Timeline of Dave Brubeck's Career
Provided by Kevin W. Hecterman, Recordnet.com
1920: David Warren Brubeck was born Dec. 6, 1920 in Concord to parents Pete Brubeck and Elizabeth Ivey Brubeck. Dave's mother was a classical piano teacher. His family moved to a cattle ranch in Ione when he was 12 and Brubeck began playing piano in local bands while in high school.
1942: After coming to College of the Pacific in 1938 to study to become a veterinarian, Brubeck began studying music instead and graduated in 1942. He enlisted in the Army in the summer of 1942 and married his sweetheart, Iola Whitlock, in September. The pair had met in school through a mutual friend.
1944: Brubeck's Army unit shipped out and landed in Europe after D-Day. While in Europe he led the first racially integrated military jazz band, The Wolfpack. He was discharged from the Army in 1946.
1946: While attending graduate school at Mills College in Oakland and studying with French composer Darius Milhaud, Brubeck formed the Dave Brubeck Octet, a cross-genre experimentation in jazz. He went on to form the Dave Brubeck Trio with Cal Tjader and Ron Crotty, making one of their first recordings in 1949 and gaining a following.
1951: After recovering from a swimming accident, Brubeck formed the Dave Brubeck Quartet with saxophonist Paul Desmond. The Quartet included various sidemen over the next several years, and began touring the U.S. and building a fan base, particularly on college campuses. The college shows were Iola's idea and were presented as concerts.
1958: With what would come to be known as the Classic Quartet (Brubeck on piano, Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Joe Morello and Eugene Wright on bass), Brubeck made the first of many international tours. The U.S. State Department sponsored performances in Poland, India, Turkey, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Afghanistan, East and West Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Here in the States, Brubeck's decision to hire Wright led to some racial tension when touring in the South, forcing the group to cancel some shows.
1959: "Time Out" was recorded and released, named for its odd time signatures in songs such as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk." It became the first jazz album to sell more than a million copies. "Take Five" headed to the top of the jazz and the pop music charts.
1967: Brubeck wanted more time with his family and to compose more classical and sacred music, so the quartet disbanded. Some of Brubeck's major compositions during this period include "The Light in the Wilderness" and "The Gates of Justice," a cantata written after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
1976: With an integrated band, Brubeck toured South Africa, then in the grip of apartheid. Brubeck's contract stipulated that he and his band would play to an integrated house; when some venues insisted on segregating the audience by skin color, the gig was cancelled.
1987: A Dave Brubeck Quartet featuring his son Chris on electric bass toured the Soviet Union. Brubeck's other sons would also perform. Dave and Iola Brubeck have six children, five boys and a girl, four of whom also became professional musicians.
1988: The Quartet accompanied President Ronald Reagan to Moscow to perform during the Reagan-Gorbachev Summit. The day after Brubeck's performance, Reagan and Secretary Gorbachev signed the INF treaty ratification at the Grand Kremlin.
1996: He received a Grammy lifetime achievement award recognizing his work as an American jazz pianist and composer.
1999: The National Endowment for the Arts named Brubeck a Jazz Master. He has received many other honors in the U.S. and abroad for his contributions to jazz, including the National Medal for the Arts, a Living Legacy Jazz Award from the Kennedy Center and the Austrian Medal for the Arts.
2000: The University of the Pacific established the Brubeck Institute to honor distinguished alumni Iola and Dave Brubeck. The mission of the institute is to build on Brubeck's legacy and his "lifelong commitment to music, creativity, education, and the advancement of important social issues, including civil rights, social justice and the environment." Pacific also became the home of the Brubeck archives and family papers.
2012: Dave Brubeck died of heart failure in Norwalk, Connecticut, at age 91. He would have celebrated his 92nd birthday the next day. He and Iola had been married for 70 years.