Chris Brubeck, Brubeck Brothers, Triple Play

12.19.2012

My Mentor; My Collaborator; My Father: Dave Brubeck

Frank Oteri, Publisher of NewMusicBox.org, asked me to write a tribute to my Dad. Here it is……(from Chris Brubeck)

Some fathers and sons are lucky enough to have great relationships from childhood to the very end. I’m in that fortunate group. My dad and I did many fantastic things together, from playing jazz gigs all over the world in the very best concert halls, to playing on the edge of our seats during recording sessions that still sound vibrant, to sharing the joy of sitting on the stage surrounded by orchestra and chorus performing not only jazz charts but also my father’s significant body of sacred music. I witnessed his evolution from a jazz musician who could improvise or write a beautiful tune at the drop of a hat to a composer who learned how to orchestrate and slave over score paper for endless hours. As I got older we shared a special composers’ bond when Dave came brimming with enthusiasm to the premieres of orchestral pieces I had been commissioned to write. At this age many in my generation are experiencing the loss of their parents. My situation is a bit different than most because not only did I lose a father, but I lost a dear friend and musical partner. We have been recording, performing, and writing together for over 40 years.

The last recording my dad made was Triple Play – Live at Zankel Music Center with my eclectic Blues/Jazz/Folk/Funk group. Believe it or not, Dave would still get nervous, even at 90! He was our musical guest and we wanted him to play loose and relaxed. Therefore we didn’t tell him we were secretly recording the concert. Sometimes, you gotta roll the dice. He played his ass off! Weeks later he told me he wished we had recorded that gig. What a joy it was to play the tapes for him of the concert he thought was lost to the ethos. He agreed it was damn good and exciting enough to share with others. The terrific reviews prove it is not just a proud son singing his dad’s praises.

One of the last concerts my father played was with me and my brothers on Father’s Day, June 19, 2011, at Ravinia outside of Chicago. I think it was fitting that our father, the family man, played his last American gig with his sons. My youngest brother Matthew plays jazz cello, Dan is on drums, Darius is also on piano, and I’m on electric fretless bass and trombone. It was a joy to perform Dave’s inspiring compositions. We made some beautiful music together, got a great review from the Chicago Tribune and then our old man went to Montreal for his last gig before “hanging up his spurs.”

The last major piece my father and I composed together premiered in 2009. I had received a commission to write an orchestral tone poem inspired by 101 Ansel Adams photographs that were to be projected over the orchestra. I brought my dad into the piece because I wanted to experience the joy of working with him on one more project before it was too late. Some sons go camping or on a fishing trip with their fathers when they know that time is winding down. I wanted to create a new musical work with my dad. He insisted he was too old to get involved, but my wife and I got my mother to read Ansel Adams’s autobiography to Dave. He started to see the similarities between Ansel and himself: The fact that Ansel was a budding concert pianist before he became a photographer was enticing. So was the fact that both Dave and Ansel grew up in Northern California. Both had learning disabilities that were greatly alleviated through the process of learning to play the piano. Their creativity germinated in relative isolation (my dad grew up as a cowboy on a 45,000-acre ranch and Ansel fell in love with the stunning landscapes of Yosemite) and their talents helped to transform their genres and built bridges that delivered a new perception of jazz and photography as “legitimate” art forms. Dad resonated with Ansel Adams’s story and finally we won him over. I am proud of the piece we composed together which has been played dozens of times and just had its very successful European premiere. Dad was too frail to make the West Coast premiere, but was finally able see a performance for the first time when the Temple University Orchestra played Ansel Adams: America at Lincoln Center. An excellent recording was made by the gifted young players at Temple and it was released a few months ago. But the story doesn’t end there.

When my father had a heart attack on the morning of December 5, he was just one day shy of his 92nd birthday. After a Christmas concert with Triple Play in Nebraska the night before, I was driving on a highway to the Omaha airport when I got a call from my wife, Tish, telling me that my dad had been rushed to the hospital by ambulance. About a half hour later a second call delivered the numbing news that he didn’t make it. The highway just kept coming at me in hypnotic rhythm as I tried to wrap my head around this new reality. I always thought Dave would go on tour sometime and just never come back. He belonged to the road and to the world, it seemed, as much as he belonged to our family. It was surreal, he wasn’t on the road this time but I was–literally. After five hours in the car and two flights, I finally got home to my parents’ house pretty late at night. There was a tearful reunion with my family comforting each other with loving hugs. About midnight Tish and I got back to our own house nearby. I opened up my computer for the first time that day and was overwhelmed by the emails that cascaded in from all over the world. One caught my eye because it said “Congratulations.” This seemed a bit out of place, so I opened it. This is how I learned that just hours after my dad left the planetAnsel Adams: America had received a Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Composition. This felt like my dad was winking at me, grinning and giving me a congratulatory hug from the other side. It was a beautiful lift when my spirits were sagging and it helps me believe in magic and miracles and to keep looking at life in a positive light. My dad always did. He overcame a lot of things and had tremendous inner strength. He loved the old standard “Sunny Side of The Street” and just for kicks he would often romp through it with unbridled joy.

For those of you who didn’t know him, here are some things I learned from my “old man” that might interest you and maybe even help you as you try to lead a musical life path.

Find a great partner to share your life with. In my dad’s case it was my mother, Iola Whitlock. Because his mother, my Grandma Bessie, insisted he endure one of college’s rituals, he reluctantly went to the senior dance. My dad was already doing lots of little jazz gigs. He was happy playing but very uncomfortable at the thought of dancing. Therefore, he asked around the campus to see who was the smartest and most intelligent conversationalist. Turns out that there was a drama major named Iola Whitlock who was smart as a whip and beautiful too. Iola and Dave went to the dance, talked all night, never danced, and when the sun came up had decided then and there to get married. Over the decades she supported my father’s dreams, wrote a lot of great lyrics and librettos, and never doubted his creative vision. She even managed him at first, and was the first person to come up with the idea of presenting jazz on college campuses. She somehow found the time to raise us six kids, too! My parents were married an astounding 70 years, and what a spectacular adventure they had!

