News Release

Dave Brubeck Inducted into the California Hall of Fame

(December 16, 2008) -

Dave Brubeck '42 was among the newest inductees to the California Hall of Fame at the California Museum of History, Women & the Arts in Sacramento. Among the 12 recipients honored by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and first lady Maria Shriver at a ceremony Dec. 15 were actors Jack Nicholson and Jane Fonda, music impresario Quincy Jones, fitness guru Jack LaLanne, chef Alice Waters and sculptor Robert Graham. Posthumous awards were given to Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel, photographer Dorothea Lange, architect Julia Morgan, scientist Linus Pauling and Leland Stanford.

At a reception following the ceremony, Brubeck thrilled the crowd by sitting in for a song with Pacific's Brubeck Quintet.

On Dec. 14, President Donald V. DeRosa hosted a reception in honor of Brubeck's induction into the Hall of Fame.

Here are Quincy Jones' introductory remarks given at the ceremony:

"In 1958, when things were hottest during the Cold War, the United States' government chose Dave Brubeck and his Quartet to spread their own, patented brand of American cool, and make international relations just a little bit better.

"Brubeck toured the Soviet Union, Poland, Iran and Iraq, played his piano, spoke the international language of jazz, and established a standard for musical diplomacy.

"It really wasn't anything new for Brubeck. He has been setting musicals standards all his life.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet was the world's most popular jazz band for more than a decade. Its "Take Five" is the best selling jazz single ever. His experimentation with time signatures fundamentally changed the way jazz - the most American of musical forms - is played, and established California as a center of jazz in America.

"Born and raised in Concord, Brubeck graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, even after one of his professors discovered he could not read sheet music. The school was afraid granting him a degree would cause a scandal, but relented when he promised never to teach piano.

"Education's loss was the world's gain. A few years after serving as a rifleman in General Patton's Third Army during World War II, Brubeck formed a quartet with his Army buddy Paul Desmond, a saxophonist, and took up residence at San Francisco's Black Hawk nightclub. From that base of operations, they conquered the musical world.

"Brubeck made records and set records and used the popularity of his music for the greater good. He fought discrimination by canceling dates if concert promoters or club owners asked him to replace the quartet's bassist, Eugene Wright, an African-American, with a white musician. He warmed up chilly international relations with cool tours. He used his syncopated beats to fight for harmony after the killings at Kent State and Jackson State ruptured America in the early 1970s.

"The state of California honors Dave Brubeck, the avatar of diplomatic cool."