Podcast: Play in new window | Download
My brother-in-law really likes jazz, and I’ve sometimes said in his hearing that I don’t particularly care for it as it seems formless, repetitive and tuneless to me. This comment has been received about as well as you’d expect.
Ho-kay. Brubeck’s origin story is truly fascinating, so let me take at least a dip into that before moving on to the piece at hand. Brubeck did the piano-lessons-at-age-four routine, but his family moved to a 45,000-acre ranch in California when Dave was 12 and he got roped into working there. His two older brothers were on track to become professional musicians due to his mother’s influence and training; his cattleman father insisted to his wife that “’this one is mine,” referring to Dave. Thus Brubeck moved from the piano bench to the saddle, but music still fascinated him: