Dave Brubeck

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and you are listening to Desert Island Discs.

Speaker 10:05

This edition of Desert Island Discs was archived without the music, so although the Castaway's choices are introduced, they're not part of this recording.

Speaker 10:15

Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

Speaker 10:21

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 20:25

This is the BBC Home Service.

Speaker 20:42

Desert island discs.

Speaker 20:51

Each week we ask a well-known person the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you? Assuming of course that you also had a gramophone.

Speaker 21:03

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumling.

Speaker 21:07

How'd you do?

Presenter1:07

Ladies and gentlemen.

Presenter1:09

Our castaway this week is a very celebrated American jazz star, a man who's probably caused more controversy than any other jazz musician since the war. I'm welcoming ashore Dave Brubeck. Hello. But Dave, this isn't your first visit to Britain, is it?

Dave Brubeck1:22

No, it isn't. I was here once during the war and then I was here on my last tour about a year ago and of course this is the third time. Will it be your first visit to a desert island?

Dave Brubeck1:34

Yes, definitely. What would be your reaction to solitude, could you take it?

Dave Brubeck1:39

Well, I've been alone a lot in my life, uh being raised on a huge forty five thousand acre cattle ranch and I always kind of liked it. Mm. Forty five thousand acre?

Presenter1:49

Got something we can't envisage over here.

Presenter1:52

Now you have those eight disc, what tests did you apply in choosing them? What

Presenter1:56

Quantities were you looking for?

Dave Brubeck1:58

Well, uh in choosing the eight discs, I think I chose the ones that were the most important to me in my development as a musician. Mhm. And uh they have the qualities that I like the best in music, the emotional quality. What's the first one? The first one is the Brandenburg Concerto Number Two in F major. Why'd you choose this? Well, this is the recording that I like to put on at home uh in the morning. It's very good wake-up music. It's kind of like uh a third cup of coffee. This is the one with the trumpet in. Right, the F trumpet.

Presenter2:36

Part of the third movement of Bach's second Brandenburg Concerto, played by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Karl Munchika. What's your second choice?

Dave Brubeck2:46

Well, I would choose Cottontail by the Duke Ellington Orchestra because this was to me the the greatest orchestra in jazz and Duke is my favorite jazz composer and he's still my favorite uh jazz band, big band. But this particular recording struck me when I was quite young.

Dave Brubeck3:09

And it it opened my eyes to a possibility of polytonality. Later on I found out that uh it wasn't conceived with the idea of two keys, but when I heard it, I heard it in two keys, and it it opened a lot of doors for my future development.

Presenter3:28

Duke Ellington and His Orchestra, a nineteen forty recording of Cottontail.

Presenter3:33

Dave, whereabouts in the United States do you come from? Where was that forty five thousand acre cattle ranch?

Dave Brubeck3:38

Well, that was in Northern California. I was born quite near there. Yeah.

Presenter3:43

Your parents' musical?

Dave Brubeck3:44

Uh

Dave Brubeck3:44

Well, my father was a cattleman. My mother was a a musician, which was a very odd combination. She came here to London to study with Tobias Mattei in nineteen twenty six.

Presenter3:58

At what age did you start taking an interest in music yourself?

Dave Brubeck4:01

Well, I was about four, I guess. I started the piano with my mother and started composing quite quite young.

Presenter4:09

When the idea first hit you that you were going to make music your career?

Dave Brubeck4:13

Well, it didn't actually uh seem that way until my second year of college because I had gone to school as a veterinarian

Presenter4:17

Mm.

Dave Brubeck4:21

Major

Dave Brubeck4:22

And uh then I switched to music the second year.

Presenter4:26

What was your first professional engagement? Did you take in any jobs while you were still studying?

Dave Brubeck4:30

Well, I was fourteen when I s started working with dance bands up in this hill country. They were very uh odd type of bands, kind of western and swing, all mixed up. And then uh I worked in college, sometimes six nights a week in uh what we call nightclubs and uh worked my way through school. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 14:48

Oh.

Presenter4:53

Mm-hmm.

Dave Brubeck4:53

playing in the jobs.

Presenter4:55

Uh, you mentioned you had a a brief visit to um to Britain when you were in the army. Did you have any chance to make music?

Dave Brubeck5:01

Yeah.

Dave Brubeck5:01

In the army.

Dave Brubeck5:03

Uh I enlisted as a musician, but when we became short of men, uh they uh took all the bandsmen and put us in the infantry. So I came over to um the European front as a rifleman, replacement, and uh I was at Metz when we were all stopped there.

Dave Brubeck5:24

and uh some girls in a Red Cross unit came up to the audience if there was a pianist.

Dave Brubeck5:31

And I remember scrambling over the tops of all the GIs to get up to the piano. I hadn't touched one for months. So the officers, the next day our group was shipping out to the front, it uh they came right up to the uh our unit and asked for me to stay behind, which was a fortunate thing because uh most of those fellows didn't get back. Mhm. And when you left the service, what happened?

Dave Brubeck5:59

Well, then I studied on the G. I. Ville.

Dave Brubeck6:02

With Darius Meo, the French composer, at Mills College in Oakland, California. Well I think at this point we ought to break up.

Presenter6:09

Often have another record, watch number three.

Dave Brubeck6:13

Number three, Tiger Rag of Art Tatum. Ah, yes. Uh Art Tatum is my favorite, a jazz pianist, and I think he always will be. He he could play faster, as you'll hear on this recording.

Dave Brubeck6:26

Uh than anyone, he had a tremendous harmonic and rhythmic sense, and he was my inspiration when I was starting jazz.

Presenter6:38

Optatums Tiger Rag

Presenter6:40

Well, after your war service, Dave, you went to study with Darius Milo. Did you at any time contemplate a career in classical music?

Dave Brubeck6:47

Uh as a composer, yes, I did, but uh Mio, of all people, uh said I must stick in jazz. That uh why should I give up something that I could do

Dave Brubeck7:00

and just become a copy of uh the Western European type composer, which I w at that time wanted to do. He w he was very sympathetic to Dad.

Presenter7:05

What Yeah.

Dave Brubeck7:10

Very sympathetic, and he encouraged all of us, uh, all the jazz musicians in that area. Mhm.

Dave Brubeck7:16

You will still

Presenter7:17

Yeah.

Dave Brubeck7:17

College went

Presenter7:17

And you will form

Dave Brubeck7:18

Your octet.

Dave Brubeck7:19

Right, we were all students of Mio at the time not all five of the eight.

Dave Brubeck7:24

And uh for our homework, um when he assigned us to to write different compositions, uh we decided, well, we'll write for the the jazz musicians in the class and many the first octet.

Dave Brubeck7:38

Uh, recordings were actually homework for Miel's class, like the fugues of David Van Creek, which are absolutely strict fugues. Yes. And y and the octet made quite a lot of recordings at that time.

Dave Brubeck7:49

Well, the the ones that were released are actually uh concerts at Mills College where there was a home recorder and we finally just decided to release these things. The octet didn't last very long, did it? We lasted for four years. We have a record without a job.

Speaker 27:56

By the way,

Presenter7:56

Uh

Dave Brubeck8:06

Uh

Dave Brubeck8:08

We did just maybe three or four concerts in the whole time. When they talk about starving musicians, we hold a record.

Presenter8:14

Uh

Dave Brubeck8:14

Yeah.

Presenter8:14

These records you were making on the West Coast began to receive nationwide publicity and soon you you found yourself a very celebrated and controversial figure.

Presenter8:24

But I think before we talk about your big success we better have another record. Let's have number four.

Dave Brubeck8:30

Well, I chose here the Dubusi string quartet.

Dave Brubeck8:34

Now, I like this so much because I see a great similarity between jazz.

