Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time

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There are little vignettes - the role of the US State Department in sending jazz groups out as cultural ambassadors, the way the mob ran jazz clubs and wrecked musicians' lives, the Brubeck influence on prog rock - but the core of the book is Brubeck's own music, described in loving, fascinating detail. In 1954 the pianist Dave Brubeck became the first jazz musician of the postwar generation to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, infuriating those who felt that this white middle-class Californian had no business taking the limelight from Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie or Thelonious Monk, the true pioneers of an essentially African American music. Brubeck opened up as never before, disclosing his unique approach to jazz; the heady days of his 'classic' quartet in the 1950s-60s; hanging out with Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, and Miles Davis; and the many controversies that had dogged his 66-year-long career.

By keeping the music at the centre, and interweaving the background of cultural, political and social change to illuminate the development of the music, Clark gives us a complete picture of the artist's life and work.Philip Clark's revealing study enables a deeper and more complete understanding of this artist and pioneer's life and work. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. I have been interested in jazz and collected jazz records for 60 years and have read many books on the subject in that time. To quote President Obama, as he awarded the musician with a Kennedy Center Honor: "You can't understand America without understanding jazz, and you can't understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck.

He once related, with some amusement, an enigmatic compliment paid to him by the great avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor: “He told me I was the missing link. Woven throughout are cameo appearances from a host of unlikely figures, from Sting, Ray Manzarek of The Doors, and Keith Emerson to John Cage, Leonard Bernstein, Harry Partch, and Edgard Varèse. Eventually, I even got to meet him and his wife when an ensemble I was in premiered some of his choral works. and] fittingly, for a Brubeck biography, this is also a multifarious work; adventurous with narrative and structure.

Could have been great but unless you are a musician or music theorist, a great deal of this book is nearly impenetrable. That earned him no points from the jazz purists, but their scepticism did not deter him from writing his own orchestral and choral pieces, some of them on sacred themes, later in life. But because counterpoint was so important to the way he thought, we all latched on to that and it became important to us. Publication dates are subject to change (although this is an extremely uncommon occurrence overall). This excellent biography makes clear that he simply chose his own path and individual idea of jazz that was outside mainstream critical thinking and just as valid as anything the bebop players (most of whom actually admired him and his ideas greatly) were committed to.