Word: brubecks
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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American Heritage. Brubeck's parents were Presbyterian, gave him a mildly religious upbringing, but he developed a searching religious bent of his own. With deep scruples against taking life, when World War II broke out, he did the next best thing to being a conscientious objector. "I resolved never to have a cartridge in my gun if I ever landed at the front," he says. "I wanted to be sure beforehand that I could never kill...
...jazz was as valid for him as the improvisation of toccatas and fugues was for Bach. "He told me," says Dave, "if I didn't stick to jazz, I'd be working out of my own field and not taking advantage of my American heritage." Searching Dave Brubeck found a goal: to show that jazz is music...
...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...