"At the time we were married, Dave was in the army and he said to me 'I don't know what the future is going to be like at all, but I promise you one thing, you will never be bored.' And he's kept his promise."
The first time Iola Whitlock laid eyes on Dave Brubeck they were both students at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, California. "I heard him play at a school assembly and I was very impressed with how he played, although I really didn't know anything about jazz," she recalls. "I was just impressed with his intensity and energy, and it was different sounding from anything I'd heard before."
Jazz was hardly a part of Iola's upbringing. Her father worked for the Forest Service and neither parent had an interest in the arts. Iola was an active, achieving student in her northern California hometown of Redding. She was the valedictorian of her high school class and winner of several statewide awards for speech, debate and essay writing.
In college, Iola studied drama and radio production. She co-directed a weekly campus radio program called "The Friday Frolics" on which Dave and a small band contributed the music. At the time, Dave frequently pounded his foot to the beat. Iola asked him to remove his shoes, because the pounding upset the audio balance. The only thing Dave could think to say in response was "I've been thrown out of better places than this."
Despite the rocky beginning, Dave asked Iola out to a dance. They danced just once, sat and talked in Dave's car for three hours and decided to become engaged that night. "That really was a crazy thing," Iola recalls, laughing. "When I think about it, I'm a little embarrassed." They have been married since 1942, have six children (four are professional musicians) and six grandchildren.
After her marriage to Dave, Iola completed her degree in radio drama and continued her education while Dave was in the U.S. Army. During World War II, while her Dave was overseas, Iola won a radio drama contest in San Francisco, and went to the NBC training school in Hollywood. She later free-lanced as a radio actress, appearing on several network shows. Upon Dave's return after the war, they both enrolled at Mills College in Oakland, California--- Dave studying composition with Darius Milhaud, and Iola studying philosophy and creative writing.
With the birth of their first child in 1947, Iola devoted her time to raising her family and assisting Dave in his career. In the late 1940's, they taught a jazz appreciation course together at the University of California Extension at Berkeley and San Francisco. Iola did the lecturing while Dave, who was painfully shy, was relegated to illustrating her points by playing the piano. Their teaching earned them the grand sum of $15 a week.
While the Dave Brubeck Quartet was getting off the ground in the early 1950's, Dave and Iola were painfully poor. She often took the children on the road so they could keep together as a family. "We learned to improvise in living," Iola remembers, "Whatever place we could find to stay we stayed. We couldn't afford the best so we learned how to use camping equipment inside a city hotel. We had sleeping bags and air mattresses. Chris was a baby and you'd pull out a drawer and put some padding in and blankets so that would be where he would sleep. Every hotel room Michael would go into, he'd look around and say, 'Is this our new home?' And we'd say 'Yes, for a week.'
One of Iola's biggest contributions to Dave's career was her idea to bring music to college campuses. Students had little money to go to jazz clubs and Iola reasoned it would be easier to bring music to them. But there was another reason. Despite, the quartet's growing popularity, they were still having problems making ends meet financially. "I had this idea," said Iola, "Let's write to every place we can reach by car. We had a few nibbles and it grew from there."
It was a smash success for Brubeck and for jazz. It exposed the music to a wider, mainstream audience, ensuring a fan base for years to come. Jazz at Oberlin, and Jazz Goes to College became big sellers at record stores.
Iola has also made her mark as a lyricist for Dave's music. Some of her words came out of their experiences during decades of travel. For instance, when the quartet embarked on a people-to-people cultural exchange tour in 1958, the State Department briefed them on how to behave overseas. Four years later, Dave and Iola co-wrote a musical called The Real Ambassadors, which starred jazz legends Louis Armstrong and Carmen McRae. The musical was both a reaction to racial segregation in the United States, and the quartet's tour abroad.
A sample of Iola's lyrics: "Remember who you are, who you represent/ always be a credit to your government/ No matter what you say or what you do/ the eyes of the world are watching you" - lines similar to their actual briefing.
The Real Ambassadors premiered at Monterey Jazz Festival in 1962 to critical acclaim. Unfortunately, the show never reached Broadway. Dave and Louis Armstrong shared the same agent who wanted them both working on the road.
Iola has written lyrics for several of Dave's compositions that have been recorded by Dianne Schuur, Al Jarreau, Frederica Von Stade and others. In more recent years, Iola has collaborated with Dave as librettist for several oratorios and cantatas including, The Light in the Wilderness, The Gates of Justice, Truth is Fallen, and La Fiesta de la Posada.
Iola edited the text by poet Herbert Brokering for the cantata, Beloved Son, and contributed text for the Roman Catholic mass To Hope! She wrote the libretto for Pange Lingua Variations, based on the Latin text of Thomas Aquinas. She also contributed the lyrics for Four New England Pieces and Quiet As the Moon by Dave Brubeck.
Iola has served on the board of the Norwalk Youth Symphony in Connecticut, and Kinhaven School of Music in Vermont. Since 1950 she acted as Dave's secretary and personal manager. She is currently working with Dave on his autobiography.
