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PIANO MUSIC PLAYS | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
HE PLAYS: "Blue Rondo a la Turk" by Dave Brubeck | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
HE CONTINUES PLAYING: "Blue Rondo a la Turk" by Dave Brubeck | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
I love that, I love that song. | 0:01:19 | 0:01:22 | |
When Dave comes out and that applause goes up... | 0:01:22 | 0:01:25 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
..at this time in his life | 0:01:28 | 0:01:31 | |
it is not only the dexterity, the thought, the improvisation... | 0:01:31 | 0:01:37 | |
It is also the thank you, because that music | 0:01:37 | 0:01:43 | |
is Dave doing what he loves to do and what he wants to do. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:48 | |
HE PLAYS INTRO | 0:01:48 | 0:01:51 | |
MUSIC: "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck | 0:02:08 | 0:02:10 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
MUSIC CONTINUES: "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Brubeck, piano, Paul Desmond, alto saxophone, | 0:02:24 | 0:02:29 | |
Joe Morello, drums, Eugene Wright, bass - | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
became synonymous with modern jazz 60 years ago. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:36 | |
Brubeck has been an ambassador for his music. | 0:02:37 | 0:02:40 | |
He took it out of the rarefied circles of a musical elite | 0:02:40 | 0:02:44 | |
and taught it to America and the rest of the world. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
His music has always had the utmost integrity, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:50 | |
with daring experiments in harmony and time signatures. | 0:02:50 | 0:02:53 | |
But it's always been accessible. | 0:02:53 | 0:02:56 | |
His most famous piece, Take Five, written by saxophonist Paul Desmond, | 0:02:58 | 0:03:03 | |
was in the Top 10 in every country that had a hit parade. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:06 | |
MUSIC CONTINUES: "Take Five" by Dave Brubeck | 0:03:06 | 0:03:10 | |
He became the first jazz musician | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
to appear on the cover of Time Magazine. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
56 years on, he remains as committed to his music as ever. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:28 | |
His band has been voted Best Jazz Group of 2010 | 0:03:28 | 0:03:31 | |
in the readers' poll in Downbeat, America's jazz bible. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:36 | |
On December 6th he will be 90 years old. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
For me, music is everything. | 0:04:27 | 0:04:29 | |
I do believe the icons you've grown up with that are huge... | 0:04:29 | 0:04:33 | |
In the end everybody is just a person and they just live a regular life. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:37 | |
Whatever contribution they've made gets put into the puzzle. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
It's always amazing to be able to put a bracket around people and say, | 0:04:41 | 0:04:46 | |
"Here is somebody you should look at because this is somebody who's really special." | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
MUSIC: "Unsquare Dance" by Dave Brubeck | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
Dave, you are such an icon to so many of us. | 0:05:11 | 0:05:14 | |
I have to ask you formally, you were born, weren't you? | 0:05:14 | 0:05:20 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:05:20 | 0:05:22 | |
1920. | 0:05:22 | 0:05:24 | |
-1920. -Yes. -By golly. | 0:05:24 | 0:05:26 | |
You were a very youthful whatever you are at this point. | 0:05:26 | 0:05:29 | |
-Thank you. -Where were you born? | 0:05:29 | 0:05:33 | |
In Concord, California - near San Francisco. | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
I do believe that people from northern California have a different bent | 0:05:36 | 0:05:41 | |
than say southern Californians or New Yorkers. We're just... We are northern Californians. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:45 | |
What was your family like, your parents? | 0:05:45 | 0:05:49 | |
Oh, unbelievable. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
My father was | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
a cattleman and a champion roper. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:59 | |
In fact, he was number one at the big rodeos in California in the '20s. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:06 | |
Dave Brubeck's musical inspirations were classical music, | 0:06:06 | 0:06:10 | |
the beats from horse's hooves, and cowboy songs. | 0:06:10 | 0:06:14 | |
Yeah! | 0:06:14 | 0:06:16 | |
My mother was a piano teacher, | 0:06:17 | 0:06:21 | |
and she wanted to be a great concert pianist. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
MUSIC: "Dziekuje" by Dave Brubeck | 0:06:25 | 0:06:28 | |
And my father said to my mother, | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
"Dave is my last chance. He's going to be a cattleman." | 0:06:45 | 0:06:50 | |
And she said, "No, he has to go to college like his brothers." | 0:06:50 | 0:06:57 | |
And he said, "Well, if he goes to college | 0:06:57 | 0:07:00 | |
"he is going to study to be a veterinarian." | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
So I went to school in Stockton, California, | 0:07:04 | 0:07:08 | |
College of Pacific as a pre-med. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:11 | |
And at the end of the first year, | 0:07:11 | 0:07:15 | |
the zoology teacher said, "Brubeck, go across the lawn | 0:07:15 | 0:07:20 | |
"to the conservatory because your mind is not in this lab." | 0:07:20 | 0:07:25 | |
So the next year I went to the conservatory. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:30 | |
MUSIC CONTINUES: "Dziekuje" by Dave Brubeck | 0:07:30 | 0:07:34 | |
What did you want to be? | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
Did you want to be a concert pianist as your mother was? | 0:08:04 | 0:08:09 | |
No, I wanted to play jazz. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:12 | |
That's what I wanted | 0:08:12 | 0:08:14 | |
from the time I was very little, maybe six years old. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:19 | |
I loved jazz, and I wouldn't practise classical piano. | 0:08:19 | 0:08:25 | |
Was your mother upset that you were playing jazz | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
and not going for concert piano? | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
Oh, yeah, very upset. | 0:08:31 | 0:08:34 | |
HE PLAYS | 0:08:34 | 0:08:36 | |
And the way she finally got around to my thinking, | 0:08:47 | 0:08:53 | |
she was in the car with me one day and Art Tatum was on the car radio. | 0:08:53 | 0:08:59 | |
And he was God to all of us. | 0:08:59 | 0:09:03 | |
HE PLAYS | 0:09:03 | 0:09:07 | |
Dave Brubeck told a great story about Cleo Brown, | 0:09:14 | 0:09:17 | |
-did you know Cleo Brown? -No. | 0:09:17 | 0:09:19 | |
He said Cleo Brown turned him on to Art. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:21 | |
And once he heard Art Tatum, of course, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
everyone else like Fats Waller and everybody said, "That's God right there" | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
That's right, you got it. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:30 | |
HE PLAYS | 0:09:30 | 0:09:32 | |
And she turned to me and she said, "David, | 0:09:49 | 0:09:53 | |
-"now I understand why you want to play jazz piano." -Really? | 0:09:53 | 0:09:58 | |
And that turned it around a bit. | 0:09:58 | 0:10:00 | |
By golly, from there on she was an enthusiast for your work. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:05 | |
Yes, she followed me. Would come to the concerts. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:10 | |
MUSIC: "Yesterdays" by Dave Brubeck | 0:10:10 | 0:10:12 | |
Dave was a senior in college and I was a sophomore when we met. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:32 | |
So we almost missed each other because we didn't go out until... | 0:10:32 | 0:10:39 | |
I guess it was May, | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
towards the end of the semester, wasn't it, of the last year. | 0:10:42 | 0:10:46 | |
One of the first dates I ever took my wife out on, she was about 18, | 0:10:46 | 0:10:52 | |
