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I spoke with Chris Brubeck in mid-February 2020; the primary reason for the interview was in connection with then-upcoming concert dates featuring the Brubeck Brothers Quartet.<\/p>\nI spoke with Chris Brubeck in mid-February 2020; the primary reason for the interview was in connection with then-upcoming concert dates featuring the Brubeck Brothers Quartet.<\/p>\n
You can guess where this is going.<\/em><\/p>\n We had a lengthy and lively conversation, one that moved into areas well beyond what the bassist and his drummer\/brother Dan \u2013 both sons of that towering figure in jazz, Dave Brubeck \u2013 do with their own group. We spent a good bit of time discussing his father\u2019s legacy and other engaging topics.<\/p>\n When the concert tour was canceled (along with nearly every other concert around the globe), the planned story was scotched as well. I held onto it for while in hope \u2013 unfounded hope, as it turns out \u2013 that life would return to normal quickly and the show would be rescheduled in a timely fashion.<\/p>\n But the interview was too interesting not to share. So over the next several days, I\u2019ll present an edited transcript of the best bits from my conversation with Chris Brubeck.<\/p>\n If you can, go see him and his band when things get back to normal. And they will. \u2013 bk<\/p>\n In Part One, Chris Brubeck discusses his father\u2019s \u201cBlue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk\u201d as well as Dave Brubeck\u2019s work with French composer Darius Milhaud.<\/i><\/p>\n The version of \u201cBlue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk\u201d on <\/b>Timeline<\/b><\/i> heads in a significantly different direction from the original. <\/b>Y<\/b>et to my ears, it\u2019s still true to the spirit of your father\u2019s version. Did you feel a responsibility to put your stamp of the arrangement of the song?<\/b><\/p>\n Thanks for listening to it, and thanks for noticing. That sort of interjection of Dan playing hand drums really amplifies the original inspiration and story and genesis of how \u201cBlue Rondo\u201d came to be. Because, as you probably know, it really was because Dave was walking down the streets of Istanbul and heard that drum beat and, sort of, went, \u201cWhat the hell is that?\u201d<\/p>\n He grew up as a cowboy, so he definitely would not have heard that kind of music up in Concord, California. So, it really caught his ear, and he sat fascinated and listened to it until he figured out he could count it in nine. He heard it, I think, on his way to a radio station broadcast thing, and there were a bunch of musicians. He was all excited, like he had just seen a sasquatch or something: \u201cOh my god, I heard this most amazing beat.\u201d He started counting and explaining it to everyone and they looked at him and they said, \u201cAre you kidding? That\u2019s, like, so common in our music. That\u2019s like the blues to you Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Dave Brubeck<\/p><\/div>\n Which is, interestingly enough, kind of why there\u2019s blues in the middle of \u201cBlue Rondo,\u201d too. It was amplifying that [commonality]. And it\u2019s, sort of, my dad\u2019s genius that he had the weird encounter of that 9\/8 rhythm, put a melody into it, took the comment of \u201cIt\u2019s like my blues to you.\u201d He figured out, maybe, that an entire tune in 9\/8 would be too much for a jazz audience, but going back into the blues would be a very secure place for his band to go to improvise, to just relax and maybe let the audience relax, too.<\/p>\n And then, you know, the contrast that\u2019s on the head of going back and forth between 9\/8 and the blues, it\u2019s just something that all audiences get. You know, it\u2019s such an obvious contrast, that they follow the game of it. So, it worked.<\/p>\n And for me, it\u2019s such a classic because, well, I\u2019ve written orchestral arrangements of it. I\u2019ve written string quartet arrangements of it, woodwind quintets, field bands, pop groups. The Boston Pops asked me to write a version that didn\u2019t have a jazz groove in it, so they could just play without a jazz group around. And it\u2019s just such an amazing piece of music, such incredible forward momentum. I mean, it\u2019s almost indestructible. [laughs] I\u2019ve tried my best and I can\u2019t destroy it! It\u2019s just a fantastic piece of music.