"Dave's handling a world that is so immense that has so much range that I know, at my age, I'm not going to get there. But you can deal with that the same way everyone else in the world realizes they're not going to be Duke Ellington or Babe Ruth or Dave Brubeck and just do what you can do."
Growing up with the last name Brubeck brings both expectation and pressure. Add to the mix the first name of an avant-guard composer and it's a double-whammy. Darius Brubeck, the oldest of Dave and Iola's children was born in 1947. He was named in honor of Dave's graduate school mentor, the French modern classical composer Darius Milhaud. Darius Brubeck gravitated toward music naturally, and he learned not only from his father, but also from quartet members and jazz greats like Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and Gerry Mulligan that were in and out of the Brubeck home as he was growing up.
Surrounded by great jazz musicians, he had the experience and adventure of going on tour with his parents during the lean, early years of the quartet. "It was normal to spend the night in the car," he remembers. Other kids had to live in houses all the time and I got to on trains and live in cars. It was interesting, it was fun."
When he was in grade school Darius wrote a composition for four trumpets that won an award at school. His teacher said, "Tell your father he wrote a good piece." Darius, knowing he had written the composition by himself, felt deflated and confused. His parents were upset at the teacher's presumption that Dave had written the piece.
Later in his musical schooling, Darius studied at Aspen with his namesake, Darius Milhaud. In a counterpoint class, an assistant called Darius "the disaster of the season," a remark Milhaud himself would never had made. "The first born usually has the heaviest burden to bear," remarked Iola Brubeck. "He was the one that sort of had to take the hardest blows."
Darius persevered. He settled into playing the piano and other keyboard instruments. Although he was heavily influenced by jazz, Darius also experimented with other genres including folk, funk and international music. Dave recognized his talents and, in the late seventies, tapped Darius and his brothers Chris and Dan to form a group called Two Generations of Brubeck. For two years they toured internationally, made television appearances and recorded for Atlantic Records.
The audiences loved seeing Dave play with his sons and reviews were solid, but some jazz purists had trouble with the sons' array of electronic instruments and synthesizers which were typical of the times. One English critic even went as far as to remark "How dare they walk on the same stage as their father." But George Wein, founder of the Newport Jazz Festival responded, "His kids are good musicians. All of them are good musicians. I don't think it hurt Dave Brubeck at all."
After Two Generations of Brubeck, Darius married a South African and moved there in 1983. He became Director of the Center for Jazz and Popular Music and Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. He started the first Jazz Studies course offered by an African University.
In 1989 Darius formed the Afro Cool Concept and performed and recorded at the 1990 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Among high-profile projects in the 1990's was a collaboration with virtuoso bansuri (Indian flute) player, Deepak Ram. Their premiere concert Gathering Forces 2, featured Airto Moreira, Matthew Brubeck, Chris Merz and a line-up of prominent South African musicians. Darius Brubeck and Gathering Forces 3 premiered new works at the 1997 Fin de Siecle Festival in Nantes.
In 1995 Darius gave concerts, lectures and workshops in Europe, ending up with a performance at Vicenzašs Teatro Olimpico with Italian jazz musicians. A 1996 tour to Istanbul featured a University based quartet Thusini and following Turkey, Afro Cool Concept was on stage at the Thailand International Jazz Festival. This band also performed at the Celimontana Jazz Festival (Italy) in July 1997 and on the South African jazz circuit in 1998. In 1999 Darius Brubeck and the NU Jazz Connection, featuring Chris Merz and Feya Faku, gave workshops and several concerts in Peru.
Darius Brubeck has presented several series of national radio shows on Radio South Africa and has worked for the development of jazz in South Africa as a performer, producer, educator and composer. In 2000 he traveled to the University of Nottingham in England where he worked on a M.Phil and presented a jazz series there.
Darius still performs with his father and brothers. In 1997 they recorded In Their Own Sweet Way, an album of Dave Brubeck standards. Darius has also performed with his brothers, Dave and the London Symphony Orchestra, as part of a program honoring his father's 70th, 75th, and 80th birthdays. The orchestra performed several of his arrangements. As part of the 80th birthday concert in 2000, Darius specially composed and premiered Four Score in Seven, a tribute to his father.
"Danny's one of the most complicated polyrythmic drummers I've ever heard. It's amazing what he can get going."
Daniel Brubeck was born in 1954. Of all the musical Brubecks', Dan was acknowledged as the most intense and assertive. It was quite natural for him to gravitate toward the drums since he had unbounded energy as a child. And he learned from two of the best polyrhythmic drummers in the world, Brubeck Quartet members Joe Morello and Alan Dawson.
Dan's original drumming style, distinctive solos, and use of odd time signatures have earned him the respect of many critics and musicians worldwide. One of his biggest fans, his own father, worries about his intensity. "Danny can get almost out of his mind on drums," says Dave. "I pray some night that he'll come back to us, he's so far gone. He's so complicated and his face is so red and he's so physically into it. [Playing together] I couldn't hold in my mind where he was, but boy, he'd come out on that down beat to bring us back."
Dan has been featured on 10 Dave Brubeck albums as drummer and as producer on Trio Brubeck (with Dave and brother Chris). Dan has also soloed with many of the world's leading orchestras as a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet.