was to take her to a typical jazz club | 0:10:52 | 0:10:57 | |
where we were the only so-called whites in the club. | 0:10:57 | 0:11:04 | |
I wanted to show her my idea of heaven. | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
It was this atmosphere that I loved, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:11 | |
that I thought was the greatest joy on Earth. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
On our first date, I proposed marriage. | 0:11:13 | 0:11:20 | |
-You remember? -Of course! -THEY LAUGH | 0:11:20 | 0:11:24 | |
I thought, "Boy, here's a woman that understands me!" | 0:11:24 | 0:11:29 | |
In the three hours on the first night, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:34 | |
the first date we were together, | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
we talked more about what her life and my life was going to be | 0:11:37 | 0:11:43 | |
than I'd ever talked with a girl that I'd known for years. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:48 | |
When that happens, you'd better go with the flow. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:54 | |
We were married during World War II. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:58 | |
By getting married when we did, Dave was in the army, | 0:11:58 | 0:12:04 | |
I was still in school... | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
And...I had just turned 19 at the time that we were married. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:14 | |
And then we had a very short time together | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
before Dave was shipped overseas. | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
After I left college I had to go right into the army. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:23 | |
They sent me to Fort MacArthur. | 0:12:23 | 0:12:26 | |
-You went directly into the combat. -Yeah. | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
You were in the European theatre or the Pacific? | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
European, in Patton's army. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:37 | |
In Patton's army! | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
With him through France and into Germany. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:43 | |
Oh, my goodness. | 0:12:43 | 0:12:45 | |
And in the Bulge, which was... | 0:12:45 | 0:12:47 | |
Yes, you were at the battle. OK. Wow! | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
And here's when a lot of things happened to me, | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
because there were some Red Cross girls | 0:12:52 | 0:12:58 | |
came up in a truck | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
with a big box on the back of the truck. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:03 | |
The side of the box lowered down and it became a stage. | 0:13:03 | 0:13:08 | |
There was a piano. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
They said, "Is there a piano player here? We'd like to sing." | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
So I raised my hand and they said, "Come on up and play." | 0:13:15 | 0:13:20 | |
So I played. The next morning we were supposed to go into battle. | 0:13:20 | 0:13:25 | |
We were lined up and three names were called out. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:30 | |
And that reason was | 0:13:30 | 0:13:34 | |
the colonel in charge of the 17th Replacement Depot | 0:13:34 | 0:13:39 | |
said, "I never want that soldier to go to the front. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:44 | |
"I want him to stay here, I want to form a band." | 0:13:44 | 0:13:49 | |
What kind of music did you play for the troops? | 0:13:49 | 0:13:53 | |
Military stuff or jazz or...? | 0:13:53 | 0:13:57 | |
Never any military stuff. | 0:13:57 | 0:14:00 | |
One of the first things I wrote was We Cross The Rhine. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:05 | |
We crossed at Remagen and as the trucks went down the bank | 0:14:05 | 0:14:10 | |
and hit that bridge there was a certain rhythm. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:14 | |
And I thought, "Boy, I'd like to capture that rhythm in music." | 0:14:14 | 0:14:20 | |
And capture the feeling of crossing the Rhine. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:25 | |
So that day I wrote the piece We Crossed The Rhine. | 0:14:25 | 0:14:31 | |
And how did the words go to your melody? | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
"We crossed the Rhine, the time was winter. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:39 | |
"Why? The ground was frozen. | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
"Why oh why were we chosen | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
"to take this ground?" | 0:14:45 | 0:14:47 | |
How long did you stay in Europe, then? | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Oh...till January '46. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:55 | |
After the war. | 0:14:55 | 0:14:57 | |
And I knew the semester in school | 0:14:57 | 0:15:03 | |
had just started at Mills College, Oakland, California, | 0:15:03 | 0:15:07 | |
where this great French composition teacher | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
had told me after the war | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
I could study with him. So through the GI Bill | 0:15:14 | 0:15:18 | |
I was able to get a wonderful education. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:23 | |
Darius Milhaud was one of the foremost French composers | 0:15:23 | 0:15:28 | |
of the 20th century. He had to leave France in 1939 | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
to escape the increasing persecution of Jews in Europe. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:35 | |
Dave Brubeck met Milhaud in 1946, | 0:15:35 | 0:15:38 | |
and a profound personal and musical relationship was forged. | 0:15:38 | 0:15:41 | |
Darius was a very respected French bass composer. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:49 | |
Classically-trained, came from the classical world, | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
very heavily influenced by the French tradition - | 0:15:52 | 0:15:55 | |
Ravel, Debussy, etc - before him. But who had this | 0:15:55 | 0:15:59 | |
very, very open view of music. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
One of the musics that he discovered and that he loved - | 0:16:02 | 0:16:06 | |
and he was very pioneering in this sense - was jazz. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:10 | |
And he happened to have come to the United States | 0:16:10 | 0:16:13 | |
to teach in California, right around the time | 0:16:13 | 0:16:15 | |
that Dave Brubeck was looking to continue his musical studies | 0:16:15 | 0:16:20 | |
on the GI Bill after World War II. | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
I'd like to say about Milhaud, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
beyond the fact that he really was a musical genius, | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
that he was a very, very kind man. | 0:16:28 | 0:16:32 | |
Very good to us, very good to Dave. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:35 | |
Darius Milhaud was the first serious musician | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
to become interested in jazz. | 0:16:38 | 0:16:39 | |
And, as early as 1923, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:41 | |
he incorporated this form of music in his ballet, | 0:16:41 | 0:16:44 | |
The Creation Of The World. | 0:16:44 | 0:16:46 | |
Here now to meet the Milhauds are several of his former students, | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
whom he affectionately calls his Mills College boys. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:53 | |
Teacher Milhaud filled them with counterpoint and polytonality. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:57 | |
But, says Brubeck, he also advised us to stick to jazz, | 0:16:57 | 0:17:00 | |
otherwise we would be working out of our own field | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
and not taking advantage of our American heritage. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
HE PLAYS | 0:17:05 | 0:17:09 | |
Milhaud was the beacon | 0:17:17 | 0:17:21 | |
that came here and shone for all the jazz musicians. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:26 | |
