Word: daves
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Still determined to help his father in his business, Dave studied to be a veterinarian at the College of the Pacific at Stockton, Calif. But he switched to music after one year. Dave and two roommates moved into a cellar they called "the bomb shelter," which was soon embroiled in a continual jam session. Dave began playing jazz piano in nightclubs. He also played on a weekly campus radio show whose co-director was a pretty sophomore named Iola Marie Whitlock. Dave stomped his feet so hard as he played that the noise almost drowned out the music...
...joints and studied with France's famed Darius Milhaud at Mills College. Teacher Milhaud filled him with counterpoint and polytonality, fired him with the conviction that improvisation of 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...
...music he began playing was ruggedly individual. Even Dave's own sideman and best friend, Saxophonist Desmond, almost walked out when he first played with him. "We decided to play the blues in B flat," says Desmond, "but the first chord Dave played was G major! It almost scared me to death...
...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, and usually washes his own nylon shirts in the bathroom. His wife used...
When he feels he has "really" played music, Brubeck seems almost in a kind of trance. It happened at a recent recording session. Dave finished in a fever, grabbed a handkerchief, wiped his face and ran to the wall as if he wanted to burst through it. Paul laughed aloud, followed him and spun him around. Brubeck was laughing, too, great yelps of laughter. He threw his arms into the air, drunk with music. A photographer who happened to be there was caught up in the excitement. "You're hot," he yelled...