Value what is original about your approach to music. After World War II, my dad studied at Mills College on the GI Bill with the French composer Darius Milhaud. Milhaud had fled the Nazis when they took Paris and ended up in California teaching at Mills. My father had dreams of learning how to write in the sophisticated European tradition. Milhaud scolded him, saying that the only original thing about American music was jazz and he should try to incorporate that wonderful language into the symphonic realm. My dad followed his advice, eventually teaming up with Leonard Bernstein in some of the earliest collaborations that featured the integration of the classical and jazz genres. Dave went on to write many beautiful cantatas for orchestra, chorus, and jazz group.

Stick to your guns. Dave had exactly two lessons with Arnold Schoenberg in L.A. At the end of the first lesson he was told to write something and bring it back for the second lesson. Dave was proud of what he wrote and when he played it for Schoenberg the next week, A.S. stopped him in the first bar demanding to know why Dave chose the 2nd note he had written. My dad replied “because it sounded good.” Schoenberg went on a tirade saying that that was not a good enough reason to choose a note. Dad dared to ask what made him the sole arbiter of what was a right or wrong note. Schoenberg pointed to the tall book cases filled with scores that lined his studio and said he knew more about Western music than anyone else alive and that is why he had the authority to enforce his musical opinions. For better or worse that was Dave’s last lesson with the great Schoenberg. The rest of dad’s life he kept creating his melodies because of their emotional meaning to him. His intuitive melodic and harmonic instincts served him well and as a member of his band I have witnessed him improvise gorgeous and moving music countless times. When I heard this passionate music come out of him (and Milhaud was also impressed by this innate ability) it would occur to me that my dad was a genius. Thinking back though, in my father’s first major oratorio, The Light in the Wilderness, which is a very tonal piece based on the teachings of Jesus, he created a passage where the twelve disciples were introduced by each singing their own note in a twelve-tone row. It was quite dramatic especially when Judas starting singing “Repent” on a high and straining dissonant note. So something rubbed off from his Schoenberg encounter.

Being a composer is time consuming and is hard work. My dad fell way short in the carousing department. He left that to his friend and musical partner, Paul Desmond. They lived vicariously through each other, Paul being the swinging jazz bachelor with a penchant for Dewars Scotch and serial, intelligent, cutting-edge women. I think a part of Paul always thought of us kids and my mother as his surrogate family. Dave would not hang out and drink or whatever with the other musicians. He would go home to his wife and kids and work. He toured so much that he learned out of necessity to start writing on airplanes. When he was home, people were amazed to see that he had an upright piano elevated on woodblocks so that it would be at the best height for him to ride his stationary bike and pump his legs quickly while he simultaneously practiced piano and composed. That man could compress time one way or another.

Perseverance. In the early days my dad was leading a group of musicians who were all former students of Milhaud. It was known as The Octet. They played very interesting music, but only got three gigs in a year. So Dave started doing trio gigs in the Bay Area. One early joint was the Burma Lounge in Oakland. Clint Eastwood told me he used to sneak in as a kid to see my old man. When Dad tried to add Desmond to the group the club owner said it was ruining the band. But they stuck together and it was obvious they had a special sound and it needed to be recorded. Dad went to every record company trying to get signed. They all turned him down. We were really poor in those early days. When we went on the road, we would stay in old hotels that had cavernous closets—most times the closets were the best thing going for them. My older brothers Darius and Mike traveled with sleeping bags for those closets, that was their part of the “suite.” My parents got the bed and when I was a baby apparently I fit nicely in the dresser drawer with some blankets piled underneath me. We thought it was fun—indoor camping! We saved money up as a family because dad had to start his own record company to get his music out there. Perhaps you have heard of it—Fantasy Records! His partners were sons of a man who owned a record pressing plant. Dave supplied the talent, and they manufactured the recordings. Critics noticed, and the vinyl started moving. Then his partners screwed him out of the company. He was thrown off his own label due to some legal shenanigans. But once he was forced out of Fantasy, Columbia Records signed him and with their mammoth distribution the rest is history. By the way, his groundbreaking LP Time Out was held back by Columbia for a couple of years because it broke all the rules. The music was in odd time signatures, it was all original compositions instead of “show tunes” (songs for which Columbia owned a piece of the publishing), and did not have a foxy girl on the cover but had modern art instead. Columbia’s marketing department didn’t know what to do with it. Goddard Lieberson intervened. That was back in the days when musicians, not lawyers and accountants, ran record companies. Goddard went against the rest of Columbia and told them to put it out. Ironically, for a long time people resented Time Out’s enormous commercial success and held it against dad. But he was just pursuing his vision and created something so original that it succeeded against all odds. It all happened because he got screwed out of Fantasy Records. You never know: In the long run, a setback can be a blessing in disguise. Keep the faith!

Stay Humble. Though my dad ended up playing for presidents, the Pope, kings, and queens, he never lost his respect for the average Joe. One of his favorite people to hang out with was a gardener who helped take care of things at home when dad was on the road. This old Italian knew the earth and it wasn’t because he had a degree in botany—he just loved the land, and so did my dad. Dad grew up as a cowboy and would vividly describe to us when he used to work for a dollar a day from sunrise to sunset. He lived through the Great Depression. He made it through World War II. He could never understand how Christian civilizations that purported to follow the teachings of Christ could do such horrible things to each other. During the war, he vowed that if he lived, he would write music that would help illuminate the true teachings of Christ. He reached tens of thousands of people with his “classical music” and reminded people of the teachings of Jesus the philosopher, not Jesus the icon of “Churchianity.” He very, very rarely had an unkind word for anyone. It was a bit infuriating sometimes; he was so noncommittal in his analysis of some of the people we had to deal with. I have a more mercurial tongue and if I ever ventured a negative opinion about someone he would say, “Yes, and that is his mother sitting right behind you.” He set a very high bar in that department.