Dave Brubeck8:40

and uh classical music that I've never seen compared before, and I think more and more people are gonna r realize the tremendous uh relationship between all music

Dave Brubeck8:52

uh and not be saying this is jazz or this is uh classical. In this movement I've chosen, there's a typically African rhythmic beat and almost melodically, it's very much like uh recordings I've heard from Africa.

Presenter9:09

Part of the De Bussy String Quartet, the part of the second movement, played by the Lerfengut Quartet of Paris.

Presenter9:17

Dave, you've been talked of as leader of an esoteric school, but you're out on your own, right away from the mainstream, making your own kind of private jazz. Is that fair comment?

Dave Brubeck9:26

No, I I don't think so.

Dave Brubeck9:28

And uh I think the things that we're doing now are out on our own, but I think they have their roots.

Dave Brubeck9:36

In jazz?

Dave Brubeck9:38

and maybe more so than most of the things they consider mainstream.

Dave Brubeck9:43

After all, uh the work songs, the field cries of the early negro,

Dave Brubeck9:49

Uh, I know. I can prove we're in five four. Well, has anybody used five four in jazz? Rarely. So we come over here and play a five four piece and they say it isn't jazz. I don't think they know.

Dave Brubeck10:03

uh the tremendous rhythmical uh

Dave Brubeck10:07

A music of Africa, which is supposed to be the rhythmical root of jazz, how we've been neglecting this all along. So if it doesn't sound in 2-4 or 4-4, they say it isn't jazz. I say it it might have more traditional jazz in it than they think. The basis of your work, of course, is improvisation. Yes, and I think this is the great contribution of jazz, the freedom to improvise.

Dave Brubeck10:35

Uh when it's written, I consider it composition. Uh that's the way I work. And when it's uh improvised and free, uh I consider it more as jazz should be. Mhm. Well, let's have record number five. What's that going to be?

Dave Brubeck10:51

Well, this is a an excellent example of

Dave Brubeck10:54

Composition

Dave Brubeck10:56

Uh and jazz. In fact, it's uh the problem that I'm going to confront the rest of my life, and I'd like to have this record on the desert island because

Dave Brubeck11:06

It is the first time, to my knowledge, where composition and jazz has have come together, Darius Meal's creation of the world, and I think the best time that they have ever come together. Bernstein conducting this, too, is my favorite, because he has a feeling for this rhythmic type of music.

Presenter11:28

Part of Darius Miol's The Creation of the World, conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter11:33

Dave, you're over here with your quartet. How long have you been playing together?

Dave Brubeck11:37

Well, Paul Desmond.

Dave Brubeck11:39

and I have been playing together off and on since nineteen forty six. He was with the original octet.

Presenter11:43

Yeah.

Dave Brubeck11:46

Then steadily we've been playing with the quartet since nineteen fifty one.

Presenter11:51

Yeah. It's incredible the way you all think alike in those very intricate improvisations you get into. I mean, you go so so uh go out so wide, you you need a good mathematical brain to get

Dave Brubeck12:01

Well, it helps playing together all these years and of course Joe Morello, our drummer, has been with us going on four years and Eugene Wright on bass two years.

Presenter12:08

It is

Presenter12:10

You're you're a very successful man, Dave. Is there any ambition you have which still isn't realized?

Presenter12:17

Uh

Dave Brubeck12:17

Well, uh you know, I I started out with a f a few ideas that I haven't realized yet, and I don't think when I'm through writing, dead, so to speak, that I will have attained them at all. But I haven't changed in my ideas so that I can see I'm closer to them. I wanted to play

Dave Brubeck12:37

uh polyrhythmic jazz and polytonal jazz. And I'm still working all these years trying to do it, trying to get uh other musicians to do it with with me uh and our next L P, called Time Out, will be the closest I've come to that.

Presenter12:53

Fine. There is progress. There is progress. Let's have record number six.

