David Warren Brubeck was an American jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the foremost exponents of cool jazz. Many of his compositions have become jazz standards including “In Your Own Sweet Way” and “The Duke”. Brubeck’s style ranged from refined to bombastic, reflecting both his mother’s classical training and his own improvisational skills. His music is known for employing unusual time signatures as well as superimposing contrasting rhythms, meters, and tonalities.
After graduating in 1942, Brubeck was drafted into the US Army, serving in Europe. He volunteered to play piano at a Red Cross show and was such a hit that he was spared from combat service and ordered to form a band. He created one of the U.S. armed forces’ first racially integrated bands, “The Wolfpack”. It was in the military, in 1944, that Brubeck met Paul Desmond. He was a student of Darius Milhaud, who encouraged him to study fugue and orchestration, but not classical piano. While on active duty, he received two lessons from Arnold Schoenberg in an attempt to connect with high modernist theory and practice.
The first Brubeck records sold well, and he made new records for Fantasy. Soon the company was shipping 40,000 to 50,000 copies of Brubeck records each quarter, making a good profit. In 1951, Brubeck damaged several neck vertebrae and his spinal cord while diving into the surf in Hawaii. He would later remark that the rescue workers who responded had described him as a “DOA” (dead on arrival). Brubeck recovered after a few months, but suffered residual nerve pain in his hands for years after. The injury also influenced his playing style towards complex, blocky chords rather than speedy, high-dexterity, single-note runs. Brubeck organized the Dave Brubeck Quartet in 1951, with Paul Desmond on alto saxophone.
In 1959, the Dave Brubeck Quartet recorded Time Out, an album about which the record label was enthusiastic but which they were nonetheless hesitant to release. Featuring the cover art of S. Neil Fujita, the album contained all original compositions, almost none of which were in common time: 98, 54, 34, and 64 were used, inspired by Eurasian folk music they experienced during their 1958 Department of State sponsored tour. Nonetheless, on the strength of these unusual time signatures (the album included “Take Five”, “Blue Rondo a la Turk”, and “Three To Get Ready”), it quickly went Platinum. It was the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies.
Time Out was followed by several albums with a similar approach, including Time Further Out: Miro Reflections (1961), using more 54, 64, and 98, plus the first attempt at 74; Countdown – Time in Outer Space (dedicated to John Glenn, 1962), featuring 114 and more 74; Time Changes (1963), with much 34, 104 (which was really 5+5), and 134; and Time In (1966). These albums (except Time In) were also known for using contemporary paintings as cover art, featuring the work of Joan Miro on Time Further Out, Franz Kline on Time in Outer Space, and Sam Francis on Time Changes.
At its peak in the early 1960s, the Brubeck Quartet was releasing as many as four albums a year. Apart from the “College” and the “Time” series, Brubeck recorded four LP’s featuring his compositions based on the group’s travels, and the local music they encountered. These are less well-known albums, but all are brilliant examples of the quartet’s studio work, and they produced Brubeck standards such as “Summer Song”, “Brandenburg Gate”, “Koto Song”, and “Theme From Mr. Broadway”. In 1961, Brubeck appeared in a few scenes of the British jazz/beat film All Night Long. Brubeck merely plays himself, with the film featuring close ups of his piano fingerings. Brubeck performs “It’s a Raggy Waltz” from the Time Further Out album and duets briefly with bassist Charles Mingus in “Non-Sectarian Blues”.
