Dave Brubeck took a stand against racism and would refuse to play in segregated venues. He turned down offers to perform in South Africa because of ordinances that prohibited racially mixed groups. He apparently started one the first racially integrated bands in the U.S. army during WW II.
I like an anecdote of his [1] about trying to perform in the South: ended up having to cancel 23 of the 25 performances, but did manage to push two through, which in his view only ran up against official opposition enforcing the rules they thought they were supposed to enforce, not opposition from anyone who actually attended the performance on purpose.
Occasionally interesting to think that I'm the first generation where it was normal for a jazz band to have both white and black musicians. Very recent that the racists were beaten back.
Sadly you're right. The world was a bad place back then, extraordinarily decent people living in an indecent society. I like to think Brubeck amongst others contributed to the demise of segregation and the basis of our modern integrated society. He was an exceptional jazz musician and an all round great guy who was very grateful for what he had. There's no such thing these days as a real musician, Dave was part of a dying breed of people who got into music because they love what they do, not because they want to be famous or rich like modern day musicians.
> There's no such thing these days as a real musician, Dave was part of a dying breed of people who got into music because they love what they do, not because they want to be famous or rich like modern day musicians.
I think that says more about you than the state of modern musicians. There will always be 'real musicians', motivated by their love of the art. Whether or not we can find them depends on how willing we are to dig past the shallow acts that top the charts.
Please see my other response. My comment was meant to be interpreted as most musicians who have "made it" these days aren't real musicians, it's all appearance and showmanship not musicianmanship. While there are some great musicians who are considered as having made it, there aren't many and in a world where people still think Slash is the worlds greatest guitarist it's obvious famous musicians who appreciate their art, the fans and what they have are a dying breed.
There will always be real musicians around, but I purely meant those who have made it not those who do the 9-5 hustle and bustle in the Subway's playing for change or smaller venues for $50 and a bar tab.
I disagree completely. I wouldn't have had a clue who Dave Brubeck was, if it wasn't for my son, who is a musician in the classical sense through and through. He has no illusions that his Jazz horn is going to make him rich. He does it because he loves it, and I know he's not alone.
My comment was taken out of context. My point was most musicians who get to the top of the charts these days take what they have for granted, it's all a show and they aren't real musicians. Of course there will always be people like your son who do what they do because they love music, not because they have hopes of being famous. Don't be confused, I wasn't refering to everyone who plays an instrument, just those considered to have "made it".
What are two advances that have revolutionised music? The Internet and computing. Computing is responsible for causing what I believe to be a very modern issue. Anyone with a Macbook and copy of Protools or Garage Band is a producer these days. Heck, you can record and compose music on your phone nowadays, create a Myspace, Last.fm or Soundcloud account and get your music out to thousands of people.
Once upon a time to get somewhere you had to tour, you had to get the attention of someone at a label to recognise you who was willing to take you on. Hard work used to be the basis of popular music, then it all started going downhill in the 80's with the likes of MTV slowly corrupting modern music.
An excellent case in point is an Australian band called Capture The Crown. They have never released an EP, never toured Australia, all they did was come out of nowhere with an attention grabbing music clip and well-produced song with swearing and generic breakdowns, they released a couple of more singles and now they're signed to Sumerian Records and about to release their debut album all without ever touring their own country and to this day, still haven't. They got on a plane and toured the US instead of touring their own country first unlike other well-known Australian bands like Parkway Drive or Hands Like Houses.
Wide distribution has become much more accessible and much less expensive, which makes it easier for exceptional musicians (or performers) to get attention and gain traction. The key word here is "exceptional". Some guy messing with Protools or Garage Band isn't going to get far if he just isn't very good. So yes, you can get your music to hundreds of thousands of people, but you probably won't keep their attention for very long. Unless you're exceptionally good.
I didn't downvote him, but even if Brubeck's career was benefited "MASSIVELY from being white", this has absolutely nothing to do with whether he was a good human being or took a stand against racism.
You missed the last part of his point, which was that Brubeck was ashamed of that fact, implying that he wished for a world with more racial equality, and thus bolstering the case that he was a good human being.
Benny Goodman was the first Bandleader that integrated his orchestra and small groups in the 1930s. Goodman's quartet feathered Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton.
I'm not saying Brubeck didn't do it, but he certainly wasn't the first.
I’m 33. I "discovered" Brubeck four or five years ago, primarily wearing out Jazz Impressions of New York while looking to detox a bit from a year of Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis.
In April 2011 my wife and I took a train from South Carolina to Washington D.C. to catch one of Dave's four sold out shows at Blues Alley. I paid more money than I had ever paid to see a concert, knowing this would likely be my only chance to ever see him live. He played an amazing set, with minimal onstage banter, giving his players plenty of room to shine during their solos.
He ended the set with a few of his more well-known standards, and then—just before leaving the stage—simply said, “They’ve got me on oxygen. But I made it through the whole set without needing the damn thing.”
Glad to hear it. Discovery is always a lot of fun, regardless of latency.
Don't stop there. There were/are many good musicians performing excellent work from the 1950s and 60s on. Please keep looking.