Dave Brubeck12:58

Well, let's uh have Mehelia Jackson's uh Didn't It Rain from the Newport 1958 Festival. Uh this would help me bring Newport and all my years of playing there and all my association with the jazz musicians to the island. But uh it would be great to have Mehelia's voice there because it's so moving. Uh the Negro Spiritual is to me perhaps the most moving music in the world and uh her voice I would say one of the greatest.

Presenter13:39

Mahalia Jackson singing Didn't It Rain

Presenter13:42

Dave, you're now required to pass an examination on your practical qualifications as a Desert Island castaway.

Presenter13:48

Could you build a house of some sort to live in?

Presenter13:51

Uh

Dave Brubeck13:51

Yes, I think out of logs I could.

Dave Brubeck13:54

I've tried that before and it was a very primitive success. Could it stay up? Yes. That's the main thing. Could you get food?

Presenter14:01

Uh

Dave Brubeck14:02

I know I could get food if I uh could fish or look for shellfish or crabs. Having got it, could you cook it?

Presenter14:02

I know

Dave Brubeck14:11

Yes, if I could build a fire, and I recall a few ways that you're supposed to be able to build a fire. Yes, I hope.

Presenter14:18

They work. Now, suppose uh you've been on this island for some time, you're able to build a rough craft of some sort. You'd have no navigating instruments and you wouldn't know exactly where you were. Now would you try to escape, or would you stay put?

Presenter14:31

Uh

Dave Brubeck14:31

Well, it depends on the island. I've read Kantiki. There's ways of getting out uh if the tides are right. But I think I'd be inclined to stick with the island. Mhm. Yeah.

Presenter14:43

Alright, let's have your seventh record to play while you're there.

Dave Brubeck14:47

Well, I would choose uh Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. Now, he's not my favorite composer. I I will not be having Bartalk with me or Stravinsky, but I chose this because of the theme being a very important theme to me, and I would want to be composing on this desert island. Would you l allow me manuscript paper?

Presenter15:11

Yeah.

Dave Brubeck15:12

Uh

Presenter15:12

Well, not officially. I don't know what you'd uh have with you in your pockets or whether you could manage on tree bark and squid ink. But anyway, I I'm quite sure you'd find a way to keep it.

Dave Brubeck15:19

Squidding

Dave Brubeck15:22

Well, this is a very important theme for me to have with me, the Shasikovich fifth.

Presenter15:30

Part of the first movement of the Ashostakovich Fifth Symphony,

Presenter15:34

Played by the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Arty Rodzinski.

Presenter15:39

Well, now we come to your last disc, Dave. You haven't chosen any of your own music yet.

Dave Brubeck15:43

No, and I I don't intend to either. The uh the reason for that is um my mind would be like uh my own recordings. I can remember those. I wouldn't want to waste uh my final choice. What is your final choice? Oh, it would be the Beethoven

Presenter15:54

Wouldn't want to

Dave Brubeck16:01

Ninth Symphony The Ode to Joy I think this is the most powerful piece of music ever written.

Dave Brubeck16:07

And I would want that definitely with me.

Presenter16:13

The closing passage of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Herbert von Karjan conducting our Philharmonia Orchestra of London and the Friends of Music Chorus of Vienna and Soloists.

Presenter16:24

Well Dave, where are you?

Dave Brubeck16:25

What are you after when you leave Britain?

Dave Brubeck16:27

Well, we go to Italy for three days and then over the Pole to San Francisco.

Presenter16:33

That's your home. Right. Now, as well as the eight records you'll have on this island, you're also allowed one luxury.

Dave Brubeck16:40

Yes, and I would choose the piano. I thought you might. And one book? Oh, uh an encyclopedia of facts of world that goes back as far as recorded history up to the present and into the future, so I could manage on this island.

Dave Brubeck16:59

Alright.

Presenter16:59

And thank you, Dave Bruvec, for letting us hear your choice of Desert Island Disc.