Here he is saying jazz is a great art form. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:30 | |
He told us things like Satie, his teacher, | 0:17:30 | 0:17:33 | |
said "jazz cries out its soul and nobody cares." | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
He would say to us when we tried to sound like European music, | 0:17:36 | 0:17:43 | |
"Why are you doing this?" | 0:17:43 | 0:17:45 | |
He'd say, "You can play boogie-woogie." | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
HE PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
That's the way every lesson with Milhaud would start. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:53 | |
HE PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE | 0:17:53 | 0:17:55 | |
He composed as if you were writing a letter. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:38 | |
Not a very carefully thought-out letter, | 0:18:38 | 0:18:40 | |
because everything was just moving as fast as his pen could go. | 0:18:40 | 0:18:44 | |
Then he would send it off to the publisher. | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
I've just finished the second movement of the sonatina. | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
Do you want to come and try it on the piano? | 0:18:50 | 0:18:52 | |
-THEY PLAY -Not so fast. | 0:18:52 | 0:18:57 | |
Stravinsky wanted Madeleine to come to New York | 0:19:07 | 0:19:13 | |
from Mills College, because she is an actress that can read music. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:19 | |
-And you knew Madeleine very well. -Yes. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:22 | |
-I heard that she just passed away. -104, can you imagine?! -I can't believe it. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:28 | |
He gave me a direction - "Never give up jazz. | 0:19:28 | 0:19:32 | |
"You can play jazz." He'd say, "I wish I could play jazz. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:37 | |
"You want to be a composer like me, I want to be like you. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:42 | |
"Don't give up what you can do." | 0:19:42 | 0:19:44 | |
Dave, uh...played nothing at all like he's playing now. | 0:19:44 | 0:19:49 | |
He would, uh...be playing... | 0:19:49 | 0:19:53 | |
Something like Milhaud with his right hand and Bartok with his left, | 0:19:53 | 0:19:58 | |
in several different keys and several different rhythms. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:01 | |
And this is not on his chorus, this is while you're trying to play, | 0:20:01 | 0:20:04 | |
or some poor singer is trying to sing, and he's going... | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
HE PLAYS | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
Uh... I, at the same time, | 0:20:15 | 0:20:18 | |
was playing at the top of the horn, the high notes. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:22 | |
THEY PLAY: "Brandenburg Gate" by Dave Brubeck | 0:20:22 | 0:20:26 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERS | 0:21:02 | 0:21:05 | |
In the early '50s, a kind of jazz developed on the West Coast | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
which was laid back and lyrical. | 0:21:08 | 0:21:10 | |
It was labelled "cool", in contrast to the hot bebop of New York. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:14 | |
Some of the key names were Chet Baker, | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
Gerry Mulligan and Cal Tjader. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:20 | |
But however persuasive the word "cool" was to describe that style, | 0:21:21 | 0:21:24 | |
and however popular it was, and however much Dave Brubeck might have | 0:21:24 | 0:21:28 | |
been represented as its epitome, | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
the tremendous range of his music and imagination | 0:21:31 | 0:21:33 | |
could never be pigeon-holed into one term. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:35 | |
Cool in the sense that it was used as a term to define music of, | 0:21:35 | 0:21:40 | |
say, the West Coast in the late '50s and early '60s | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
does not now and never has applied to Dave. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
Dave is... Sometimes he plays very lyrically and gently, | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
and sometimes he... thunders away at you | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
and, uh... | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
He's unique, he's one of a kind. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
I never agreed with being called cool because, uh... | 0:22:01 | 0:22:06 | |
At the time when they were calling me cool, | 0:22:06 | 0:22:10 | |
I can show you records that were steaming, they were so hot. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
It was a wonderful period. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:15 | |
And of course there was the Burma Lounge | 0:22:15 | 0:22:18 | |
on Lakeshore Avenue in Oakland, | 0:22:18 | 0:22:19 | |
and we were all kind of a bunch of kids and we thought George Shearing | 0:22:19 | 0:22:24 | |
and a lot of the groups that were coming along then were great, | 0:22:24 | 0:22:28 | |
and then somebody said, "There's this new guy | 0:22:28 | 0:22:30 | |
"down at the Burma Lounge," so we've got to go down | 0:22:30 | 0:22:34 | |
and see him. So we came in there and sat in the back, | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
lied about our age so we could get an Acme Beer or something like that. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:43 | |
The sleazy joints were some of the greatest places to play jazz. | 0:22:43 | 0:22:48 | |
HE PLAYS JAZZ PIANO | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
There was some element of slumming to go there. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:53 | |
People thought they were really brave | 0:22:53 | 0:22:55 | |
if they went there once in their life. I was there every night. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
And I got accustomed to thinking this was the closest thing to heaven | 0:22:58 | 0:23:05 | |
I would ever know on earth, because the people were so great. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
That, uh... | 0:23:10 | 0:23:11 | |
was one of our first jobs with the trio, | 0:23:11 | 0:23:16 | |
with Cal Tjader, Ron Crotty. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
-It was great. -Yeah. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
Yeah, I remember seeing that, | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
because Cal was playing | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
-both drums and vibes. -And he could switch back and forth | 0:23:25 | 0:23:29 | |
immediately and not miss a beat. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
I don't see how he can move that fast | 0:23:33 | 0:23:37 | |
-from one instrument to another. -Yeah, I don't know either. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:40 | |
We made our first four recordings of 78s in a half-hour. | 0:23:40 | 0:23:46 | |
-Oh, really? -Yeah! -You just rambled right through 'em, huh? | 0:23:46 | 0:23:49 | |
-Had to because... -And they were the red vinyl on Fantasy. | 0:23:49 | 0:23:56 | |
I think there's so much about Dave Brubeck's story | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
that you can say, "What if this wasn't there? | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
"What if he hadn't met up with Paul Desmond?" | 0:24:02 | 0:24:04 | |
Paul was not supposed to be part of his group. | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
It was Paul who decided, "I have to play with Dave Brubeck," | 0:24:06 | 0:24:10 | |
and he kept pushing and pushing Dave to put him into the quartet, | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
because Dave was perfectly happy to have a trio. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
And then we formed the quartet | 0:24:39 | 0:24:41 | |
and by that time Dave had mellowed enough to realise | 0:24:41 | 0:24:47 | |
what has been one of the primary rules of the group ever since, | 0:24:47 | 0:24:52 | |
that whoever is playing the solo at any given moment | 0:24:52 | 0:24:55 | |
is the one who deserves... uh...care and attention. | 0:24:55 | 0:25:01 | |
