{"id":797357,"date":"2019-07-04T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/taking-five-with-the-four-chris-brubeck-talks-jazz-upcoming-breckenridge-concert\/"},"modified":"2019-07-04T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T00:00:00","slug":"taking-five-with-the-four-chris-brubeck-talks-jazz-upcoming-breckenridge-concert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/taking-five-with-the-four-chris-brubeck-talks-jazz-upcoming-breckenridge-concert\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking five with the four: Chris Brubeck talks jazz, upcoming Breckenridge concert"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Dan Brubeck, Mike DeMicco, Chris Brubeck and Chuck Lamb of the Brubeck Brothers Quartet. The quartet performs on Thursday, July 11, at the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge.<\/strong>
Courtesy Anthony Pidgeon<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Jazz is in Chris Brubeck\u2019s blood. It\u2019s a difficult genre to escape as one of jazz legend Dave Brubeck\u2019s six children. His father\u2019s quartet is famous for the 1959 album \u201cTime Out,\u201d which contains influential jazz standards such as \u201cTake Five\u201d and \u201cBlue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk.\u201d Now, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the record, multi-instrumentalist Chris, his drummer brother Dan Brubeck, guitarist Mike DeMicco and pianist Chuck Lamb \u2014 known as the Brubeck Brothers Quartet \u2014 are performing at the Riverwalk Center.<\/p>\n

Naturally, music was common in the household, but \u201cthere may have been less music than a lot of people presume,\u201d said Chris, \u201cin the sense that my father was on tour all the time. When he was gone, the only music being made in our house was my older brothers and myself and my younger brother Dan playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

They were constantly surrounded by Dave\u2019s fellow band members like drummer Joe Morello and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond but \u2014 comparing it to baseball player Willie Mays\u2019 family being around teammate Willie McCovey \u2014 he wasn\u2019t starstruck by his \u201chonorary uncles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in a very unique position because we went literally from rug rats that knew them to little, aspiring instrumentalists that practiced their scales like every other kid, to finally being accomplished enough musicians that we got to play with them at the Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall and these other venues around the world where we got to make music with them,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was quite an evolutionary path for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most musicians, his father\u2019s success wasn\u2019t immediate. Chris recalled his family staying in one hotel room in Pittsburgh while Dave was on tour, with Chris sleeping in a dresser drawer as a crib. According to Chris, Dave\u2019s career really started to gain momentum when he made the cover of Time in 1954. The light bulb of realizing his father was a big deal went off when they were headed to a concert in New Jersey and stopped for food at a diner. Back in those days, the restaurant booths had individual jukeboxes that would play the latest hits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might get a \u2018Hard Days Night\u2019 or \u2018Good Vibrations\u2019 or whatever,\u201d Chris said. \u201cAnd there was like \u2018Take Five,\u2019 \u2018Blue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk,\u2019 by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. I go, \u2018Oh my God! My dad must be somebody! He\u2019s on a jukebox!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Because he was immersed in jazz at such a young age, Chris initially thought early rock \u2018n\u2019 roll was \u201cstupid\u201d due to its musical simplicity. But then he discovered The Beatles, which led him to other classic rock artists such as Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. He formed the funk band Sky King and they released their one and only album, \u201cSecret Sauce,\u201d on Columbia Records in 1975. Steve Cropper, known for his work with Book T. & the M.G.\u2019s and appearing in \u201cThe Blues Brothers\u201d film, produced the album, yet Chris said that due to issues with Columbia a second album never saw the light even though it was completed.<\/p>\n

At that point Dave invited his son to play jazz with his quartet and Chris didn\u2019t look back. He\u2019d still compose songs for people like rhythm and blues performers Patti LaBelle and Bobby Womack, but his life had solidly returned to one of jazz.<\/p>\n

Not a tribute band<\/p>\n

Eventually, as tastes and genres changed over time and members bounced around bands, Dan and DeMicco left their jazz fusion group Digital Dolphins to play with Chris, forming the Brubeck Brothers Quartet and releasing their first album in 2001.<\/p>\n