You have no idea what your music means to someone else. We did a tour of Russia in 1987. I remember leaving at five in the morning on a bus that was in front of our hotel which would take us to the airport. It was bitter cold, and an older woman had been standing outside our bus hoping to possibly see Dave when he came out to the bus to leave. She had a medal on a chain that she gave to dad because her deceased husband had loved his music so much, and she had promised her husband that she would somehow find a way to give his medal to my father. It was very moving and I felt for this woman. Compassion about fans was bred into our family at a very early age. This is a true story:

One Christmas Eve as our family sat around in our California home in the late ‘50s my father got a phone call. He came back with a remarkable expression on his face. He told us kids to quiet down and told us a longer version of this story. Someone in New York City had just called to say that a man had crawled out on a ledge to end his life by jumping many floors to the cold asphalt below. Police officers and a police psychiatrist tried to talk the man down off the ledge but he was just so despondent they didn’t succeed. Friends were called in and asked if they would come to the apartment and try to talk to him and get him to come back inside. Nothing had worked and the situation seemed grim. Dad was called because a friend of a friend knew the person who said the words that finally got the jumper to come back inside. He apparently was told: “If you jump, you won’t hear Dave Brubeck’s next album.” That motivated the man to come back inside. Years later, this story sounds like a New Yorker cartoon, but at the time my dad was in such a state of wonderment that it made me see, from my six-year-old perspective, that we are all connected in hard to fathom ways.

You have no idea what your words may mean to some else. A few years ago, when my dad was already older, he agreed to sit with Ken Burns and his crew to talk about his memories and the meaning of jazz in America. I wasn’t there (madly writing on deadline across town) but later in the day I called dad and asked him how the interview went. My father told me that he blew it. I asked him what he meant by that. He said that he talked about racism in America and recalled the story of how his father, Grandpa Pete (the Cowboy), took my dad as a kid to see a man Pete knew. Pete also knew that this person had been whipped when he had been a slave. Pete told my dad that that was no way to ever treat fellow human beings. Then this fellow took off his shirt and showed little Dave his scarred back. When my dad relayed that story on camera, he got deeply emotional and cried. That’s why my dad said he blew it. But when the Ken Burns series about jazz came out, Ken himself told me that the story Dave told and his anguish which was caught on camera became the emotional centerpiece of the entire documentary. My father’s humanity came through loud and clear in that segment. Another crazy thing came out of it, too. Many of the jazz critics who saw that film and kind of enjoyed beating up my dad or dismissing him in print for his vast popularity over the last 50 years were also moved. There was a very public reassessment of Dave’s talents, originality, durability, and humanity. The family man who was too good to be true maybe really was a great guy who was too good to be true. It is not his fault that he created music that lots of people loved.

I could go on and on describing some of the great things my father did and said to many over his 90+ years. What I have written here is the tip of the iceberg. My mother has been working on a book for the last several years and she had pretty much finished it in the last few months. She chose to end the book at the Kennedy Center Honors, which may have been the pinnacle of Dad’s remarkable life. In addition to Bill Charlap, Jon Faddis, Christian McBride, Miguel Xenon, Bill Stewart, and Herbie Hancock, the producers wanted to surprise Dave by having my brothers and I play during the concert. Dave had originally requested that we play but was “turned down” by the director, to Dave’s great disappointment. However, there was a deep conspiracy between the producers and me and my three brothers. Even our own sister and my son who lives in Washington didn’t know, and certainly mom and dad had no clue that we were going to play. You can see the moment the camera caught dad in disbelief as he sat in the box next to Obama. Watch and you will see the old Cowboy mouth the words, “Son of a bitch!!!”

What a night that was. It was full cycle and poignant. Dave fought hard for civil rights in the ‘40s and ‘50s and here he was hanging out with our first African-American president. In his book The Audacity of Hope, Obama describes his father (whom he saw only a few days in his life) taking him to see his first jazz concert in Honolulu, which happened to be my dad, my brothers, and I playing together those many years ago.

I’ll leave you with one of my dad’s favorite lines, which was what Eubie Blake said on the occasion of his 100th birthday tribute: “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself!”

No one lives forever, my dad did his best and led an astounding life. It was great to be on that incredible ride with him.

10.24.2012

Blog #8 - St. Petersburg, The Hermitage, and Cats!

We arrived in St. Petersburg cloaked in a dreary mist after rumbling through the Russian countryside on the overnight train from Moscow. When we got to our hotel we had about 15 minutes to take a reviving shower before heading straight to the Hermitage for a special tour. Our young guide, Daria, took us on a whirlwind sprint through the legendary museum that was bursting with amazing art, artifacts, architecture, and history. We avoided the 3 hour line at the main entrance and were whisked into the special entrance nearest the beautiful little “jewel-box” theater built during Catherine the Great’s era. We were on a tight schedule because in a couple of hours there would be a workshop rehearsal of a new piece for actors and chamber orchestra titled “The Hermitage Cats Save the Day.” The script is being written by Mary Ann Allin who is leading the collaboration with a Russian theatrical Director and cast, plus musicians who will perform this new work in the Spring of 2013. I had been asked to compose music for this new piece and in the days prior to our departure from the USA I wrote furiously to create music to put on the stands for the musicians I was about to meet in St. Petersburg. At least there were two known performers in this new endeavor, Maxim would play flute and Vlad would be the conductor, play trumpet and also have quite a few lines as an actor. More about this project in a few paragraphs.

In addition to seeing the world famous Hermitage Museum we were scheduled to visit the famous cats that live in the basement. These cats have been around since the days of Catherine the Great, and to be clear, I don’t mean that they are immortal, nor do I mean they are direct descendants. Sadly after the horrific siege of Leningrad in World War II, the cats were no longer in existence. Roughly 1.5 million people died in that atrocity and so did the cats. Other Russian cities sent train cars filled with cats to restore the decimated population of Leningrad and to take care of the overflowing rat population. So here we are in 2012 crawling around the basement of the Hermitage where the cats have lived for centuries. I am a tall fellow so I was hunched over most of the time. Above me were a labyrinth of heating and plumbing pipes. Clever cats were perched on them, staying warm and looking down at us. Others scampered around the basement corridors. Children’s paintings of cats hung on the walls. I was in the midst of a living tradition that spawned the annual Russian celebration “The Day of The Cats” which occurs each April. On that day next year our musical theater project will be performed for the children of St. Petersburg!