And he has become, or he became almost instantly, I should say, | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
one of the really best accompanists in the world. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
I went over to the Black Hawk and saw the quartet when it first came into being and it was great. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:16 | |
Thus began one of the legendary collaborations | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
in the history of jazz. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
To me, Paul... | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
had a West Coast wind sound, | 0:25:30 | 0:25:36 | |
almost a bottomless feel. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
-Paul went on to become more distinctive in his own style. -Yeah. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:50 | |
That extremely...beautiful way he played after a few gin-and-tonics. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:56 | |
-It was... -THEY CHUCKLE | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
Dave's brother, Howard Brubeck, is chairman | 0:25:58 | 0:26:00 | |
of the music department of Palomar College in California. | 0:26:00 | 0:26:04 | |
Some time ago, he wrote a fairly long | 0:26:04 | 0:26:06 | |
and very interesting work for the Brubeck Quartet with an orchestra. | 0:26:06 | 0:26:10 | |
He called it Dialogue For Jazz Combo And Orchestra. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:12 | |
The resulting thing was conducted | 0:26:12 | 0:26:14 | |
by Leonard Bernstein, you may have heard the record. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:17 | |
We've condensed, rather Dave has condensed, the second movement | 0:26:17 | 0:26:20 | |
for simply quartet use. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:22 | |
Jazz in the '50s was a smoke-filled room, | 0:26:45 | 0:26:49 | |
little nightclubs. It wasn't a concert music. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:53 | |
Festivals hadn't come along yet. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:55 | |
The only concerts were Norman Grant's Jazz At The Philharmonic. | 0:26:55 | 0:26:59 | |
Brubeck took it out of that cult situation, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
which had developed around Bird and Dizzy | 0:27:02 | 0:27:04 | |
and the concept that a jazz musician was involved with drugs, | 0:27:04 | 0:27:09 | |
was involved with...you know, this romance that had grown up about | 0:27:09 | 0:27:14 | |
and still is there about the life of a jazz musician. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
He is Mr Dave Brubeck! Please welcome Dave Brubeck and his band! | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
CHEERS AND APPLAUSE | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
Brubeck has always been attentive to the work of other musicians, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
often paying tribute by dedicating compositions to them. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
Marian McPartland is a long-time friend and musical colleague, | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
and he gave her name to a composition he performed at a recent Newport Jazz Festival. | 0:27:33 | 0:27:39 | |
You played wonderfully that day. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
All that college series - | 0:28:52 | 0:28:53 | |
Jazz At Oberlin, Jazz At College Of The Pacific, Jazz Goes To College - | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
he brought young people into jazz. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:01 | |
He was an educator. | 0:29:01 | 0:29:02 | |
And in that time in history, | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
when jazz was becom... | 0:29:04 | 0:29:05 | |
-Most of the jazz artists were all older. -Mmm. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:10 | |
When you're that age, you know, when you're between sort of 16 and 22, | 0:29:10 | 0:29:16 | |
you're really willing to be open to anything, | 0:29:16 | 0:29:20 | |
and I liked anything that was emotional, you know, | 0:29:20 | 0:29:23 | |
and obviously going through a lot of different genres of music. | 0:29:23 | 0:29:27 | |
But...Dave Brubeck sort of stuck out for me. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:32 | |
I was especially attracted to that, what he was doing, | 0:29:32 | 0:29:35 | |
because it wasn't jazz that was so far out. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:39 | |
He was the first jazz musician to take over the college circuit | 0:29:52 | 0:29:56 | |
and played in colleges all over the country. | 0:29:56 | 0:29:59 | |
It occurred to me that this was an inroad that really hadn't been developed, | 0:29:59 | 0:30:04 | |
so I just looked up all of the colleges that were within driving distance | 0:30:04 | 0:30:12 | |
and wrote letters, usually to the student association. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:17 | |
The fact that, um, Iola Brubeck appealed to the students themselves | 0:30:17 | 0:30:24 | |
when she first started booking Dave and the quartet onto college campuses was very important. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:30 | |
Iola Brubeck's idea of taking her husband's new music to colleges | 0:30:46 | 0:30:49 | |
opened the doors for other groups. | 0:30:49 | 0:30:51 | |
The Modern Jazz Quartet and Gerry Mulligan's band | 0:30:51 | 0:30:54 | |
shared Brubeck's mixing of jazz and classical music. | 0:30:54 | 0:30:59 | |
They all made music that was ambitious and experimental | 0:30:59 | 0:31:02 | |
and yet their sound was instantly appealing. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
They all became household names. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
It seems that the differences between the string quartet | 0:31:08 | 0:31:12 | |
and the Jazz Quartet are possibly more obvious than the similarities. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:18 | |
Because of the presence of our rhythm section that plays an unvarying tempo. | 0:31:18 | 0:31:23 | |
But, based on this unvarying tempo, we have a wide latitude | 0:31:23 | 0:31:29 | |
and the possibility of contrapuntal interplay between two or more voices. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:33 | |
Brubeck's contribution to modern jazz was significantly | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
in the employment of complex and unusual time signatures. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:52 | |
5/4, 11/8, 7/4. | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
Most jazz was in straight 4/4 time. | 0:31:55 | 0:31:57 | |
He found drummer with a unique genius for realising his ideas. | 0:31:57 | 0:32:02 | |
Paul said to me, | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
"You've got to go and hear this guy, Joe Morello. He's so fantastic." | 0:32:17 | 0:32:23 | |
I asked Joe if he would join the group. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:26 | |
And he said, "Well, I'll tell you, I'll join the group, | 0:32:26 | 0:32:31 | |
"but your drummer and your bass player are out to lunch. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:35 | |
"You never let them do anything." | 0:32:35 | 0:32:37 | |
At the Marquee, there was a kind of a sign | 0:32:37 | 0:32:39 | |
that was Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring Paul Desmond, | 0:32:39 | 0:32:42 | |
and the other guys were nothing. They could have been zilch. | 0:32:42 | 0:32:46 | |
I said, "Joe, I'll feature you." | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
So the first night he joined I gave him a drum solo. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:54 | |
I did the drum solo and the place went wild. | 0:33:32 | 0:33:35 | |
People just stood up and clapped and all this nonsense. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
Paul Desmond, in the middle of... the end of the solo, | 0:33:38 | 0:33:42 | |
he just walks off to stand and runs in the dressing room. | 0:33:42 | 0:33:46 | |
And Paul said, "Either he goes or I go." | 0:33:46 | 0:33:51 | |
And I said, "Paul, he's not going." | 0:33:51 | 0:33:54 | |
Which was a shock, you know? | 0:33:54 | 0:33:55 | |
Gene is one of the finest bass players I have ever worked with | 0:33:55 | 0:34:00 | |
and probably the easiest person to get along with, | 0:34:00 | 0:34:03 | |
because usually bass players and drummers never agree. | 0:34:03 | 0:34:06 | |
Eugene Wright's steady bass patterns were an ideal complement | 0:34:11 | 0:34:14 | |