<\/p>\n For me, the genius of your father\u2019s music was taking time signatures that are \u2013 to the western ears, to American ears \u2013 quite unnatural, and making them feel natural.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, well, now we\u2019ve had at least three generations of jazz musicians, so it is natural, too. But as long as we\u2019re going to the origins \u2013 and that was a great opening question, because you can see, I\u2019m still blathering on about it \u2013 my dad studied with the French composer Darius Milhaud. And he\u2019s really a significant composer, especially as it relates to west coast cool jazz, and I\u2019ll tell you why here, without sounding like I\u2019m giving you a lecture.<\/p>\n It\u2019s interesting how this all ties in. Darius Milhaud was a very famous French composer, and they had a nickname for the group of six composers. They called them Les Six. I\u2019m not quite professorial enough to name every one of the composers in Les Six, but they\u2019re significant. And they are sort of a counter-reaction to Debussy and Ravel and maybe Erik Satie. And what\u2019s interesting is that Darius Milhaud traveled to the United States and heard music in Harlem during the Harlem renaissance. And he was totally fascinated by jazz.<\/p>\n Milhaud wrote a ballet called \u201cCreation of the World.\u201d I wish I was clever enough to tell you who the choreographers were, but this is around the same time period that Stravinsky wrote \u201cThe Rite of Spring.\u201d It was a sort of reflection of all the super modern art, like of Picasso; everything was in a state of revolution. And if you hear \u201cThe Creation of the World,\u201d you\u2019ll say, \u201cOh, my god, it sounds like Milhaud stole from Gershwin!\u201d First of all, he is using the saxophone, in the European orchestration. And it was very rarely done, maybe not at all. But then you hear it in \u201cRhapsody in Blue,\u201d but he\u2019s, like, 12 years ahead of \u201cRhapsody in Blue.\u201d<\/p>\n Darius Milhaud<\/p><\/div>\n Now, okay, I\u2019ve got to skip ahead. Cut ahead to World War II. The frigging Nazis occupied Paris, right? And so, Darius Milhaud was a French Jew. And he\u2019d better get the hell out of there, right? So, he knew some academic composer types who thought he was a genius, and they said, \u201cHey, flee to America and we\u2019ll get you a job.\u201d He got a letter that he thought said \u201cCome and teach in little Mills College in California,\u201d near Oakland, California. \u201cAnd you\u2019ll get free faculty housing and $40,000 a year.\u201d The letter had gotten wet, you see. In a smudgy way. And so he came. And what he really<\/i> got was free faculty housing and $4,000 a year.<\/p>\n But that beat the hell out of a concentration camp for being a Jew. So, my father got to study with Darius Milhaud on the GI Bill, when he got out of World War II, and so did a lot of other guys that were in the war who were musicians. And they knew he was famous. It was a little like, what if Stravinsky was teaching at Mills College?<\/p>\n So, how this really started in the west coast cool, is that when my dad first met Milhaud, he said to him, \u201cWell, why do you want to study with me? I hear that you\u2019re a jazz piano player.\u201d And my father said, \u201cI want to study with you because I want to learn how to orchestrate, write for all the instruments, learn the language, so I can communicate, and write a big piece for orchestra that talks about how horrible war is, and to remind people the teachings of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t want to mislead you into thinking he\u2019s like Billy Graham, but he just couldn\u2019t believe that people that believed in Jesus and God \u2013 you know, the Germans and all the other Europeans \u2013 could be slaughtering each other. They didn\u2019t even have any lame excuse of one was Chinese or one was Muslim: \u201cThey\u2019ll go to hell and you won\u2019t.\u201d You know what I mean? It just was so bizarre to him. So that was one of the things he swore to himself. \u201cIf I live through World War II, I want to write a piece like this.\u201d<\/p>\n So, Milhaud said, \u201cYou want to study with me because of that<\/i>?\u201d He said, \u201cYeah, because we think you\u2019re the most exciting music in the world.