Catherine the Great’s Theater at The Hermitage

Two of the Cats in the Hermitage Basement

Our group was joined by another contingent of creative people from The University of Alabama. This included Diane Schultz on flute from the faculty there, and Dawn Sandel on guitar and voice who is a musical therapist. Also Paul Looney, a director from Tuscaloosa who will shepherd the 1st production of “The Hermitage Cats Save the Day” in America, two months before the Russian premiere. A few weeks later they will perform the children’s piece at The National Gallery in Washington. These folks are in St Petersburg on an additional mission as well, they are trying to bring the idea of Music Therapy to Russia. It basically does not exist as a concept in the Russian culture. Vlad and Max were visiting hospitals with this crew to demonstrate how musicians can reach people with severe challenges in a way that medicine cannot. It is hard to believe that our new friends were amongst the first musicians to penetrate the Russian mindset on this subject.

In addition to their hospital visits these folks were involved in the rehearsal with the other Russian musicians at the theater in The Hermitage. This first reading for the ensemble (which included clarinet, violin, double bass, cello, 2 flutes, guitar, and percussion) revealed that my speed-writing of the first two scenes prior to our departure was working well with the script. The concept is for the actors and musicians to interact with the children in the audience in ways that are supposed to be entertaining and therapeutic. So here I am, pinching myself again, amazed that my wife, Tish, and I are involved in such a unique composing project half way round the world.

The next night the Brubeck Brothers Quartet was honored to play the first jazz concert ever in the new and highly acclaimed Mariinsky Concert Hall. The American Consul General, Bruce Turner, attended the well-received concert which many in our entourage considered our best. This was a fitting end to our musical collaborations with Vlad and Maxim. It was going to be a bit of a culture shock to return home. I picked up a book to read on our long flight back to America. It was a beautiful novel called “The Madonnas of Leningrad.” This is a fascinating story about an old woman in her 90’s who is battling Alzhimers and slips in and out of her present time reality to her days as a museum guide at the Hermitage in the 1940’s. She was also one of the hundreds that packed up all the artwork, and sculptures, storing them into crates to either be taken by train to secret locations, or hidden, sometimes even buried to keep the Nazis from seizing the national treasures of Russia. To put things in perspective, the basement where we visited the cats is also where thousands of people lived during the siege of Leningrad. That fact was not in the official tour guide spiel, but it was in the novel and it is also the remarkable truth. This Russian tour was one that none of us will ever forget.

Tish & Chris at the Church of the Spilled Blood

L-R, David Goloshchekin, Mary Ann Allin, Maxim Rubstov, Vlad Lavrik

Chris, Veronique Turner, American Consul General Bruce Turner,

Chuck, Dan, Public Affairs Officer Steven Labensky, Backstage at Mariinsky

10.9.2012

9/22 - The Moscow Conservatory - Blog #7

September 22, 2012 - The Moscow Conservatory:

The concert at the famous Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory was designed to be very different. The Moscow Conservatory still doesn’t teach Jazz but its across-town rival, the Gnessen Conservatory does. In fact, they have a very strong big band that sounds like one of the top bands at North Texas State. The Gnessen Big Band was a featured part of this concert organized by Vlad called “Brass Days.” They opened the concert, roaring through 3 tunes. Not only did these young jazz musicians sound great but they were having so much fun on stage it was contagious. The BBQ followed and we were all conscious that it was such an honor to play our style of music in these hallowed halls.

The Great Hall really is the Russian equivalent of Carnegie Hall where so many of the great Russian composers studied and performed. Dave Brubeck broke the jazz barrier here about 20 years ago when he performed his Mass “To Hope” with orchestra, chorus and jazz quartet. This wonderful work integrates both Classical and Jazz and is very moving as it follows the traditional structure of the Mass. In addition to breaking the jazz barrier, this was amongst the first Catholic Concert Mass performances since the Soviet powers loosened their restrictions of religious music. So in the case of Dan and I we were indeed following in our father’s footsteps. The audience for the Brubeck Brothers Quartet was very enthusiastic and after a good set we readied ourselves for the fireworks after intermission.

The Great Hall at the Moscow Conservatory

Gnessen Big Band

We played the “Allegre” Mvt. by Claude Bolling featuring Vlad on trumpet. Then we we featured Maxim on flute playing another Bolling piece. The BBQ jazzed things up with Chuck Lamb’s tune “Girl from Massapequa.” Maxim stayed on to play the up tempo samba melody with us and blew a solo after Mike and Chuck. The Gnessen Big Band came back out and played an original piece I wrote called “Bourbon Street Stroll.” The young musicians really wanted to play this piece and they fought hard to include it even though it was a bit “far out” compared to their usual material. They tore it up. This is a funky, big band chart that is often “struttin in a street” savvy seven.

Next we did a tune by Charlie Mingus with Mike DeMicco joining their band for a guitar solo along with me taking 4 choruses on trombone. We had so much fun playing together! Their much venerated conductor was getting the entire audience to clap along. It was a joyful experience that Mingus would have loved to have seen. A month before I had emailed over a big band arrangement of “Blue Rondo a la Turk” which Dave’s conductor Russel Gloyd had created years ago. This 9/8 masterpiece with an extended blues section in the middle was a blast with both BBQ and the Big Band playing side by side. We closed with Take 5 with our group plus Max and Vlad and then added 2 young sax players from the Gnessen troops. One young alto player was outstanding and it turns out he was from Cuba studying at the Gnessen Conservatory on a full ride scholarship. Dan played a killer drum solo while large images of Mussorgsky, Rimsky Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Glinka, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and others stared down from the balcony ring facade. The place was rocking and the crowd went wild. But no time for an encore because we had to race to the train station to ride the “all nighter” to St. Petersburg.

What a scramble, but we pulled away from the Conservatory with just enough time to get ourselves and all our instruments and luggage on to the train. Vlad gave us a demonstration of proper Russian toasting with Vodka as we took over the dining car. We rattled down the tracks heading towards the Baltic feeling very happy about the concert and happier yet with the newly learned “Vodka etiquette” coursing through our blood stream. When you wake up the next morning and you are 6’ 5” having attempted to sleep in a 5’10” bed with 3 too many toasts under your belt, that is a one-way ticket on the Disoriented Express. More about our wild day in St. Petersburg, next blog.

Vlad & Chuck

One more Toast!