to the more complex rhythms of Brubeck and Morello. | 0:34:14 | 0:34:17 | |
When racists in southern states objected to his presence, | 0:34:17 | 0:34:21 | |
Brubeck cancelled the concerts. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:23 | |
There is a group sound that just naturally comes with these guys | 0:34:36 | 0:34:40 | |
after we've played together this many years. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:43 | |
You see, each guy... | 0:34:43 | 0:34:44 | |
Desmond I consider the most lyrical jazz musician playing. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:48 | |
I consider Morello to be the greatest exponent of time and rhythm there is today. | 0:34:48 | 0:34:55 | |
And being that I feel this way about these guys, | 0:34:55 | 0:34:57 | |
I can get a certain thing to happen with them. | 0:34:57 | 0:35:01 | |
I want Desmond to be lyrical. I want Morello do all these crazy things. | 0:35:01 | 0:35:05 | |
And I want Eugene Wright to be the swinging rock bottom of the group, which he is. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:11 | |
In the mid-1950s under Goddard Lieberson | 0:35:21 | 0:35:24 | |
and his producer George Avakian, | 0:35:24 | 0:35:26 | |
Columbia became the home of such jazz giants as Louis Armstrong, | 0:35:26 | 0:35:30 | |
Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, | 0:35:30 | 0:35:31 | |
and the most successful of them all, Dave Brubeck. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
Very tasty, Dave, very tasty. | 0:35:49 | 0:35:51 | |
I had the good fortune of having to go out to San Francisco, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:56 | |
the Bay area, | 0:35:56 | 0:35:57 | |
and I heard the quartet for the first time there. | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
I had already heard their records on Fantasy of course | 0:36:01 | 0:36:04 | |
and been pretty impressed. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:06 | |
Dave said that he was breaking off from Fantasy Records, | 0:36:28 | 0:36:31 | |
a company that he had started himself, | 0:36:31 | 0:36:34 | |
and would be available. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
And I told him, "I'd be delighted to have you record for Columbia." | 0:36:36 | 0:36:41 | |
And I said, "I have no idea what I can offer you. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:45 | |
"What do you want, in the way of an advance?" | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
He told me that if he could get a 6,000 advance, | 0:36:48 | 0:36:53 | |
it would pay off the mortgage on the family ranch | 0:36:53 | 0:36:56 | |
and I said, "I think I can swing that." | 0:36:56 | 0:36:58 | |
One thing I could say about Dave Brubeck is obviously that | 0:37:08 | 0:37:11 | |
a lot of those albums in the '50s and '60s, | 0:37:11 | 0:37:13 | |
they have modern art | 0:37:13 | 0:37:15 | |
on the front, so I know it's an album of his. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:17 | |
I think it's Time Further Out where there's Miro on the front. | 0:37:17 | 0:37:20 | |
And it's really... It's music that really does make jazz sound like | 0:37:20 | 0:37:27 | |
kind of abstract, modern paintings. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:31 | |
When you look at those paintings, | 0:37:31 | 0:37:33 | |
you can really hear | 0:37:33 | 0:37:34 | |
the way Dave interprets that kind of artwork in his music. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:38 | |
To me, the definition of art is to be able to communicate with others, | 0:37:54 | 0:37:58 | |
to communicate emotions. | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
Because it's...that's what art is. | 0:38:02 | 0:38:04 | |
It's the ability to | 0:38:04 | 0:38:05 | |
transfer an emotion to another person. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:08 | |
Dave, it turns out that today, | 0:38:22 | 0:38:23 | |
there seems to be as many kinds of jazz as, | 0:38:23 | 0:38:26 | |
well, French political parties, for instance. | 0:38:26 | 0:38:28 | |
And we don't know where one jazz performance stands next to another, | 0:38:28 | 0:38:33 | |
whether you're a left-centrist, veering to the right... | 0:38:33 | 0:38:36 | |
Where are you? Are you a progressive? Retrogressive? | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
Well, we just like to be considered contemporary. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:42 | |
In being contemporary, what do you consider...? | 0:38:42 | 0:38:45 | |
Well, we're contemporary in a fortunate time in the history of jazz | 0:38:45 | 0:38:49 | |
because I don't think ever before were contemporary jazz musicians | 0:38:49 | 0:38:53 | |
allowed to use the jazz that had gone before. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:57 | |
You see, we can use Dixieland, swing, bop, | 0:38:57 | 0:39:01 | |
we can incorporate everything into our playing | 0:39:01 | 0:39:03 | |
and no-one considers us corny. | 0:39:03 | 0:39:05 | |
You feel you're not tied into a set technique? | 0:39:05 | 0:39:08 | |
It's a very healthy situation, and I think it's the first time. | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
In the 1950s jazz had a very special place. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:15 | |
It was not just an idea of hipness, or a place that, you know... | 0:39:15 | 0:39:21 | |
It was that idea of something that was way off the mainstream, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
slightly dangerous. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:26 | |
I think there's a lot of good fortune, happy timing, | 0:39:42 | 0:39:47 | |
in Dave Brubeck's career | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
that has, like, propelled him to the level that he's on. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
The fact that he was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1954. | 0:39:53 | 0:39:57 | |
Who knew, you know, that that was going to be | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
the point at which a national magazine would want to cover jazz? | 0:40:00 | 0:40:04 | |
I mean, modern jazz had been around for a good 10 years by that point | 0:40:42 | 0:40:48 | |
and they could have chosen Charlie Parker... | 0:40:48 | 0:40:51 | |
..or Thelonious Monk... | 0:40:56 | 0:40:58 | |
..or Dizzy Gillespie as the hero to put on the cover. | 0:41:06 | 0:41:09 | |
Um, it can be said that they went for a white face. | 0:41:14 | 0:41:17 | |
The thing about Dave, | 0:41:17 | 0:41:18 | |
it's kind of strange for a guy who's light years away from a racist, | 0:41:18 | 0:41:25 | |
who's light years away from a commercial guy, | 0:41:25 | 0:41:29 | |
who doesn't make recordings with any intention of pandering to the public, right? | 0:41:29 | 0:41:35 | |
But the public likes him. | 0:41:35 | 0:41:37 | |
And certainly, Dave Brubeck is very aware of the fact | 0:41:37 | 0:41:40 | |
that they put his face on the cover of Time Magazine | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
before they put someone like Duke Ellington. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
And he felt almost apologetic about that. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:48 | |
I loved Duke Ellington. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
All my life and his life, | 0:42:16 | 0:42:20 | |
right to the end we were good friends. | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
He wrote some really beautiful things. You know? | 0:42:23 | 0:42:27 | |
I didn't really get into jazz until I was in high school. | 0:42:56 | 0:43:00 | |
That's when I started to focus on jazz and realise how great it was. | 0:43:00 | 0:43:04 | |
But I said to Paul, | 0:44:37 | 0:44:39 | |
"Why don't you put a melody over what Joe's doing in 5/4 time? | 0:44:39 | 0:44:47 | |
"Because I'm doing an album right now in all different time signatures | 0:44:47 | 0:44:52 | |
"and I'm going to call it Time Out." | 0:44:52 | 0:44:55 | |
And so, Paul's assignment was to try to | 0:44:55 | 0:44:58 | |
put a melody over, "ung-junka-chunk, boom-boom, ung-junka-chunk, boom". | 0:44:58 | 0:45:06 | |
Which was Joe's rhythm. | 0:45:06 | 0:45:08 | |
HE PLAYS PIANO | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
It's all black keys so it's not too hard! | 0:46:06 | 0:46:09 | |
Woo! Yeah! | 0:46:30 | 0:46:31 | |
You listen back to Take Five, even the solo that Paul Desmond did, | 0:46:31 | 0:46:37 | |
