Thank you, Dave. bang! plop! crash! (Remembering Dave Brubeck) by Lew Saul

I escaped the public school system and spent my senior year of high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy in northern Michigan, where I met 50% of the Brubeck kids – Kathy and Danny were both at the Academy and Chris, who had just graduated. Danny and I became good friends.

Dave was visiting his kids and attended my Senior Recital on Thursday, May 7, 1970. The first half of my graduation requirement consisted of three “classical” works: a solo flute piece, a piano trio and a string quartet. The second half consisted of three pieces I wrote for the jazz band – or as it was called at IAA, “The Studio Orchestra.”

The last work on the programme – FINALE – consisted of a frenzied accumulation of bebop jazz clichés and harmonies which gradually settled down into a 5/4 groove in which I quoted the “Interlochen Theme.”

I met Dave Brubeck right after the recital. He asked me if he could look at the scores, which I had created with my specially-nibbed ozalid pen, black ink and my drafting tools – the way we notated music in the olden days, ya know?
He seemed very impressed with my manuscripts, and asked me if I would come to work for him that summer, and copy the score to his latest orchestral work, TRUTH IS FALLEN (Atlantic Records, OOP, write your congressman and tell him to release it on CD already!)

I had already made a commitment to work at Interlochen that summer, but it ended in early August and he said that was fine with him.

I arrived at the mansion in Connecticut and we immediately went to work.

An early breakfast was always the highlight of the day. Iola, Danny, nine-year-old Matthew and I listened to Dave’s incredible stories about EVERYTHING – the early days on the road; his refusal to play in clubs that would not admit blacks (one such story moved the entire breakfast table to tears); Lena Horne; and his studies with Darius Milhaud, which was particularly fascinating for me. [Months later, my studies at Juilliard were interrupted when I was nearly killed by a drunk driver. When I got out of the hospital and made my way back to New York, Dave asked me to come visit. It was now the second semester and because I had started in advanced classes (third-year theory, for instance), it would not have made any sense for me to return to Juilliard at that time. Dave picked up the phone and called Milhaud who suggested I go to France to study. A few days later I was living in Paris, studying with Nadia Boulanger.]

Then we went to work, walking down the ramp by the waterfall to the sunken music room. Dave’s record collection – around 10,000, it seemed to me – was stacked in high shelves above the pianos.

I sat at my drafting table while Dave sat at the piano and the process began. I was constantly surprised and honored at Dave’s interaction with me vis-à-vis my “classical” education – and I was consistently encouraged to express ideas and concerns about orchestration, particularly the problem of balancing a large symphony orchestra, chorus and vocal soloists, with … a ROCK BAND! (New Heavenly Blue, Chris’s band, which had recorded an LP for RCA Records.)

**

The human body is tuned to 4/4 time. We march, left-right, left-right. We sing:

(1)     EENIE (2) MEENIE (3) MIENIE (4) MO
(1)     CATCH A (2) TIGER (3) BY THE (4) TOE
(1)     IF HE (2) HOLLERS (3) LET HIM (4) GO

Now try:


(1)     EENIE (2) MEENIE (3) MIENIE (4) MO (5) bang!
(1)     CATCH A (2) TIGER (3) BY THE (4) TOE (5) plop!
(2)     (1) IF HE HOLLERS (3) LET HIM (4) GO (5) crash!

You are now in 5/4!

Try putting the 5th beat in some other place within the phrase and you alter the accents; and further, subdivide the beats into 10 units instead of 5 (1/8th notes) and you can see how delicious you can make an unusual rhythm sound!

On one of the most exciting days of my life, Dave and I were discussing the meter of SEVEN, which is usually subdivided into either 3+4 or 4+3. You set up the rhythm and the melody fits into either of those patterns.

I bravely and nervously invited him into my guest room where I had my KLH record player set up – and put on Frank Zappa’s “Legend of the Golden Arches” from UNCLE MEAT. Zappa’s 7 rolls over barlines, twisting and turning over an ostinato which continually plays with 7/8 – 7/4 paradigm (making two bars of 7/8 into one bar of 7/4).