\u201d He said, \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got news for you, young Mr. Brubeck: all my French composer friends, we all think that classical music is dead, and the most exciting thing we hear is American jazz. Play some boogie-woogie for me!\u201d So, their lessons used to start like that.<\/p>\n And then what happened is that Milhaud would say to the other GIs who were studying with, \u201cI love American jazz so much! When I give you a counter-point assignment, or how to work on a fugue, instead of doing the traditional methods like the second prelude by Bach, I want you to take a song like \u2018How High the Moon,\u2019\u201d \u2013 which has very similar chord changes or bass note chord movements \u2013 \u201cand do your counter-point assignments to that.\u201d So, those people studying with Milhaud became a group called The Octet. That was the beginning of the sort of Gil Evans, more composed, more counter-point jazzy sound; it\u2019s all these students.<\/p>\n And then after doing this for a couple years, and getting to the point that they were very inventive and very great, they couldn\u2019t get a job, even on New Year\u2019s Eve. My father said, \u201cI gotta feed my family.\u201d So out of that became the Dave Brubeck Trio with Cal Tjader and a bass player named, I think, Ron Crotty. And Dave started catching on.<\/p>\n In those days, we\u2019re talking about catching on modestly, like working at a place like the Vermont Lounge in Oakland. And being able to feed his family making, probably, less than $100 a night for three guys. But that was the beginning of the whole thing.<\/p>\n I have to ask. Is your brother Darius named after Milhaud? <\/b><\/p>\n Absolutely. And I didn\u2019t quite hit the punch line, as my dad used to say. The punch line is that as he got to know him and respect his talent, Milhaud said to my dad, \u201cWhen you start touring the world, the most important thing for you to do, the most important thing for me<\/i> to do, and all composers in their genre: keep your ears open<\/i>. Listen to what you hear and incorporate that music into your music, and you will be creating something new and wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n So, in Milhaud\u2019s case, he went to New York, he heard jazz licks in Harlem, he put it into European music in \u201cThe Creation of the World.\u201d In Dave\u2019s case, he had that mantra in his ears from hearing Darius Milhaud say it, and he goes to Turkey and he hears that jazz beat and that becomes the basis of \u201cBlue Rondo.\u201d So, he listened to his teacher\u2019s words well.<\/p>\n That all hangs together. Thank you for sharing that.<\/b><\/p>\n Yeah, and then the other thing that\u2019s really cool \u2026 I\u2019ll try to describe it to you. Milhaud lived in that campus housing in Mills College, and he considered the Brubecks as his adopted family. So, he said to my parents, \u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever be an American, or really own a part of America, but you would make me feel great if you would promise me that you would always have a part of your home be my square foot of your home.\u201d Which seems like a funny thing to say.<\/p>\n Then one occasion \u2013 I don\u2019t know if it was Christmas or what \u2013 in the \u201850s he presented my parents with a square foot drawing, a self-portrait of him, but instead of a line where his cheekbone would be it was a small treble clef, and he had the themes of his pieces written to outline his face and he had a pipe and his hat that he would always wear. And my parents had it turned from paper into a copper etching. And where ever we\u2019ve lived, we\u2019ve had his self-portrait hanging in our house, to tell him that his square foot of America was always under our auspices.<\/p>\n So, still today? <\/b><\/p>\n Well, actually, at this point, because my parents are both gone, now it\u2019s around, but the square foot has moved with its namesake. My oldest brother, Darius, who currently lives in England, it\u2019s in his house now. So, in a way, we\u2019ve betrayed it because it ain\u2019t in America anymore. On the other hand, Milhaud probably wouldn\u2019t recognize America, if it were in this square foot of current America, like, \u201cWhat the hell\u2019s going on here?\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/dave_brubeck.jpg\")
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