10.5.2012

Sept 21- Samara - Blog #6

September 21, 2012 - Samara:

The morning after our gig with the Red Piano we drove 4 hours by van up towards one of the Moscow Airports. We stopped at a rest stop that had a little roadside church unlike anything you might see in America. Even more surprising is that when you went into this VERY small church it was filled with religious Icons and the haunting sounds of monks chanting in a transcendental manner. (A recording that possessed surround sound quality.) Tish and I were surprised that this tiny roadside chapel could be so spiritually transporting. While we were inside drifting off into a foreign religious universe a group of 6 school girls squeezed in and joined us. They were not wearing headphones and giggling or cracking jokes … impressively they too were enchanted by the serious and serene vibe of the little church. A sweet moment of contemplation and a snapshot of Russian life that took us by surprise.

Roadside Chapel

Inside the Roadside Chapel

We collided with massive amounts of traffic in Moscow on our way to the airport, but finally boarded the plane to Samara with little trouble thanks to Maxim’s magical “female airline ladies melt in his presence” trick. 2-1/2 hours later we landed at Samara and on our way to the hotel, stopped by the music academy where we were playing the next day to check out the equipment and were happy to discover that the drums were playable and the amps actually worked.

The following morning, we drove back to the school where we were to hear young jazz students in an outreach program sponsored by Alcoa. The program started with sung greetings by a charming, traditional, young girls chorus who presented us with a ceremonial loaf of bread which we were told to nibble on. Then we heard 2 college aged women, a jazz violinist accompanied by a pianist, playing “Cantaloupe Island” by Herbie Hancock. They were pretty good and we thought it would be fun for us to jump up on stage with the violinist and perform the piece again. Everyone loved that collaborative vibe, so we kept joining various musicians after they played for us. There was a nice rendition by a young lady playing Dave’s tune “Far More Blues.” A good college aged guitarist jammed a duet with Mike. I did a duet with a teen-aged trombonist and then we played a a few tunes for them with Max and Vlad. 2 hours of happy musical exchange flew by and then it was time to pack up, head out to the airport and fly back to Moscow. Tomorrow: The Moscow Conservatory concert at the most legendary concert hall in Russia.

Welcome Song in Samara

Mike and Student Guitarist

10.5.2012

Efremov, September 19, 2012: Blog 4

Efremov, September 19, 2012:

The morning after we experienced the soaring cultural and cosmopolitan heights of Tchaikovsky Hall we departed Moscow with 2 vans heading for a small town named Efremov. It was a 4 hour ride which helped establish our perception of the size of “greater” Moscow, now home to 15 million people, and constantly expanding. Once we escaped the urban sprawl we were starting to see a more typical picture of the Russian landscape. Mike DeMicco and Chuck Lamb both grew up in upstate New York and they commented that the view reminded them of what you’d see from the New York State Thruway as you drove towards Syracuse. Of course the highway wasn’t as robust as our American road system. Trying to find a bathroom on the road turned out to be a constant adventure. You always had to pay for the privilege, and that certainly didn’t mean you got a pleasant experience for your money. Often it meant an encounter with some old lady who fiercely protected her bathroom. If you smiled very politely she might bless you with some actual tissue paper. At the gas stations we also noticed that there was usually some kind of official looking guard, (in paramilitary camouflage togs no less) looking suspiciously at all travelers as if they might be plotting to pull off an elaborate caper to steal tissue.

We continued our drive through vast agricultural lands, which were surprisingly green with Fall’s golden colors popping up in the trees bordering the fields. Finally we got down to a 2 lane road, drove through some cornfields and started seeing signs for our destination of Efremov. We soon discovered that this municipality apparently imported potholes. We’ve never witnessed so many streets desperately in need of some asphalt filler. The local drivers had the very deep holes worked out and skipped around the roads at crazy angles to avoid taking out the front end of their cars in a particularly dangerous pit. Our mission in this town was to have a musical encounter at the local music school. Obviously this was a town that had seen better days and it reminded us of a town in the Southwest along the Mexican border.

Nearly every building was in fairly desperate need of repair; window replacement, wall repatching, failing brick facades, crooked and collapsing roofs etc. But we also saw some new construction of private homes and it did seem like a middle-class was starting to emerge. Some element was starting to change the situation and we were seeing glimmers of an improving community. We observed that even in this humble environment it was impressive that there was a music academy that was obviously important to the people. The reason we came to this exact town is that one of the tour sponsors was the American company Cargill. They now employ many of the people in the town and they are trying to help reach out to the community and do some nice things for them. They are trying to establish a sense of hope and a belief that life is improving with their presence. Providing jobs is one level of bolstering a community but there are people at Cargill like our contact person Lena Kasparov who spend their energy trying to bring special events to the town. It was explained that they have never had an American jazz group …. ever in this town.

Chuck & Mike Outside Efremov Music School

Band Unloading (Note Woman in Background)

The music students started off our musical encounter in a small recital hall in the academy. Images of all the great composers, (with an emphasis on Russianmasters of course (akov) stared down from on high. A boys choir of about 20 kids aged 6 to 9 years old took the stage (with white shirts and crooked clip-on bow ties) to sing a popular song with a title roughly translating as “Carolina Breakdown.” It was really cute and since we had found this song on You Tube (knowing that they were going to sing it) we were prepared with a lead sheet and some chord changes. The choir Master asked if we would do the song again with them. So we joined them on stage and naturally jazzed it up with a walking bass line, some Scott Joplinesque piano playing, Freddy Green guitar chord chugging, and straight ahead brush work on the drums. It instantly sounded so much hipper and the packed hall plus the choir kids were thrilled to hear the instant transformation. The crowd started clapping along on 1 and 3 with great enthusiasm.