I'll mention just a few I consider deserving of attention (and this is by no means comprehensive): Yusef Lateef, John Coltrane, Eddie Palmieri, Sun Ra, Oliver Nelson, John Hicks, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, …, MJQ, …).
If you would like to hear an(other) excellent tune in 5/4 besides /Take Five/ circa nine years later, check out Yusef Lateef's rendition of /Get Over, Get Off and Get On/ on the album "The Blue Yusef Lateef".
There are wonderful contemporary musicians, long-standing and novel, worth seeing at the most intimate of venues, the nightclub, as you have found.
My first nightclub experience, long ago, was Cannonball Adderley at the London House in Chicago, circa 1968, and I've enjoyed such a venue ever since. Nothing is better.
I learned of Dave's music when I tracked down the theme song used in "The Secret Life of Machines" (which was "Take Five"). I bought his album "Time out" that had that song on it and really enjoyed it. Then bought the Christmas Album. Sad to hear he has died, but glad he chose to share his music with us.
Time Out is a pretty unique jazz album that's often overlooked. Most jazz, like rock, is in 4/4 time (with the odd waltz-time tune to liven it up.) Not good enough for Dave Brubeck: Time Out has all kinds of weird compound time stuff going on. Take Five is in 5/4, which gives it its unusual vibe; Three to Get Ready gives you two bars of 3/4 and two of 4/4, alternating (which to me it feels a bit like a car on the verge of starting; I don't actually like that tune.) There's other stuff going on there too but it's been a while since I listened to it. Will dig it out again tonight in his honour.
Non jazz-heads wanting a similar experience could do worse than listen to Money, by Pink Floyd: 7/4 for the verses, then 4/4 for the solo.
Blue Rondo a la Turk is in 9/8 time. But unlike most 9/8 compositions which divide the nine beats into 3/3/3, it uses 2/2/2/3. And smoothly transitions into and out of a 4/4 drum solo in the middle!
If you want to get down with different meters and rhythm you need to check out: Dimi Mint Abba (album: Moorish Music from Mauritania), Afrocuba de Matanzas (find them playing a batarumba), Orchestre Poly-Rythmo (album: the vodoun effect). Lots of others, but those hit all sorts of territories taken together.
the amazing thing about his music is that it still sounds extremely contemporary, take five is the perfect example - david holmes does a better job of sounding "old"
I think I meant to reply to your comment, not the parent. The contemporary vibe comes in part from the unusual structures. It still sounds really fresh.
Completely OT but I just don't get anime at all. What am I missing? I got 10 minutes through Episode 1 at that link expecting something to happen - nothing did. I don't even really follow the storyline - a wimpy kid who can only stop himself throwing up by running onto the school roof.
It's like cryptic crosswords, god and football matches - I must be missing a part of the brain.
That's just representative of the "slice of life" genre, not anime as a whole. I'd say try Cowboy Bebop, it's the same director, same composer, but this time it's a bounty hunter space opera with a jazz score. It often gets compared to Firefly. It doesn't seem to be on Crunchyroll but it's widely available.
For anime in this genre, the pace can be a bit slow at times. This series is definitely character driven, as opposed to being event driven (although there are of course events that drive the characters). Since it's a bit of a "coming of age" story the focus is more on their development, and it takes a few episodes for the anime to set the background for the story and its players before it starts "moving."
One way to appreciate this approach is to contrast the storytelling techniques of western comics vs Japanese manga in the 90s (as they have since borrowed a lot from each other). The book "Understanding Comics" explains how in a western comic book each frame, while containing art, typically contains a lot of text. The story in western comics at the time was very textually driven, with the art as an accompaniment to help illustrate (ha!) what occurred in the text.
In contrast, manga could spend pages on images where the only "text" would be textual sound effects, devoting much space to creating an ambiance or mood. Furthermore, dialog might be more sparse and short, with greater reliance upon illustrating emotion. In fact, one of the reasons that the stereotypical anime style of big heads / large eyes developed was because of the realization that it was an effective technique to wordlessly convey emotions in characters (although this style actually originated in a western comic, Betty Boop).
Sorry, my memory is a bit fuzzy as to how Understanding Comics explained this all, but if you consider this difference in approach to storytelling, you might better understand what "slice of life" anime are doing. The intent isn't necessarily to pull you into a series of events and "go somewhere" immediately.
That being said, I heartily recommend this series. I had always found jazz interesting, although it was a bit too esoteric for me to know where to start. This series introduces jazz through some songs that are very easy to get into, even though they have a lot of depth. The end result of this, for me, was that I ended up taking up the sax and loving it. :)
The story is kind of slow and pretty set in Japan's social context. If you like to read novels by Haruki Murakami then you can get the story and its context easier.
Japan (or to some degrees, Korea, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong) has been influenced by Confucianism. How to deal with shame is a central part in social life. This includes dealing with feelings of alienation to one's social counterparts. And "being wimpy" is kind of shame experiences for teenagers in those countries.
You need to understand "shame" and "guilt" are two different concepts. "Guilt" is based on actions and morality. "Shame" is based on attributes that one possess. That's why you can see a lot of murders in East Asian's dramas having no feelings for guilt, but having feelings of shame.
