Legend Who Helped Define the Genre of Jazz Dies
Musician saw both discipline and freedom in the music
You don’t have to be a jazz aficionado to recognize “Take Five,” the smoky instrumental by the Dave Brubeck Quartet that instantly evokes swinging bachelor pads, hi-fi systems and cool nightclubs of the 1950s and ’60s.
“Take Five” was a musical milestone — a deceptively complex jazz composition that managed to crack the Billboard singles chart and introduce a new, adventurous sound to millions of listeners.
In a career that spanned almost all of American jazz since World War II, Brubeck’s celebrated quartet combined exotic, challenging tempos with classical influences to create lasting standards.
The pianist and composer behind the group, Brubeck died Wednesday of heart failure at a hospital in Norwalk, Conn. He was a day shy of his 92nd birthday.
Brubeck believed that jazz presented the best face of America to the world.
“Jazz is about freedom within discipline,” he said in a 2005 interview with The Associated Press. “Usually a dictatorship like in Russia and Germany will prevent jazz from being played because it just seemed to represent freedom, democracy and the United States.
“Many people don’t understand how disciplined you have to be to play jazz. ... And that is really the idea of democracy — freedom within the Constitution or discipline. You don’t just get out there and do anything you want.”
The common thread that ran through Brubeck’s work was breaking down the barriers between musical genres — particularly jazz and classical music. He was inspired by his mother, a classical pianist, and later by his composition teacher, the French composer Darius Milhaud.
“When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection,” Brubeck said in 2005. “Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.”
Brubeck was always fascinated by the rhythms of everyday life. In a discussion with biographer Doug Ramsey, he recalled the rhythms he heard while working as a boy on cattle drives at the Northern California ranch managed by his father.
The first time he heard polyrhythms — the use of two rhythms at the same time — was on horseback.
“The gait was usually a fast walk, maybe a trot,” he said. “And I would sing against that constant gait of the horse. ... There was nothing to do but think, and I’d improvise melodies and rhythms.”
Brubeck combined classical influences and his own innovations on the seminal 1959 album “Time Out” by his classic quartet that included alto saxophonist Paul Desmond, drummer Joe Morello and bassist Eugene Wright.
It was the first jazz album to deliberately explore time signatures outside of the standard 4/4 beat or 3/4 waltz time. It was also the first million-selling jazz LP and is still among the best-selling jazz albums of all time.
Columbia executives blocked its release for nearly a year — until label President Goddard Lieberson intervened.
“They said, ‘We never put out music that people can’t dance to, and they can’t dance to these rhythms that you’re playing,’ ” Brubeck recalled in 2010. He also wanted a painting by Joan Miro on the cover, something else the record company had never done.
“I insisted that we go with something new,” he said. “And to their surprise, it became the biggest jazz recording they ever made.”
Brubeck is survived by his wife of 70 years, a daughter and four musician sons. Another son died in 2009.