it almost doesn't sound like a solo, it sounds like a written out, beautiful piece of music. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:41 | |
Every note is so crystal-clear and there's a lot of density and space. | 0:46:41 | 0:46:45 | |
I think that record was just such a ground-breaking record for that reason, | 0:46:45 | 0:46:50 | |
that no-one had ever approached jazz that way before. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:53 | |
I was maybe 14 or 15. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:14 | |
My dad stuck in a tape and the car and played Take Five. | 0:47:14 | 0:47:18 | |
And it was part of my first jazz education. | 0:47:18 | 0:47:21 | |
Obviously. I didn't know about him, I hadn't seen him live or seen him on the television, | 0:47:21 | 0:47:26 | |
but Take Five was a tune that I knew and understood and loved from a very early age. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:30 | |
Before I was interested in jazz. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
Yeah. Amazingly enough, I think it's the highest-selling jazz single ever made. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:39 | |
You cannot imagine Time Out or Take Five being as successful | 0:47:39 | 0:47:44 | |
without Joe Morello's drum solo, without Paul Desmond's melody. | 0:47:44 | 0:47:50 | |
Without that incredible decision to do it in 5/4. | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
And the jazz critics, they always thought Desmond was the key to the group. | 0:47:53 | 0:48:01 | |
Desmond was only the icing on the cake. The cake was Dave Brubeck. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
In many ways, it's the tune I look forward to, | 0:48:44 | 0:48:49 | |
probably the most, of the evening. | 0:48:49 | 0:48:54 | |
Is how far out are we going to go on this one chord progression? | 0:48:54 | 0:49:00 | |
Some of us are musicians, some of us are something else. | 0:50:51 | 0:50:57 | |
But you're very aware of sound, of rhythms. | 0:50:57 | 0:51:01 | |
Wherever I go, | 0:51:02 | 0:51:03 | |
sometimes it's crickets - the sound of the water in the stream outside. | 0:51:03 | 0:51:10 | |
Strange Meadow Lark | 0:51:13 | 0:51:16 | |
was really my imitation | 0:51:16 | 0:51:21 | |
of the meadow lark that I remembered in northern California. | 0:51:21 | 0:51:25 | |
# Da-da dum, dee-da-da... # | 0:51:25 | 0:51:32 | |
'In 1960, Brubeck and Iola switched coasts and settled | 0:52:11 | 0:52:16 | |
'in Wilton, Connecticut, where they still live. | 0:52:16 | 0:52:20 | |
'There they raised their six children - Darius, Michael, Chris, Catherine, Daniel and Matthew.' | 0:52:20 | 0:52:27 | |
Those days, my life was centred around raising a family | 0:52:27 | 0:52:31 | |
and those cool guys do whatever they wanted to do. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:35 | |
'The members of this group, | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
'Darius Brubeck, on electric keyboards.' | 0:52:41 | 0:52:44 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:52:44 | 0:52:47 | |
'Chris Brubeck on bass.' | 0:52:51 | 0:52:54 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:52:54 | 0:52:56 | |
Danny Brubeck on drums. APPLAUSE | 0:52:59 | 0:53:03 | |
'When I grow up, you could play in five joints in one block, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:30 | |
'you could play jazz.' | 0:53:30 | 0:53:31 | |
That's gone. It's coming back... | 0:53:31 | 0:53:33 | |
-There are about five in this country, come to think of it. -Yeah. | 0:53:33 | 0:53:37 | |
It's a lot more difficult for you guys to work playing jazz than I did. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:41 | |
I really feel sorry. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:43 | |
I didn't want you to be jazz musicians. I told you! | 0:53:43 | 0:53:47 | |
His whole family - and I know you know Iola and Danny | 0:54:11 | 0:54:15 | |
and Chris and Darius - it's just an amazing family. They're all musical | 0:54:15 | 0:54:20 | |
and they're are all wonderful. | 0:54:20 | 0:54:24 | |
They all seem to have enjoyed the variety. | 0:54:24 | 0:54:28 | |
Yeah, they seem to embrace it. | 0:54:28 | 0:54:29 | |
Brubeck's pursuit of his musical ideas has been consolidated by his children. | 0:54:29 | 0:54:35 | |
Last year, along with Robert De Niro, Bruce Springsteen, Grace Bumbry and Mel Brooks, | 0:54:35 | 0:54:40 | |
Brubeck was awarded the Kennedy Center Honors - America's most prestigious cultural accolade. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:46 | |
His sons provided the band. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:49 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, the four sons of Dave Brubeck. | 0:54:49 | 0:54:52 | |
With more than 60 years in jazz, Brubeck has become the living repository of the music itself. | 0:56:22 | 0:56:28 | |
One of its greatest experimenters - he's always had the keenest appreciation of its history. | 0:56:28 | 0:56:34 | |
Like to start the set... | 0:56:34 | 0:56:37 | |
with one of the first blues - | 0:56:37 | 0:56:39 | |
maybe the first blues ever written by WC Handy. | 0:56:39 | 0:56:45 | |
It was called St Louis Blues. | 0:56:45 | 0:56:49 | |
Surprise to me, | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
it was the first blues ever written started as a tango. | 0:56:52 | 0:57:00 | |
Figure that one out, all you fusion lovers! | 0:57:00 | 0:57:04 | |
Say, the label says it's St Louis Blues. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:38 | |
It didn't sound much like St Louis Blues. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:42 | |
Well, in the opening, we did play the melody. | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
And, from then on, you know, as jazz musicians, you're free to | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
improvise on that tune - on those chord progressions. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:54 | |
Are there any rules for improvisation? | 0:58:14 | 0:58:16 | |
You bet your life there are. | 0:58:16 | 0:58:18 | |
The rules in jazz would just scare you to death. | 0:58:18 | 0:58:21 | |
They're are so strict, it's pitiful. | 0:58:21 | 0:58:24 | |
Just break one of the rules | 0:58:24 | 0:58:26 | |
and you'll never end up in another jam session with the same guys again - believe me! | 0:58:26 | 0:58:31 | |
In his early days, and still today, | 0:58:42 | 0:58:45 | |
he's as bold as anybody when he gets off on an idea | 0:58:45 | 0:58:48 | |
or he gets a semi-idea and he's kind of working it out. | 0:58:48 | 0:58:51 | |
You can kind of feel that, as it's going along. | 0:58:51 | 0:58:53 | |
That was part of the unravelling process. | 0:58:53 | 0:58:56 | |
It would be a 12 bar blues chorus. | 0:59:12 | 0:59:16 | |
From there on, we all improvise on this. | 0:59:16 | 0:59:21 | |
The bass player has a baseline that outlines the chord progressions. | 0:59:21 | 0:59:26 | |
Although he's playing a walking bass... | 0:59:26 | 0:59:29 | |
HE PLAYS WALKING BASS | 0:59:29 | 0:59:34 | |
..it's the same chord progressions throughout. | 0:59:44 | 0:59:47 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:59:52 | 0:59:54 | |
He stuck there most of the tune. | 1:00:07 | 1:00:10 | |
He can do any variation on these chord progressions. | 1:00:10 | 1:00:14 | |
While he's playing that... | 1:00:14 | 1:00:16 | |
..then we improvise. | 1:00:20 | 1:00:22 | |
And, if I want, I can play old-fashioned kind of... | 1:00:23 | 1:00:28 | |
left-hand chords. | 1:00:28 | 1:00:30 | |
Now, see that! | 1:01:03 | 1:01:06 | |
That isn't too modern. | 1:01:06 | 1:01:07 | |
'Brubeck's gifts - not only to play, but to introduce and explain jazz - | 1:01:22 | 1:01:27 | |
'made him an ideal candidate to be a key player in America's global cultural programmes, | 1:01:27 | 1:01:32 | |
'along with Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. | 1:01:32 | 1:01:36 | |
'He became one of the great jazz ambassadors, | 1:01:36 | 1:01:39 | |
'even to the Eastern bloc during the most intense phase of the Cold War.' | 1:01:39 | 1:01:43 | |
Then, in 1958, the Dave Brubeck Quartet went on a State Department tour. | 1:01:43 | 1:01:48 | |
This was first hand knowledge of what went on and what happened when a jazz group went into a country | 1:01:48 | 1:01:55 | |
where jazz was a real novelty and where jazz was taken seriously as an American art form. | 1:01:55 | 1:02:02 | |
It was the very first State Department tour | 1:02:02 | 1:02:05 | |
Dave had gone on. | 1:02:05 | 1:02:06 | |