His nose wrinkled at the electric “noise” – but I could tell he was impressed!

That’s what pioneers do. Others follow and try to make sense out of the past.

Personally, in my own world, I hear nearly everything in SEVEN or NINE or ELEVEN (6/8 + 5/8) …

Thank you, Dave. bang! plop! crash!

Comments

[Jamie Katz]

Lewis—
Thank you for this wonderful essay. Of course, as you know, you were the one who turned me on to what I still call the odd meters—how to hear them and think about them. Now we have artists such as Lionel Loueke routinely playing complex rhythms without any strain or feeling of unnaturalness and creating grooves that cook like 4/4. (You can go a whole week in New York jazz clubs without hearing 4/4 these days.) Loueke—who is originally from Benin—is a favorite of mine. After hearing him play at the Jazz Gallery in Manhattan a few years ago, I asked him if growing up with West African music had nourished his liking for polyrhythmic grooves and meters like 19/8. And he said, actually, it was more about Bartók and Stravinsky. I think possibly he said that to ward off any assumptions he thought I might have been making about his musical sophistication being "native." Black musicians have been dealing with that insulting assumption for a long time.

It took me a long time to come around to Brubeck. His popularity got in my way, as did the odd meters and my feeling that other pianists from his generation—such as Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans—were more deserving of acclaim. But that's stupid. As you also taught me, if you love steak, you can love chicken, too! I'm terribly glad I got to hear Brubeck when I could still enjoy him live, as I did at Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center three years ago. He was joyful! (And his alto player, Bobby Militello, is a motherfucker!)I was also influenced by stories I heard about Brubeck. When he became the first jazz artist on the cover of Time magazine, in 1954, he apologized (unnecessarily, but still appropriately) to Duke Ellington. And then there was the deeply moving clip Ken Burns included in his "Jazz" series. Brubeck, who grew up on a cattle ranch and served in Patton's Third Army during the war, was talking about racism.

“The first black man that I [ever] saw, my dad took me to see on the Sacramento River in California," Brubeck said. "And he said to his friend, ‘Open your shirt for Dave.’ ”

“There was a brand on his chest," Brubeck said, breaking down as he shared his horror, still fresh in mind some 60 years later. “And my dad said, ‘These things can’t happen.’ That’s why I fought for what I fought for.”

Brubeck was a mensch: a fine pianist, a beautiful composer, a musician's musician who somehow kept it going for generations, a generous friend and teacher—and a humble man, too.

I am grateful that you spent time with him, and have shared some of his goodness with me and many others.

[Lewis Saul]

Jamie, you nailed two very important points.

First, Bartok and Stravinsky were doing things in odd meters in the first two decades of the 20th century -- at least 40 years before "Take Five."

What Bartok and Stravinsky is (obviously) infinitely more complex than ANY Brubeck tune ~ but Dave studied that music with Milhaud (who's no slouch with time sigs, either!) and TRANSMORGIFIED that dynamic to the jazz slash pop-music world -- and he did it with elan, polish and style.

And you were right (and brave) to admit that many many black pianists were ignored in the 60's while Dave basked in his Time Magazine cover glory. I think he felt much the same way as you did. He LOVED those guys and was most likely slightly embarrassed by all the (white)-media attention...

One more great example:

Check out Paul Simon's THE TEACHER from his CD "You're the One." In ELEVEN (6+5), but it sounds so perfectly natural and flowing that no one would think of it as an "odd" meter.

That's what I meant by following, but "trying to make sense of the past."

--Lewis

[Lewis Saul]

One more salient point:

TAKE FIVE was recorded over a period of several weeks ~ perhaps 20-30 hours for composition, recording and editing.

TRUTH IS FALLEN (how many of you readers have ever heard it? [The LP is Out Of Print and there is no CD]).

Dave probably spent nearly 1,000 hours composing, COPYING (!), and rehearsing the massive combined forces for the performances and recordings.

The disconnect between "good" jazz and "this-is-good-for-you" classical is a deep, uncrossable chasm.

LS