That became the first little lesson as I explained (with the help of the interpreter) how the hi hat on the drum set closes on beats 2 and 4 and that clapping along to jazz is better if you clap on 2 and 4. They got it and right away took to it like ducks to water. Then the “recital” continued as a petrified girl came up and played a Classical piano piece for us. She was followed by a blazing button accordion prodigy who flew through a piece that owed much to Joplin’s style. Next a 12 year old boy with a cello played something that was kind of like “Flight of the Bumblebee” with very fast bow work. They asked us to take the stage and we played Mike DeMicco’s tune for them “West of One” in a compact form, 1 chorus each. Then we started talking about rhythm and time signatures and the Blues. We played “Blue Rondo” which includes all of those elements. We were joined by Vlad Lavrik on trumpet, and Maxim Rubstov on flute, both musicians from the Russian National Orchestra who have a passion for music education. They both came from very small towns like Efremov, both have mothers that still teach piano in their small home towns, both went to such community music schools, and both of them are heroes who made it all the way to Moscow and into the biggest touring orchestra in Russia! Their careers give hope to these kids that it could happen to them as well. The audience loved seeing the Russians jam with us. Then we broke off into small groups for master classes.

Vlad and I went to a different class room and did a brass clinic for about 10 kids and 2 adult musicians who played trombone. They were very curious about jazz and improvisation. Unplanned, Vlad started playing the melody of “Old McDonald Had a Farm,” which I didn’t know was a common melody in Russia. Of course I joined in jazzing it up. We explained that improvising with each other was like an unscripted musical conversation and that the most important thing was to listen and react. Chuck was upstairs with a big crowd of piano players. He had them play some little melodies and then he wove them into elaborate improvisations. They reacted like it was a musical magic trick. Mike had the biggest audience, I guess because the Russian traditional string instrument balalaika is somewhat similar to the guitar. They just wanted him to play and show them all the things he could do from bent Blues lines to beautiful “chord melodies.” Dan’s presentation on drums and time signatures was integrated within our set. Those kids were so welcoming and so proud to be with us, and excitedly asked for autographs and pictures to be taken with us. Starting last year the whole town knew we were coming and were planning on this collaboration with us. Our tour co-ordinator said it couldn’t have come off any better. But it sure took a lot of advance work from Mary Ann Allin and her contacts at Cargill Company like Lena, for which we are grateful.

Boys singing “Carolina Breakdown”

Vlad & Chris w/Trombone group

“In the Mood” on Balalaika

We reassembled from our master class rooms to hear the “folk ensemble” that was now set up on stage. A motley combination of instruments greeted us, a front line of balalaikas, electric bass, 2 accordions, electric keyboard drums and 2 flutes. Which touching Russian folk song did they play? “In the Mood”! And this time the audience WAS clapping on 2 and 4, apparently they really had learned something already that day. To see the extremely sturdy Russian women playing the melody on “In The Mood” with their balalaikas was a real trip. It is great to know how American Jazz reaches out around the world, even into rural Russia. The next thing that ensemble played was a wild Russian Romp through many tempos and it sounded like what I imagined a Russian Folk Ensemble might sound like. So there we have it, lots of surprises, shared musical joy, and beaming children’s faces. Then we had to dash off to be ready for the concert that night in the bigger hall in town. But that will have to be the subject of the next blog because we check out of the hotel now and are on to our next adventure!

The Music Director presenting Flowers

The Gang

09.19.2012

The Russia Tour - Part 3

Last night we took a deep breath and walked on stage at Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow. I am happy to report that the concert was truly a great success. For starters, despite it being a Monday night, the concert hall was sold out and packed to the gills. Every element of the highly varied program was met with extremely attentive listening and enthusiastic applause. The fact that the reaction to a long and challenging program was so overwhelmingly positive was a great relief. It was by no means a foregone conclusion. You might be interested to know what our day was like before we crossed ourselves and hit the stage at 7 p.m.

We were scheduled to arrive at Tchaikovsky Hall at 1 p.m. to set up the drums and position the piano, guitar and bass amps on the stage. Of course when we got there the elevator didn’t work so we had to schlepp up many stairs to get to the stage level. Then there were about a dozen people crawling all over the stage hanging theatrical lights that were suspended from bars that had been lowered to the stage so that the crew could work on them. Of course they were right where the drums and piano would go so we were stymied. This also delayed the guys trying to set up the sound system. About 2 p.m. the light bars went up and the sound scramble began. For the next half hour 4 sound crew dudes were scurrying to run the lines from the mics, to the snake, to the mixer and then back to the monitors. At 2:30 the Russian National Woodwind Quintet showed up on stage to try to squeeze in a rehearsal of “Crescent City Suite” and “Vignettes for Nonet.” The last time we tried to rehearse that, 2 days ago, we were thrown off the stage by a documentary crew who were filming Gordon Getty and Maestro Pletnev together since Getty was having a new piece premiered Sunday night. So at the 11th hour, we were trying to rehearse these quintet pieces. Since the orchestra rehearsal started at 3 all the other orchestra musicians were trying to warm up on stage. It was interesting to hear the quintet members screaming at their colleagues to get off the stage and please let us rehearse. These are musicians who try their level best to play pieces well.

Then the formal rehearsal with the orchestra (only the 2nd and the last) began at 3 p.m.. The entire time the monitors for the BBQ didn’t work and if they did, a loud, obnoxious buzz was blasting through. So we were trying to rehearse with sound men crawling all over us. It was hard to focus intently on the music as we should have been doing.

The cameras for the national television broadcast were thankfully far less intrusive. There were cameras flying around above like what you you see at an NFL came. Plus Chuck had a little remote robot camera making discreet “R2D2” noises near his left hand while playing. We had learned right before the rehearsal that our special guest, Igor Butman, (Russia’s most famous jazz musician) wouldn’t arrive from Japan until AFTER our rehearsal with the orchestra. Yikes!

Then the break at rehearsal came. The woodwind quintet was back in front of us insisting on rehearsing some more during the break. Sorry to say you will almost never see that kind of dedication to excellence with musicians in an orchestra in America. Of course that was the small chance for the BBQ to regroup, but we were rehearsing yet again. Then during the second half rehearsal, an entourage entered Tchaikovsky Hall with a gentleman in dark glasses who looked rather hip. He was obviously the center of attention and was moving and grooving with my new orchestral arrangement of “Take Five.” I thought he was a well known, hip, Russian Jazz personality. He looked familiar but I couldn’t quite connect the dots. Then between tunes, a very attractive woman came up with this gentleman and said “Remember me Chris, I’m Chantal Juliet from the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival.” Of course I remembered Chantal because she had hired the BBQ to play “Vignettes for Nonet” at her Festival with members of the Philadelphia Orchestra a few years ago. But then she introduced me to the hip guy with her, son of a gun, it was Charles Dutoit, the very famous conductor. He was obviously digging the musical proceedings and went out of his way to say hello. That was a very cool surprise bonus in an otherwise stressful day.