Because their quartet would occasionally be booked at the same festivals as their father, the bands first three records were purposefully all original music.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until Dave was in his 90s that DeMicco and Lamb suggested honoring his repertoire. In 2012 the group came out with \u201cLifetimes,\u201d which contained reimagined Dave Brubeck Quartet songs. 2018\u2019s \u201cTimeline\u201d was a similar tribute, focusing on the 60th anniversary of Dave\u2019s 1958 Department of State sponsored tour. The historical event was set up by the Eisenhower administration to broadcast over the Iron Curtain as musicians traveled to 14 countries, performing 80 concerts over 90 days. One of those was Turkey, where street musicians playing in 9\/8 time inspired \u201cBlue Rondo \u00e0 la Turk.\u201d Next year, the Brubeck Brothers Quartet will tour to honor Dave\u2019s centennial.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re intertwined with Dave Brubeck\u2019s musical legacy,\u201d said Chris. \u201cWe\u2019re keeping his music alive in a way that would greatly please him, and it\u2019s not a stretch because we kept it alive playing it when he was alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group won\u2019t play \u201cTime Out\u201d straight through for Thursday\u2019s concert and the songs they do won\u2019t be like any album recording heard before. This is jazz, after all, where improvisation reigns. The quartet plays mainly straight-ahead jazz, a term for the post-\u201970s style that\u2019s more traditional, but will also tie in references to the funk and rock Chris and Dan listened to growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 80% straight-ahead, post-bebop swing, but then this other stuff comes in. \u2026 We\u2019re a big democracy in how we play and develop arrangements and of course, because we really are jazz musicians, we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

For instance, \u201cTake Five\u201d may have been originally released as a five-minute, 28-second song, but who knows how long it\u2019ll be on stage. They aren\u2019t afraid to not strictly adhere to jazz roots, which Dave didn\u2019t do either.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my father\u2019s group when he played that, he would make it very different. The recognizable part is the melody. It has two A sections and a bridge, and off it goes. And that\u2019s the same thing for us. It\u2019s not unusual for Dan to play a five- or six-minute drum solo, maybe even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, concertgoers are likely to hear a send-up to the late New Orleans musician Dr. John. Dan accidentally started emulating the beat from second line parades with his snare and bass drum at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, where the twist received approval from late saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.<\/p>\n

Though that song and many of Dave\u2019s are bedrock of the musical genre, it may come as a surprise to some he was also bucking trends at the time with the revolutionary \u201cTime Out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt broke all of the rules,\u201d Chris said. \u201cFirst of all, there wasn\u2019t a pretty girl on the cover. It was a piece of modern art. \u2026 Then, it wasn\u2019t \u201cMy Favorite Things\u201d or songs from \u201cMy Fair Lady\u201d or jazzed up version of Broadway songs. It was original music. That was a no-no. On top of that, it was original music in odd time signatures, which was a super, duper no-no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris admits that jazz is no longer at its height of popularity, but he hopes people who don\u2019t consider themselves fans of the genre will attend with an open mind to hear unique riffs, like Dan \u2014 who Chris compares to Keith Moon from The Who \u2014 rock out on the drums. As with most live events, the audience\u2019s energy is a critical factor in shows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is the audience. Our dad always said the audience is the fifth member of the group. We did a tour in Canada where the audience was super responsive and enthusiastic and screaming and applauding after solos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris hopes he, and other artists, can continue to spread that joy through music.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s up to us musicians and writers to try to keep the balance in the world by making available that beautiful thing that brings us together. And we know from touring the world that music is a universal language and it pulls people together of all different nationalities and political backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s hope it doesn\u2019t loose it\u2019s magic, because we need that fraternity through music more than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Brubeck, Mike DeMicco, Chris Brubeck and Chuck Lamb of the Brubeck Brothers Quartet. The quartet performs on Thursday, July 11, at the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge.Courtesy Anthony Pidgeon Jazz is in Chris Brubeck\u2019s blood. It\u2019s a difficult genre to escape as one of jazz legend Dave Brubeck\u2019s six children. His father\u2019s quartet is famous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-797357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 13:30:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}