Oh my... I had no idea he was still alive until now! Shame on me :-(
A while ago, I randomly bought a Dave Brubeck CD. I'd heard of him and knew he was a jazz pianist, but was not familiar with his work at all, so I thought I'd give it a try.
For the next couple of weeks, it didn't leave my CD player - I had it on constant repeat. It's just really good.
Funnily, I was into text adventures / IF at that time as well, so now in my brain the "Jazz Impressions of New York" are forever entangled with "A Mind Forever Voyaging".
I have such great memories of enjoying Brubeck's music with my late grandparents, delivered off dusty LPs. Take Five is, for all it's over-saturation, still one of my favorite pieces of all time (and Time Out is one of my favorite albums). While his passing is sad, dying at 91 and leaving such an amazing legacy is all we can really hope for.
Brubeck and Paul Desmond inspired me musically at an early age to pick up the sax and fueled my love of jazz. "Time Out" was the first CD I ever bought with my own money (my grandfather had an original vinyl copy I would listen to at his house). My nick can even be traced back to Dave's early influence in my life. I don't have many personal heroes or idols in my life, but Dave Brubeck is one of them. This is sad news.
We saw him a few years ago at a concert at Ravinia (https://www.ravinia.org/) along with Ramsay Lewis. Dave was clearly not a full physical strength, and it seemed that he was playing fewer notes, but his enthusiasm was tops.
I saw Dave Brubeck in concert about 10 years ago. When he walked on stage, he very much looked like a man in his 80s, but when he started playing he was still pure genius.
Dave Brubeck was awesome. Glad to hear that he lived to a ripe old age. I don't know much about him, but I hope his years were as fun, energetic, and awesome as his music.
What I'm about to say doesn't have anything to do with anything, but I find it remarkable that he died the eve of his birthday.
I have a theory that people die not long after their birthday, and never before -- meaning that the time from their last birthday < the time before their next birthday (the theory being that they fight to live until their birthday, and then they let go).
Anecdotal evidence gathered among people I knew confirms this, but I would like to test it on a scale that would be statistically significant -- but I don't know where to find the data...
- - -
This specific event would appear to be a counter example, except one can consider that dying "almost" the day of one's birthday doesn't really falsify the theory. He tried to live up to the day of his birthday and almost succeeded.
Result: chance to die on your birthday is about 14% higher than any other day of the year; based on investigating time and causes of death of 2 milion people over a period of 40 years. On your birthday, sadly apparent there is a higher chance for a stroke, accidents and suicide. People suffering from a long-time illness like cancer also have a higher chance to die on their birthday.
God I miss turning on the radio to hear KCSM now that I live in Austin. I programmed years of my life away listening to that station in a crappy rented room in Sunnyvale after college, and loved every bit of it.
So grateful they're streaming online. I still donate.
If you live in the Bay Area and don't see a show at Yoshi's, you definitely owe it to yourself...
"put jazz back in vogue"? i've searched the article and still can't work out what this is referring to. is he particularly prized in the usa? was he some kind of tv personality?
(i listen to a fair bit of jazz; respect to the guy - he made one of the famous jazz records - but if he was the first jazz musician on time's cover that, in honesty, says a lot more about time, american culture, and his skin colour (no criticism of brubeck implied - see the article for his impeccable credentials there) than his status as a jazz musician).
"In a long and successful career, Mr. Brubeck helped repopularize jazz at a time when younger listeners had been trained to the sonic dimensions of the three-minute pop single. His quartet’s 1959 recording of “Take Five” was the first jazz single to sell a million copies."
He got a jazz record up the pop charts at a time when that was not really something that was happening.
Yep, I think Brubeck had a place as a cultural signifier in that time. I think of this little verse from Donald Fagen's (voice of Steely Dan) reminiscence of his days growing up in the late 50s:
Have you got a steady boyfriend
'Cause honey I've been watching you
I hear you're mad about Brubeck
I like your eyes, I like him too
He's an artist, a pioneer
We've got to have some music on the new frontier.
There's two factors here. One is that bebop--the previous ruling jazz style--faded considerably during WWII, and was also dominated by black culture. Brubeck brought jazz back into style, and also--as you noted--made it less of a racial issue. The previous white jazz was big band swing, which had its heyday in the '20s and was long gone by Brubeck's day.
In addition to what has already been commented, his music also reached the more classically-oriented people who found jazz to be too esoteric and incomprehensible.
Basically, he created jazz music that a wide spectrum of people were able to appreciate and enjoy, while at the same time advancing the state of the art.
"Take five" was actually a great jazz theme that I always compare to great programming, saying: "You want to know how the great code looks like? Listen to this."
a lot of people know his album "time out", with "Take Five", but the quartet got a lot wilder than that. My favorite record is "Jazz At Oberlin", Dave really plays some different stuff entirely, the interplay is fantastic.
I was lucky to see him perform live a few years ago in redwood city. He seemed to be having a lot of fun at the age of 87! I wish I would be able to say the same if I make it that far.
We lost a musical genius and a good human being.