Because Igor wasn’t getting to the Hall until 6:30 p.m. we cut “Unsquare Dance” off the program. When rehearsal was over, the woodwind quintet insisted on rehearsing again at 6 p.m. despite the 7 p.m. concert start. I thought maybe I’d have a moments rest BUT…Dan and I were collared and had to do a T.V interview. Then as I went to change my clothes I was corralled by the stage announcer and the interpreter trying to see who was saying what when. I ran to change my clothes, Igor arrived and we decided to rehearse with him backstage at intermission, there was no time left before the start of gig. That is really cutting it close.

We opened with the orchestra playing “Blue Rondo a la Turk.” Then the orchestra left the stage and The BBQ played about 20 minutes alone. We played “Dance of the Shadows” by Dan and me, then performed “West of One” by Mike DeMicoo. Next, we jammed on “The Girl from Massapequa” with a special guest on flute, Maxim Rubstov. The crowd went nuts to see an RNO musician step out and step up to the Jazz plate. Then we brought out the Woodwind Quintet form the RNO. These pieces I wrote are interwoven with many threads of Classical and Jazz approaches to music making. The audience appreciated the unique approach and then it was time for “The Blues & Beyond”, my 3 movement double concerto for Trumpet and Trombone. Vlad Lavrick from the RNO was the trumpet soloist and he killed it. I was the trombone soloist and things went well providing some serious emotional impact. The piece went over extremely well. There is something kind of Russian sounding about it, especially Mvt. II, “Cathedral Blues.” We even used the massive pipe organ with the orchestra and it was hauntingly effective. The audience liked the piece so much that they started stomping and clapping in rhythm and gave us all 2 encore bows. When we walked off-stage we looked at the clock with total surprise. The first half of the concert was over 90 minutes long. Yikes!

The second half started with my orchestral arrangement of Dave’s tune “The Basie Band is Back in Town.” Chuck killed it with his updated Count Basie approach to the piano part. Then we played Dave’s classic “In Your Own Sweet Way” arranged by our Uncle Howard Brubeck. I wrote out a special intro for the concertmaster and she came up front and stood next to the piano to play the melody which was written out in a very Stephan Grappelli-like approach. She played GREAT, and is also quite beautiful, so needless to say the audience loved her. Then we roared through “Cassandra” and Igor Butman came out and played his ass off it despite zero rehearsal with the orchestra. Mike followed with a blazing solo on this uptempo barn-burner. Dan started the groove of “Take Five” and then the fireworks really began. Igor played a fantastic solo, Chuck took the intensity down and wove a very contrapuntal approach to his solo. Mike took a very creative solo turn which set up Dan who simply slayed the crowd with his polyrhythmic powers. More clapping and stomping in rhythm from the audience and then we broke into a Blues with Igor. After jamming about five minutes we sneaked back into the end of “Blue Rondo” with the Orchestra. We made it! The crowd went crazy! Even more importantly, the orchestra musicians were really excited. Joel Revzen did a great job conducting and holding everything together.

We had just gone through 9 hours of continuous chaos and somehow emerged triumphant on the other side. Amen. I guess we will see the film of this endurance test and musical feast in a few months, as the concert will be broadcast on the Russian State Cultural TV station.

09.17.2012

The Russia Tour - Part 2

The BBQ played for the first time on Russian turf Friday night at Igor Butman’s Jazz Club. In my last Blog I mentioned that Igor Butman was a young “up and coming” jazz player who I played with when when I was here as part of the Dave Brubeck Quartet tour in 1987. Now Igor is probably the most famous jazz musician in Russia. I spoke to him a few weeks ago when he and his Big Band were touring the U.S.A. playing at Dizzy’s Club which is part of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Friday night Igor was not with us at his own club because he was on tour with his group in Japan. However, Igor will be playing with us with the Russian National Orchestra tonight. As it turned out our special guest Friday night was the United States Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. We all had a great time “hanging out ” with him, and I choose those words carefully, because he was not a “stuffed shirt” at all. He and his wife, Donna, were incredibly warm and down to earth.

It turns out that the Ambassador’s father is a musician, and that Michael used to play trumpet, so he knows the pull and positive force of music. He really enjoyed himself in Igor’s elegant and modern club and actually happily stayed for both of our sets. (A lot of government officials would have appeared, “done their duty” and split.) But not only did The Ambassador stay, he introduced us in fluent Russian, right before our 2nd set. What he said in essence was that although he was the official Ambassador from the United States, hearing excellent jazz music with a very international audience was the best way to share our American culture and build bridges between countries. He said that we were the real Ambassadors. He probably had no idea, but this is the name of the recording and musical my parents wrote with Louis Armstrong as the star….”The Real Ambassadors.” I felt like some kind of giant clock had come full cycle as Michael McFaul arrived at the same conclusion as my parent’s musical which was famously performed only once at The Monterey Jazz Festival back in the early 60’s. Back then it was considered controversial ….. but not today. It was interesting to learn that McFaul was at the White House as a foreign policy advisor and before that a teacher at Stanford University in California. Obviously a smart and personable guy who understands this culture, but NOT a career diplomat. President Obama had great faith in his abilities and asked him to accept this post. It really struck me, especially in this context of meeting some very high ranking military jazz fans who were also hanging out with us after the gig, that this was a super intelligent Professor who at the request of his President altered the normal course of his life, and agreed to serve his country in a very different way than I am sure he ever imagined. Especially in the context of the death of our Libyan Ambassador, you realize that McFaul and his family are bravely putting their entire family into a somewhat risky situation as an expression of patriotism. He is not some chump that ended up Ambassador because he raised millions of dollars for some political campaign and got appointed “quid pro quo.” He is helping America with his unique skill set. On top of all that, he is a really cool guy!

