression on you, when you were starting out?

BRUBECK:
Yeah, Duke Ellington and Art Tatum. Stan Kenton. My teacher, Darius Milhaud.

PCC:
Are you encouraged by the current state of jazz?

BRUBECK:
Yeah. Just wonderful things are happening.

PCC:
Do you see people carving out new territory?

BRUBECK:
Always. There's always people doing something new. You can't keep up with it.

PCC:
So you have no doubts about jazz's ability to survive?

BRUBECK:
Oh, you should see the kids, 10, 12, 13-year-olds I've seen lately, playing like adults.

PCC:
It seems like there are lots of kids these days segueing from rock to jazz. Why do you think they find jazz so appealing, both as listeners and musicians?

BRUBECK:
Well, I've seen my sons go through things like that, too. But jazz is what they love most, whether they're playing rock or symphony or whatever it is, there's a great reason why jazz is so important. It's the fundamental music of the country. And as a musician matures, he starts seeing that... and wants to be part of it.

Whether you're writing a Broadway show or movie score or symphonic piece or almost anything, the basis of it is usually jazz. So if you're into these different things, you want to go and search out the root. And that's so important. If you're American and you want to express this culture, you better delve into jazz.

PCC:
Some jazz musicians want to bring jazz more into the mainstream, while others prefer to appeal to a more elite audience.

BRUBECK:
You need everything going on. And sometimes the most avant-garde people are not accepted and then, years later, the public and the other musicians see the value of what they've done. So everything has to be accepted, in some form.

PCC:
Have you found that some of your work has been better accepted with the passage of time?

BRUBECK:
I'm going through a good period now, where there's more and more symphonies and choruses that are interested in my music, yeah, good period.

PCC:
Are symphonies looking for something more adventurous now than in the past? Is that why they're turning more towards jazz composers?

BRUBECK:
You know, we do so many interesting things, like the Handel and Haydn Society in Boston. It's one of the oldest musical societies. We've done three concerts. The harpsichordist and conductor, his name is [Christopher] Hogwood. We do concerts with them where they're playing on the original instruments that Bach would have written for. And they're on one side of the stage and my quartet's on the other side. And finally we join forces.

Hogwood is playing harpsichord and I'm playing piano, the original instruments on one side of the stage and the jazz group on the other side. It's really an interesting concert. We've done it three times at Symphony Hall and it's always been sold out in Boston.

PCC:
Are you conscious, when you're composing or recording, of trying to create something that will be timeless? Or does that just have to come on its own.

BRUBECK:
Oh, yeah, it comes on its own. And all of my music, my archives are being sent to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. And it's going to be a living archive. In other words, every year, they'll put on a program of my music either with their symphony orchestra or chorus or the combined chorus and symphony orchestra. And that way, I know my music is going to be played.

And it will be available to anybody that's interested. And the way the library, the archive, is set up, anybody can get online and get a hold of whatever they request. This is really great for me, to know the music is going to be available to anybody in the world. All my CDs -- somebody told me they had 140 of my CDs -- and all my manuscripts, it's all in the process of being shipped out there now.

With communication now, you can get anything you want in five minutes, if you know how to ask for it.