He did 12 concerts in Poland. | 1:02:06 | 1:02:09 | |
On the very last night, | 1:02:09 | 1:02:12 | |
he dedicated a new composition that he was inspired by visiting the Chopin museum. | 1:02:12 | 1:02:18 | |
Going through my mind was | 1:02:39 | 1:02:43 | |
all the Chopin that my mother had played. | 1:02:43 | 1:02:47 | |
You call it "Dziekuje" - | 1:02:48 | 1:02:51 | |
that means thank you in Polish. | 1:02:51 | 1:02:54 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:03:13 | 1:03:16 | |
Dave, you've been all over the world now. | 1:03:16 | 1:03:19 | |
Do you think people around the world react the same way to music? | 1:03:19 | 1:03:23 | |
What I did learn on this tour - that rhythm is an international language. | 1:03:23 | 1:03:29 | |
Not harmony and melody but rhythm. | 1:03:29 | 1:03:32 | |
Maybe the thing that binds humanity together is the heartbeat. | 1:03:32 | 1:03:37 | |
It's the first thing you hear - even before you're born, you hear your mother's heartbeat - a steady pulse. | 1:03:37 | 1:03:44 | |
You know, it's the last thing you hear before you die. | 1:03:44 | 1:03:47 | |
APPLAUSE | 1:04:11 | 1:04:14 | |
When you go to other countries like this, | 1:04:19 | 1:04:21 | |
do you look for their musical influences or do they just happen? | 1:04:21 | 1:04:25 | |
I look. I think if you could spend a lot more time in each country | 1:04:25 | 1:04:29 | |
you'd find a lot more that could be used in jazz or in our contemporary classical music. | 1:04:29 | 1:04:35 | |
This is the main way you're broadening the horizons of jazz at the moment - | 1:04:35 | 1:04:39 | |
through other nationalities' music. | 1:04:39 | 1:04:41 | |
Right. And I always thought this would be the way that jazz did broaden its scope, | 1:04:41 | 1:04:45 | |
because, from the beginning, it's been kind of the melting pot of music | 1:04:45 | 1:04:49 | |
and it should not be limited to what it used in the beginning, which was mainly African and European. | 1:04:49 | 1:04:54 | |
If you can figure out a way to reach into | 1:04:54 | 1:04:58 | |
the Turkish musical tradition, or Afghanistan or Iraq, | 1:04:58 | 1:05:03 | |
which is basically the trip that he made in 1958, | 1:05:03 | 1:05:08 | |
that kind of informed the Time Out album. | 1:05:08 | 1:05:11 | |
Blue Rondo A La Turk was a street rhythm. | 1:05:11 | 1:05:15 | |
I heard street musicians playing in Istanbul. | 1:05:15 | 1:05:20 | |
The rhythm fascinated me so much. | 1:05:20 | 1:05:23 | |
One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, three, | 1:05:23 | 1:05:25 | |
one, two, one, two, one, two... | 1:05:25 | 1:05:26 | |
After Take Five, I then listened to, what was it? Unsquare Dance? | 1:05:36 | 1:05:40 | |
-Yeah, Unsquare Dance. -I think was seven. | 1:05:40 | 1:05:42 | |
And then Blue Rondo A La Turk. | 1:05:42 | 1:05:44 | |
It really... I think music, the complexity of music is something that a lot of people don't like. | 1:05:44 | 1:05:50 | |
They say, that's not music if the intervals are slightly more | 1:05:50 | 1:05:54 | |
complicated than thirds and fifths, they think, "It's not music." | 1:05:54 | 1:05:57 | |
Or if the rhythm's complicated. | 1:05:57 | 1:05:59 | |
It's a different part of the brain that analyses that kind of thing. | 1:05:59 | 1:06:03 | |
When you're listening to thirds and fifths and simple common music - this part of the brain works. | 1:06:03 | 1:06:08 | |
Whereas, to analyse more complex music, you have to go to another side of the brain. | 1:06:08 | 1:06:12 | |
You only get to that if you're exposed to it. | 1:06:12 | 1:06:15 | |
-Yeah. -Which is the problem these days. | 1:06:15 | 1:06:17 | |
It's like being right-handed but deciding to write a little bit left-handed for a while | 1:06:17 | 1:06:21 | |
just to exercise your brain. | 1:06:21 | 1:06:23 | |
Woo-hoo! | 1:06:54 | 1:06:56 | |
That Blue Rondo A La Turk is interesting. | 1:06:57 | 1:07:01 | |
I was listening to Emerson Lake and Palmer a while back, | 1:07:01 | 1:07:05 | |
just recently here, | 1:07:05 | 1:07:08 | |
and their interpretation was really bizarre and wild. | 1:07:08 | 1:07:13 | |
But it was amazing how it influences everybody in almost every form of music. | 1:07:13 | 1:07:17 | |
I'm sure Dave would have enjoyed it. | 1:07:17 | 1:07:19 | |
I know he has an open mind about music still. | 1:07:19 | 1:07:21 | |
I came across this, actually. | 1:07:21 | 1:07:24 | |
Look at that! | 1:07:24 | 1:07:25 | |
See what Dave wrote there? "For Keith, with many thanks for your 4/4 version." | 1:07:27 | 1:07:32 | |
The full version of Blue Rondo A La Turk. | 1:07:32 | 1:07:35 | |
Of course, he did actually write it in 9/8, which is, you know... | 1:07:35 | 1:07:41 | |
And I played it in 4/4. | 1:07:47 | 1:07:50 | |
Dave Brubeck, he showed up in 1994 at the White House one day. | 1:08:19 | 1:08:23 | |
35 years after the Time Out album. | 1:08:24 | 1:08:29 | |
And we started talking about music and I said I was a big fan. | 1:08:29 | 1:08:32 | |
He looked at me like "I've got you, you're just another politician." | 1:08:32 | 1:08:36 | |
He said now, "Come on! Besides Take Five, what tune did we ever do that you really liked?" | 1:08:36 | 1:08:41 | |
I said, "I really liked Blue Rondo." | 1:08:41 | 1:08:44 | |
He said, "You're kidding." | 1:08:44 | 1:08:45 | |
I said, "No, I really liked it." | 1:08:45 | 1:08:47 | |
He said, "I don't believe you." | 1:08:47 | 1:08:49 | |
I swear this happened. I said, "No, I did." | 1:08:49 | 1:08:51 | |
He said, "Hum the bridge." | 1:08:51 | 1:08:54 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:08:54 | 1:08:56 | |
And I did. # Da da da da da... # | 1:08:56 | 1:08:58 | |
Anyway, I did it. He said, you're the only elected official | 1:08:58 | 1:09:01 | |
who ever knew the bridge to that song. | 1:09:01 | 1:09:04 | |
Dave and I, I think, had thought about writing a musical for Broadway, | 1:09:23 | 1:09:30 | |
employing jazz, for quite some time. | 1:09:30 | 1:09:34 | |
The problem was to find a book that was a natural book. | 1:09:34 | 1:09:39 | |
And, er, about that time, | 1:09:40 | 1:09:42 | |
Louis Armstrong had gone to Africa and, of course, | 1:09:42 | 1:09:46 | |
so many jazz artists started going to Europe for the first time. | 1:09:46 | 1:09:49 | |
Would you believe that, after travelling through Africa, the Far East, | 1:09:49 | 1:09:55 | |
the Near East, Japan, this was my first time on the French Riviera. | 1:09:55 | 1:10:02 | |
So after that experience we decided this is what we would write about. | 1:10:02 | 1:10:07 | |
And the more we got involved in it, the more it seemed the only person | 1:10:07 | 1:10:11 | |
who could possibly play the leading role was Louis Armstrong. | 1:10:11 | 1:10:17 | |
On the recording. you can hear Louis actually choke up and cry. | 1:10:17 | 1:10:21 | |
# When will that great day come? | 1:10:21 | 1:10:27 | |
# And everyone that loveth is born of God | 1:10:27 | 1:10:31 | |
# When everyone is one... # | 1:10:31 | 1:10:36 | |
Is that why famous jazz musicians are often quite humble men? | 1:10:36 | 1:10:42 | |
Yeah. Well, Louis Armstrong would fit that category. | 1:10:42 | 1:10:46 | |
# And there will be no more misery | 1:10:46 | 1:10:53 | |
INDISTINCT RESPONSE | 1:10:53 | 1:10:58 | |
# When God tells man he's a really free. # | 1:10:58 | 1:11:06 | |
The only time the show we wrote for Louis, The Real Ambassador, | 1:11:06 | 1:11:10 | |
was ever done was at the Monterey Jazz Festival. | 1:11:10 | 1:11:13 | |
And there was no time to really rehearse, so we rushed through | 1:11:13 | 1:11:17 | |
a rehearsal on the day of the performance. | 1:11:17 | 1:11:20 | |
So I told Louis, "You should have a top hat | 1:11:20 | 1:11:24 | |
"and an attache case so you look like the real ambassador." | 1:11:24 | 1:11:28 | |
He said, "Man, I'm not going to wear a top hat and carry a briefcase." | 1:11:28 | 1:11:35 | |
And it came time for Louis to make his entrance | 1:11:35 | 1:11:39 | |
and the place broke into applause. | 1:11:39 | 1:11:41 | |
And I looked over and there's Louis with the top hat, | 1:11:41 | 1:11:45 | |
the attache case and he sang his first number, the place went wild. | 1:11:45 | 1:11:50 | |
And he said to me, "Pops, am I hamming it up enough to suit you?" | 1:11:50 | 1:11:54 | |
# I'm the real ambassador | 1:11:56 | 1:11:59 | |
# It is evident I was sent | 1:11:59 | 1:12:02 | |
# By government to take your place | 1:12:02 | 1:12:05 | |
# All I do is play the blues and meet the people face-to-face | 1:12:05 | 1:12:08 | |
# I'll explain and make it plain I represent the human race | 1:12:08 | 1:12:13 | |
# And don't pretend no more... # | 1:12:13 | 1:12:17 | |
It was rough going. It's always been rough going for jazz musicians. | 1:12:17 | 1:12:22 | |
