Word: brubeck
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...California in 1951, Brubeck's newly formed quartet found itself in an area bursting into musical blossom. About that time, Progressive Bandleader Stan Kenton passed through Los Angeles, and some of his crew, e.g., Trumpeter Shorty Rogers, Arranger Pete Rugolo, Drummer Shelly Manne, French Hornist John Graas, settled there and became famous. A hollow-eyed trumpeter named Chet Baker and an underweight baritone saxophonist named Gerry Mulligan made themselves fast killings among the cats. By 1952, the West Coast was the U.S.'s newest, biggest stomping ground for jazz. Brubeck felt right at home, shuttled between such clubs...
When his early records (for Coronet) were selling poorly, he bought back the master disks and started his own label, Fantasy (he still collects some $2,000 a month from it). Brubeck built an imposing glass-and-redwood house in Oakland overlooking the bay-a house on a hilltop, which is where he always wanted to live...
Jazzman's World. Brubeck does not get to spend much time in his house on the hill. He is away six months of the year, living in the jazzman's restless world of all-night coach rides, smoky nightclubs and hamburger joints at dawn. Nowadays, the quartet travels in better style than in the days when it chugged cross-country in Dave's old car, with the string bass tied to the ceiling. But Brubeck still retains most of his frugal habits: he travels with one suit (two pairs of pants) that rarely gets a pressing...
Wherever they go, Brubeck and Saxophonist Desmond seem to be enveloped in a kind of electric field in which they can communicate almost without words. Their only "arranged" passages are occasional introductions or endings. Before a recent recording session, the desultory opening dialogue went something like this...
From then on, nothing further was said-they communicated through what Brubeck regards as a kind of mental telepathy. They will often get bored with the same idea or decide to make a switch at the same moment. They have many private musical jokes, e.g., Brubeck will play a few bars from a lovesong to kid Desmond about a girl friend, and once Desmond memorized the telephone number of a blonde by keying musical notes to each figure-Seaside...