What Dave Brubeck Meant to Me.

It was somewhere in my late teens (1961-1962) that I discovered Dave Brubeck. At that time in my life I was mostly listening to classical music and was transitioning from regarding Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven as my drop dead favorites to Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartók, and Shostakovich. I was starting to really dig dissonance and rhythmic atonality.

Of course I had heard the Take Five single on the radio and thought it was terrific. But, when a friend who also was into classical music told me that if I liked the counterpoint in Bach and Mozart I should buy Brubeck’s album, I ran out and bought it. And immediately fell in love with every track on the album. I was hooked, big time, by the incredible, almost indescribably pulsating, complex rhythms that the Quartet generated (especially by Paul Desmond’s soaring interpretations of Brubeck’s chords). That first listening was almost a religious experience; I'll never forget the thrill of hearing Blue Rondo a la Turk or Pick Up Sticks for the first time.

From that moment the Dave Brubeck Quartet was my favorite jazz group. Well, followed very, very closely by John Lewis’s fantastic Modern Jazz Quartet and then by Stan Getz's great tenor sax.

What wasn't obvious to me then but is in retrospect was that at least part of my admiration for and fascination with Brubeck was his insistence on playing with an integrated group, first in the Army during WWII and later with Eugene Wright as his bassist. When Brubeck cancelled a number of engagements in the early 1960s at concert halls and college campuses because he refused to appear without “The Senator” on bass, I was pumped up by his principled stand and his refusal to let money overrule his convictions. It matched my personal commitment and felt exactly right.

Brubeck’s stand was an affirmation of the role art can play in the real world, especially if artists are committed to living their principles. It somewhat counteracted the searing revulsion I felt for the morally challenged assholes in Hollywood, especially Walt Disney and Ronald Reagan, who made sure actors, writers, and directors were blacklisted and denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or associations, real or imagined. Brubeck had the courage of his convictions and I loved him for it. Of course, his music made that all the easier.