And then, when you finally rise out of this poverty situation, | 1:12:22 | 1:12:26 | |
there's different ways you can do it. | 1:12:26 | 1:12:28 | |
You can get into studio work, into Hollywood work, | 1:12:28 | 1:12:32 | |
into playing Broadway shows, or you can finally make it. | 1:12:32 | 1:12:37 | |
Because of the success that Brubeck has achieved, | 1:12:46 | 1:12:48 | |
he has been able to fulfil his musical ambitions comprehensively. | 1:12:48 | 1:12:52 | |
In his recent collaboration with cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, | 1:12:52 | 1:12:55 | |
he's made his mother's dream of the classical concert hall come true. | 1:12:55 | 1:12:59 | |
Sounds Of Joy. | 1:12:59 | 1:13:00 | |
I took the old Gregorian chant... | 1:13:00 | 1:13:04 | |
..and then my son, Matthew, took that | 1:13:06 | 1:13:10 | |
and he arranged it and... | 1:13:10 | 1:13:12 | |
..thought like a cellist, | 1:13:15 | 1:13:18 | |
which a cellist can do better than a pianist. | 1:13:18 | 1:13:22 | |
This is a fabulous song, just fabulous. | 1:13:44 | 1:13:47 | |
The performing part is what made Dave Brubeck. | 1:14:43 | 1:14:46 | |
Composing is something he loves. | 1:14:46 | 1:14:49 | |
He will be remembered as a composer as time goes on. | 1:14:49 | 1:14:53 | |
Like his idol, Duke Ellington, Brubeck has incorporated styles | 1:14:53 | 1:14:58 | |
and sounds from different disciplines and different places. | 1:14:58 | 1:15:01 | |
And like Ellington, some of his most engaged music has been sacred music. | 1:15:01 | 1:15:06 | |
The centre of The Light In The Wilderness for me | 1:15:17 | 1:15:20 | |
is Christ's statement "Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you." | 1:15:20 | 1:15:27 | |
And that's right in the middle of that piece. | 1:15:27 | 1:15:31 | |
I had a friend from New Orleans and she'd say, "Lord, Lord, | 1:15:35 | 1:15:40 | |
"what will tomorrow bring?" | 1:15:40 | 1:15:44 | |
And so I set that. | 1:15:44 | 1:15:47 | |
And Iola added, | 1:15:57 | 1:16:00 | |
"Today I felt an arrow | 1:16:00 | 1:16:03 | |
"stinging in a wound so deep | 1:16:03 | 1:16:07 | |
"my eyes refuse to weep." | 1:16:07 | 1:16:11 | |
# ..My eyes | 1:16:11 | 1:16:16 | |
# Refuse to weep... # | 1:16:16 | 1:16:21 | |
What will tomorrow bring? | 1:16:24 | 1:16:27 | |
# What will tomorrow bring? # | 1:17:16 | 1:17:23 | |
It ends with a question - it's up to you - | 1:17:23 | 1:17:27 | |
what will tomorrow bring? And the answer, that's up to you what happens tomorrow. | 1:17:27 | 1:17:32 | |
There are certain things that I haven't been able to say in jazz | 1:17:59 | 1:18:04 | |
that I can in my cantatas and oratorios. | 1:18:04 | 1:18:07 | |
I love the human voice. | 1:18:07 | 1:18:10 | |
I love to hear a choir sing. | 1:18:10 | 1:18:14 | |
Any way I can get goose flesh, I'm for that. | 1:18:14 | 1:18:16 | |
LYRICS INDISTINCT | 1:18:20 | 1:18:23 | |
The mass he wrote several years ago appears to have had the deepest impact on him personally. | 1:18:23 | 1:18:28 | |
After completing that work, he joined the Catholic Church. | 1:18:28 | 1:18:32 | |
I became so involved with the mass | 1:18:34 | 1:18:38 | |
that it was almost like a calling that I didn't understand to join this church. | 1:18:38 | 1:18:45 | |
My family doesn't understand it and I can't explain it much more than that. | 1:18:45 | 1:18:50 | |
But the mass was such an experience for me. | 1:18:50 | 1:18:53 | |
Brubeck spent the summer working on a special request that was a special honour - | 1:18:53 | 1:18:59 | |
music for the mass that Pope John Paul was going to celebrate in San Francisco. | 1:18:59 | 1:19:03 | |
The reading that they wanted was "Upon this rock | 1:19:04 | 1:19:10 | |
"I will build my church." So... | 1:19:10 | 1:19:12 | |
CHOIR SING | 1:19:29 | 1:19:32 | |
And while we were performing, I heard the 70,000 people, | 1:19:35 | 1:19:39 | |
just the level of the stadium, just increase a bit, | 1:19:39 | 1:19:44 | |
and I looked up and the Pope was looking right over at us. | 1:19:44 | 1:19:47 | |
And I wondered | 1:19:47 | 1:19:50 | |
why the noise level had gone up. | 1:19:50 | 1:19:53 | |
So when the conductor came over to me when we finished, I said, | 1:19:53 | 1:19:57 | |
"Did the Pope bless us or something?" | 1:19:57 | 1:20:00 | |
And he said, "Either he blessed us or he's learning how to conduct in 4/4 time." | 1:20:00 | 1:20:07 | |
Because... | 1:20:07 | 1:20:09 | |
What kind of attitude do you have | 1:20:09 | 1:20:12 | |
to this word "heaven"? | 1:20:12 | 1:20:14 | |
How would you unpack its contents? | 1:20:14 | 1:20:16 | |
Well, I would say that | 1:20:16 | 1:20:19 | |
I do believe in heaven and I believe in eternal life. | 1:20:19 | 1:20:23 | |
And, er...I believe in the miraculous | 1:20:24 | 1:20:30 | |
and the things you can't explain. | 1:20:30 | 1:20:33 | |
And that's what faith is. | 1:20:33 | 1:20:35 | |
When you get to heaven, are there any particular people that you would like to meet there? | 1:20:48 | 1:20:54 | |
-Oh, yeah! -Well, come on, give us some of them. | 1:20:54 | 1:20:56 | |
Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, | 1:20:56 | 1:21:00 | |
Stan Kenton, | 1:21:00 | 1:21:01 | |
Woody Herman and Paul Desmond, | 1:21:01 | 1:21:07 | |
we were together so many years. | 1:21:07 | 1:21:09 | |
He's more interested now in orchestral composition, | 1:21:43 | 1:21:47 | |
but I don't think that his composing would have meant as much | 1:21:47 | 1:21:52 | |
or mean as much if his performance hadn't carried him for 60 years, | 1:21:52 | 1:21:56 | |
thrilling audiences and thrilling people. | 1:21:56 | 1:22:00 | |
This guy is always having fun. | 1:22:22 | 1:22:25 | |
I mean, here he is at the age of 88, you know, | 1:22:25 | 1:22:29 | |
and he still has this incredible sort of | 1:22:29 | 1:22:32 | |
teenage enthusiasm for what he does. | 1:22:32 | 1:22:37 | |
The guy he's got now, Bobby, is really good. Have you heard him? | 1:22:39 | 1:22:42 | |
No. | 1:22:42 | 1:22:43 | |
He's terrific. He doesn't try to imitate Paul exactly, | 1:22:43 | 1:22:47 | |
but he can do sweet and energetic. He's great. | 1:22:47 | 1:22:52 | |
I tell kids all time, I say, "Look, I don't care what you do, | 1:23:00 | 1:23:04 | |
"if you find something that you enjoy, do it." | 1:23:04 | 1:23:07 | |
A musician who predates even Brubeck is the great Jay McShann. | 1:23:09 | 1:23:12 | |
He gave Charlie Parker his first job. | 1:23:12 | 1:23:15 | |
McShann ran one of the wildest swing bands | 1:23:15 | 1:23:18 | |
in the heyday of Kansas City in the '30s and '40s. | 1:23:18 | 1:23:20 | |
And it's an amazing trick, that's all it is, it's just a trick. | 1:23:36 | 1:23:40 | |
And I always say the way you find that out | 1:23:40 | 1:23:44 | |
is you sit down to do something | 1:23:44 | 1:23:47 | |
and you decide at eight o'clock in the morning, you sit down, "I'm going to do this." | 1:23:47 | 1:23:52 | |
And you say, "I'm getting hungry." And you look up and it's eight o'clock at night. | 1:23:52 | 1:23:56 | |
Then you say, that's what you should be doing the rest of your life. | 1:23:56 | 1:24:00 | |
Yeah! | 1:24:04 | 1:24:06 | |
Yeah! | 1:24:53 | 1:24:55 | |
Bless you, thank you. | 1:24:57 | 1:24:59 | |
Isn't that wonderful? | 1:24:59 | 1:25:02 | |
-He's still got it. -That's beautiful, beautiful. | 1:25:02 | 1:25:05 | |
That's historical. | 1:25:05 | 1:25:07 | |
And if you're a musician like Dave, or other great musicians, | 1:25:09 | 1:25:14 | |
you can do that at 90, depending on your talent. | 1:25:14 | 1:25:19 | |
It's something you can do forever. | 1:25:19 | 1:25:22 | |
The thing that I really admire about the Brubeck family is his wife, | 1:25:22 | 1:25:30 | |
all these years, it's still, | 1:25:30 | 1:25:35 | |
you come in and she's a beautiful flower in his dressing room. | 1:25:35 | 1:25:43 | |
Recently, my wife, | 1:25:43 | 1:25:45 | |
Iola, said, "Our 65th wedding anniversary's coming up. | 1:25:45 | 1:25:52 | |
"You remember years ago you wrote a song just for me on our anniversary?" | 1:25:52 | 1:26:00 | |
And I'm trying to remember it. | 1:26:01 | 1:26:04 | |
So I'll give it a try. | 1:26:04 | 1:26:07 | |
It's called "All My Love." | 1:26:07 | 1:26:10 | |
Thank you. | 1:28:23 | 1:28:25 | |
Ha-ha! Almost remembered it! | 1:28:25 | 1:28:28 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 1:29:30 | 1:29:33 |