We played very well, pretty amazing considering the jet lag factors and the fact that the wrong kind of drum set showed up for the gig besides all of our best efforts to get this squared away months ago. Emails, diagrams, riders, were sent long ago to make sure that this kind of snafu would be avoided…..but there were some subtle language differences that led to an unplayable drum set arriving. After some aggressive crisis control by Mary Ann Allin (the architect of our tour) just 2 hours before the start of the gig, phone calls were made and 2 additional drum sets appeared so that Dan could put a drum set together that fit his style and size. This is a classic example of a language barrier, but despite that panic & scramble, everyone played great. We were joined on stage by Max Rubstov and Vlad Lavrik who played a few tunes with us. They are also members of the Russian National Orchestra and we have played with them before in the U.S. The musical camaraderie was electric and highly enjoyable. Dan played an especially forceful and fiery solo on Take Five. I think all his frustrations with drum riders, jet lag and stress were beaten into submission by his impassioned drum solo! Tonight is the concert with the Russian National Orchestra. I’ll write about that in the very near future.

09.14.2012

The Brubeck Brothers Quartet travels to Russia

I made it into Russia (along with the rest of The Brubeck Brothers Quartet) about 24 hours ago. After some much needed sleep I can digest what my first impressions of Moscow some 25 years after my last time here. Back then, I was playing with The Dave Brubeck Quartet and played here twice with them: in 1987 we played multiple concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg and then in 1988 we played for the Reagan/ Gorbachev Summit on a stage about 7 yards away from their table. Seeing how the “grand” Presidential party traveled, where they flew in their own limos, security forces, media, etc. plus hearing the unofficial sentiments of the entourage was a very informative experience for me. (By the way, our Quartet’s party flew in on Air Force 2 — LBJ’s old plane) Back then Communist rule of the Soviet Union was in a slow transition period towards Democracy. Now, talking to a few Russians I am not sure how to define what they have here these days. Also to be fair, I can make the same statement about the U.S. where I’m concerned about our election process being undermined by private contributions from billionaires who want America reshaped to their liking. Does anyone have a free democracy anymore? What is happening to the One Man, One Vote concept? Obviously we have the stronger history of democracy, but both governments are changing now and will continue to evolve.

The traffic in Moscow these days indicates a lot. There are many more cars on the roads, and many more attractive cars — Audi, Lexus, Porsche, Mercedes, etc…a lot more people have money now. There seems to be a new Russian upper middle class. I hear that there is still agitation for more Democracy and more freedom, but the hunger is distilled because many people are doing better these days in Moscow. I am sure that for any one observation I make, there can be hundreds of counter examples, but this is the broad general trend I see in my first day. All politics aside, the Russian people are very passionate about music, poetry and all the arts and it is marvelous to be visiting a culture that regards the arts so highly.

Today I visit a music conservatory to see how their Big Band is doing rehearsing my arrangements and compositions. Then tonight, the BBQ plays at the best jazz club in Moscow (the Igor Butman Jazz Club) with a few Russian musicians sitting in with us. The U.S. Ambassador is coming tonight so that should be interesting to discuss the “old days” with him and see what he says about the current situation in Russia. I am not politically deaf, dumb and blind, but I try to keep my eye on the prize of music and musicians while we are here. We have a lot of cool music to prepare and perform in the next few days.The orchestra concert will be filmed by Russian Television for later broadcast. It will be a concert we are likely to remember the rest of our lives.

Cheers

Chris

08.18.2011

Brubeck Brothers at Newport

Earlier this month the Brubeck Brothers Quartet appeared again at the Newport Jazz Festival. What a great audience!! It is such a rewarding experience to be a continuing part of the tradition of this annual gathering of the jazz tribe. These were real die-hard jazz fans because they came out to witness the music being created despite some really nasty weather. The deluge actually brought our audience closer together, both physically and metaphorically as they focused on the music we were playing and stood shoulder to shoulder in the “Harbor Stage” tent to avoid a direct hit from the torrent. We performed original tunes from our Classified CD that ran the gamut from “up and powerful” to a contemplative ballad featuring our pianist, Chuck Lamb. The intelligent audience embraced it all. Mike DeMicco had the most dangerous gig, his fingers flying off the wet electric guitar strings while his pedals sizzled and popped on the puddled stage. Hey, the show most go on, and the crowd showed that they were in our corner all the way. It is as if they realized that when you see the water splashing off Dan’s cymbals, or the rain water drizzling out my trombone bell, good energy was needed to push the musicians to play at the top of their game despite the elements. Thankfully there was a a great and dedicated crew who worked tirelessly to retie tarps that were being blown off the back of the stage by gale-force winds. Rain was blowing in horizontally on all the equipment and giant squeegies were furiously being pushed around stage to try to reduce the puddles.

We had rehearsed a few days before with a special guest for our set, our “old man,” Dave. His Doctor reminded him, “If you are going to play Newport at age 90, don’t do anything crazy!” It was a tough decision but Dave and George Wein (the Newport Festival impresario who started the festival way back in the 50s) decided it was too much to ask my father to go out and play a piano in something that at the moment resembled a hurricane. So Dave didn’t attempt the slippery stairs, the watery stage and the guaranteed soaking. I announced to the audience that it was too much to ask and they all seemed to agree with a warm round of applause that acknowledged it indeed would have been crazy for Dave to get rained on for a half hour at his age. We saluted our father by playing two of his most famous tunes, Blue Rondo a la Turk and Take Five. Dan brought the audience to its feet for the 3rd time of our set.

Then we got to partake in the other great aspect of playing at a Jazz Festival, greeting old friends, and listening to great new talent. We caught some of the innovative music made by Miguel Zenon’s group, which included an assortment of woodwinds surrounding a jazz quartet. I met Miguel when we played with him 2 years ago at the Kennedy Center Honors — he is a fantastic sax player. We also heard Esperanza Spalding who set the record business on its collective head by winning the Grammy for best new artist award (beating out Justin Bieber and the kind of artists that sell millions of CDs). She is a great bass player and singer with a real effervescent personality that radiates through her music which was unquestionably Jazz. Newport is also a time for family reunions, both in the immediate sense and in the terms of the big jazz family that puts these kinds of Festivals on all over the world. Dan and I became part of that family when we were kids in the 50’s and now we are meeting grandchildren from the tribal elders. What a tradition, what a memorable weekend. Jazz lives on, rain or shine!!!
…Chris

Soggy Musicians!