A jazz pianist noted for his improvisational skills, Dave Brubeck is also a composer of many fully notated works, some of which have been presented in various Brubeck Festivals. These include ballets, a string quartet, solo vocal or instrumental pieces, orchestral and chamber pieces and large-scale works for chorus and orchestra, most notably a mass To Hope! that has been performed throughout the English-speaking world, Germany, Austria and Russia. His cantata, The Gates of Justice, with text from The Old Testament and the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was presented at the Brubeck Festival 2004; Earth Is Our Mother, based on the Native American concept of the environment was performed at the Brubeck Festival 2003; and an orchestral piece Millennium Intervals, was commissioned and performed by Maestro Peter Jaffe and the Stockton Symphony in 2001.

Born in Concord, CA into a family of musicians (his mother was a classical piano teacher and his two older brothers were musicians) he began playing piano at the age of four. He was twelve when his cowboy father moved the family to Ione, Califoria to take over the management of a 45,000-acre ranch known as The Grant. Young Dave’s life changed drastically. Piano lessons ended and a cowboy’s life began. Throughout high school, however, he continued to play jazz piano on weekends with local bands and from 1938 to 1942 while a student at College of the Pacific, he worked in the Stockton area as a professional musician. After graduation he enlisted in the Army and married Iola Whitlock, whom he met at Pacific. While serving in Europe in World War II he led an integrated G.I. jazz band. After his discharge in 1946 he studied with the world-renowned French composer, Darius Milhaud at Mills College in Oakland. Milhaud encouraged him to introduce jazz elements into his classical composition. This cross-genre experimentation led to the formation of the Octet. They performed their first formal concert at College of the Pacific in 1949. From 1949 to 1951 Brubeck led an award-winning trio, and in 1951 formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet with alto saxophonist, Paul Desmond. This historic Brubeck-Desmond collaboration lasted seventeen years.

The Quartet’s recordings and concert appearances on college campuses in the 1950s introduced their individual style of jazz to thousands of students, many of whom became lifelong fans. They played the major jazz clubs throughout the nation and toured in package shows with leading jazz artists such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Charlie Parker. They repeatedly won top honors in jazz magazines and readers’ polls. In 1954, Time Magazine ran a cover story about Brubeck’s remarkable ascendance in the jazz world. The Quartet performed in Europe for the first time in 1958 and embarked on a State Department tour that took them behind the Iron Curtain into Poland and throughout India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. In 1959, the Quartet recorded the historic Time Out album, selling over a million copies. Brubeck’s Blue Rondo a la Turk, based on a Turkish folk rhythm and Paul Desmond’s Take Five, now in the Grammy Hall of Fame, were played on jukeboxes throughout the world.

Throughout his career Brubeck has continued to experiment with integrating jazz and classical music. In 1959 he premiered and recorded his brother’s Dialogues for Jazz Combo and Orchestra with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein’s baton. In 1960 he composed Points on Jazz for the American Ballet Theatre and in later decades composed for and performed with the Murray Louis Dance Company. Currently, the San Francisco Ballet is performing Lar Lubovich choreography to Elementals, composed in 1962. A musical theatre piece written for Louis Armstrong was recorded in 1960 and subsequently performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

After the 1967 dissolution of the Dave Brubeck Quartet with Eugene Wright, Joe Morello, and Paul Desmond, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan joined the newly formed combo in 1968. They toured the world together for over seven years. Also in the 1970s, Brubeck performed with three of his sons. He later led a quartet that featured former Octet member, clarinetist Bill Smith, and his son Chris Brubeck, whose compositions for the Stockton Symphony have formed a part of the Brubeck Festivals in 2005 and 2007. The current Dave Brubeck Quartet — Bobby Militello, sax and flute, Michael Moore, bass, and Randy Jones, drums — have been with Dave for many years.

Over his long career Dave Brubeck has received many honors and awards from universities and cultural organizations. He holds fifteen honorary doctorates (the first honor received was from his Alma Mater, University of the Pacific in 1962). He has been honored by York University in Canada, University of Nottingham, England, and University of Duisburg, Germany. For his contribution to sacred music, Dave was awarded an honorary degree in theology from Fribourg University in Switzerland. Among his highest awards are the National Medal of the Arts presented by President Clinton, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award, the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame, the science and arts medal from Austria, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Smithsonian Medal, and from the Library of Congress, the official designation as a “Living Legend”. He received the 2007 Arison Award from the National Foundation for Advancement of the Arts, an educational organization that parallels the goals of the Brubeck Institute in recognizing and fostering young talent. He was also honored this year with the Kennedy Center Jazz Award, and was given a lifetime achievement award by the London Symphony Orchestra.

From the very beginning of his career, Dave Brubeck has believed in jazz as the finest musical expression of America, its truly native art form. He has fought for jazz to receive the respect that it deserves from cultural institutions and academia. He is extremely proud to serve as Chairman of the Brubeck Institute.

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