Having a famous musical father, jazz musician Dave Brubeck, has defined the life and career of Daniel Brubeck, now a resident of Halfmoon Bay.
“I heard that music every day,” he tells Coast Reporter. “I grew up playing it.” Forty plus years later he’s still playing it – he’s a drummer who now leads his own quartet of fine musicians.
Dan honours the music of his father Dave, and the lyrics of his mother, Iola Brubeck, with a new two-CD album to be launched at the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons on Saturday, July 18. The Dan Brubeck Quartet was recorded live at the Cellar in Vancouver. Adam Thomas, bassist, steps in on vocals, while Steve Kaldestad performs on sax and Tony Foster on piano. It’s music from another era, yet it seems somehow fresh and original today, and the album has already earned kudos from Downbeat, the jazz magazine. Take Five, one of the elder Brubeck’s greatest and most familiar hits, features Dan’s solo, and it has enough charm to spark a new generation of jazz fans.
“Dad always featured the drums,” Dan says, allowing him to learn from some of the greatest drummers in the business while on the road with his father. There was always pressure to play at a higher level, he recalls, and looking back, he considers that the pressure was probably a good thing. It helped him develop good technique by the age of 17. Later when he attended music school, there was an expectation that he would know everything. “If so, why would I be here at school?” he asks.
Growing up, Daniel was attracted to rock music – it was the time of Jimi Hendrix and other greats – and he also heard enough good jazz while on the road – Cannonball Adderley was a favourite – to make him interested in rock/jazz fusion. He performed with other bands throughout his career, some with his brothers and occasionally subbing for Levon Helm and playing on Garth Hudson’s recording – two members of The Band. He learned by doing.
One of the tunes on the album, Since Love Had Its Way, was written by Dave expressly for Louis Armstrong to sing on a recording titled The Real Ambassadors. The back story stems from U.S. President Eisenhower’s initiative that the real ambassadors for the country were the musicians, white and black, who travelled behind the Iron Curtain in the 1960s to bring jazz to the people in the interests of diplomacy. The irony is that though many black musicians went on tour and were the true ambassadors, when they returned home, they were treated as second-class citizens.
“Dad was never openly political,” Dan recalls, “but he tried to make people think, and he took a stand on racial equality.”
Dave Brubeck toured extensively, along with his son, and when he toured South Africa in the 1970s, he wouldn’t play unless the audience was integrated.
“The rules were nuts,” Dan recalls. “He [Dave] stirred people up to see the craziness of them. Every show we got threats from both sides.” The Brubeck band featured the black bass player Eugene Wright who braved the prejudices of the time with the support of Dave. When gig organizers in America’s southern states demanded that Dave employ a white bassist, he refused and cancelled the performances. Wright also took flak for playing with a white band, but later he developed a huge following among African Americans.
The new release, Celebrating the Music and Lyrics of Dave & Iola Brubeck, will be available at the concert for $15. It comes with a bonus, a jewel box of memories written by Iola as liner notes just before her death in 2014, two years after her husband. In a booklet she describes each tune, some with comments from Dan, and the result is an engaging capsule history of one of jazz’s great families and their colleagues.
The Dan Brubeck Quartet will play the Heritage Playhouse in Gibsons (corner of North Road and Gibsons Way) at 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 18. Tickets are $25 available on line at www.danbrubeck.com and if any are left, they will be available for cash at the door. Box office and doors open at 7 p.m.
