Experiencing Jazz by Richard J. Lawn;Justin G. Binek;

Author:Richard J. Lawn;Justin G. Binek;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781003833260
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2023-11-27T00:00:00+00:00

Dave Brubeck (1920–2012)

Although it is true that many of the players who became involved in the cool movement were based on the West Coast, Mulligan, Davis, J.J. Johnson, and others involved in the Birth of the Cool sessions were part of the New York scene and key players in the bop trend a few years earlier. Unlike these Easterners, Dave Brubeck was a West Coast native son. Born and raised in the northern farmlands of California, Brubeck attended the University (then College) of the Pacific in Stockton, studying classical composition and piano. It is here that his archives now reside and here that he formed his first groups. Very few recordings of his early octet exist, but we do know that its style was the precursor of what Brubeck eventually became famous for—merging jazz with “classical” techniques. Perhaps no one is more closely associated with the West Coast style, and no one was more successful and controversial at the same time. Critics have either loved or despised his brand of jazz, but it was all this publicity, pro and con, that helped to catapult him to fame in the mid-1950s. Not many other jazz artists can lay claim to being on the cover of Time magazine—an honor bestowed on Brubeck in 1955. In retrospect, his music was more important then than it is now, but he nevertheless served as an important link in the history of jazz. Most critics who leveled criticism at his quartet claimed that it did not swing and had not assimilated the roots of jazz. His critics felt that his music was too compositionally derived and lacked the improvisational spontaneity of the jazz-jam-session atmosphere. Such criticism is often directed at new jazz that breaks from mainstream traditions, as was the case with Brubeck and the avant-garde artists who followed.

When Brubeck was praised, it seemed almost begrudgingly, but it is irrefutable that his quartet was rhythmically charged, producing unexpected accents, heavy-handed piano accompaniments, and experiments in odd meter signatures. For example, he was known to play in one meter and tempo, while the rhythm section forged ahead in another, creating mesmerizing polymetric tensions. His piano style was very chordal, using big blocks of chords, rather than the fast, single-line passages associated with the bop pianists. In contrast, Brubeck’s quartet avoided the now cliché-ridden bop style, favoring modern “classical” composition devices such as contrapuntal interplay, and he relied on saxophonist Paul Desmond to help inspire improvisational dialogue. They resorted to blues tunes later in their careers, but Brubeck’s earlier music was harmonically rich and fresher, drawing from a contemporary “classical” palette, which he used to influence arrangements of standard tunes. He studied “classical” composition with renowned French composer Darius Milhaud, who himself had been influenced by jazz, and so the influences went full circle. (See the supplementary chapter included on the website for additional information about the marriage of jazz and classical music. Third-stream jazz is discussed later in this chapter.)

Like other white bands before his, led by

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