Dan has toured the international music circuit for over two decades as the leader of his own group, The Dolphins. Dan has released three CDs with The Dolphins, which received extensive airplay in the U.S. and Japan.
Dan was also co-leader of The Brubeck LaVerne Trio with brother Chris and pianist Andy LaVerne. Their Blackhawk record, See How it Feels, in 1986, made the top 25 list in national jazz airplay. Dan has recorded with Larry Coryell, Livingston Taylor, Michael Franks, and Roy Buchanan. He has performed with The Band, Gerry Mulligan, Jon Hendricks, Paul Butterfield, and Warren Bernhardt. Dan and Chris have made many television appearances including BBC specials, multiple appearances on The Today Show, Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, and the nationally syndicated PBS Jazz in America series. He was the subject of The Jazz Show, alto saxophonist David Sanborn's syndicated radio program.
"Anyone that's really lasting in what they do makes an original statement in music. It's not out of copying someone, it's about following your instincts and daring to be who you are."
The third son in the musical Brubeck family, Chris was born in 1952. He is a composer, lyricist, orchestral arranger, musical educator, and performer who plays bass, trombone and piano. Like his brothers, he feels at home playing jazz, rock, folk, funk and classical music.
Like the rest of the family, Chris was exposed to, and learned from, many legendary jazz musicians. When he was a youngster and just starting to play trombone, Dave took him backstage to meet Louis Armstrong. Armstrong looked at Chris' ample lips and said "You've got the chops" for the trombone." Chris remembers, "When he said that, I just felt like, it's really cool, like Willie Mays telling me I can be an outfielder."
Of all the Brubeck's musical sons, Chris has toured and recorded with Dave the most. In addition to his two years with the Two Generations of Brubeck (with Dave and brothers Darius and Dan), he was a full fledged member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet for over ten years, toured the world, recorded over a dozen albums and appeared on countless television programs.
In the past decade, Chris has branched out on his own, performing, recording and composing in various musical styles. Bach to Brubeck (Koch International) is the culmination of years of successful orchestral concerts given by Chris, Joel Brown and the late Bill Crofut. The trio collaborated with the London Symphony Orchestra for the record. Chris and Bill Crofut also produced Across Your Dreams (Telarc) with Frederica von Stade singing many of Chris, Dave, and Iola Brubeck's original songs.
In addition, Chris has become prolific as a composer. He was the soloist and composer for his original Concerto for Bass Trombone and Orchestra. This work has created a stir in classical music circles, with performances by The Pittsburgh Symphony, The Baltimore Symphony, The Boston Pops, and at The International Trombone Festival.
Chris collaborated with his father on the symphonic composition, Theme and Explorations for Orchestra, which was commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony.
Chris also co-leads the straight-ahead jazz group, The Brubeck Brothers Quartet with his brother Dan Brubeck, giving concerts all throughout North America. In 2000 the Brubeck Brothers Quartet, featuring Chris, Dan on drums, Mike DeMicco on guitar and Pete Levin on keyboards released their first recording, Second Nature which is available on the website, www.brubeckmusic.com.
In addition, Chris tours with his other band, Triple Play, a group that features Chris on bass, trombone and piano, harmonica virtuoso Peter Madcat Ruth and Joel Brown on guitar. The trio a bluesy, folksy acoustic group with vocals and original compositions by all three members. Their first CD, Triple Play Live came out in 2000. Other commissions as a composer include compositions for the Aspen Wind Quintet and the Manhattan Chorale Festival.
In 2001 his concerto for orchestra Convergence, a piece commissioned by the Boston Pops, received rave reviews for performances in Boston and Tanglewood. He is currently working on a composition for the Norwalk Youth Symphony. Chris also teaches music at Skidmore College.
"If I had a buck for every time someone asked me, 'What instrument do you play?' I would be a very rich person. I DO NOT PLAY AN INSTRUMENT!!! There I've said it. Used to. Don't now."
Like everyone else in the Brubeck clan, Cathy is a strong individualist. Born in 1953, Dave and Iola's only daughter has tread her own path and opted for a life outside of music. Like her parents, Cathy is deeply spiritual and religious. She is a homemaker with three children, ages six, ten and fifteen.
Cathy has fond memories of her growing up with a gaggle of brothers in Oakland, California and Wilton, Connecticut. "My parents engendered a happy home," Cathy recalls. "We laughed alot, respected each other's opinions, endured bad puns, played music, discussed important ideas, watched Looney Tunes, played baseball with the crows, football with the neighbors, went on family walks, danced to Stravinsky on the lawn, watched Disney, rode horses, loved our many cats, rolled down hills in the summer, sledded down them in the winter, and traveled more than most people I knew."
But being raised a Brubeck with a famous father also gave Cathy an unrealistic picture of her environment. "I grew up under the misconception that the world was a very nice place and that people were generally friendly and had your best interest at heart," she remembers. "It wasn't until I was a young adult that I realized we were treated so kindly because we were welcome guests to the many places we went. And that people were interested in me because they loved my parents."
Fortunately for Cathy and her brothers, Dave and Iola worked hard to give their children a proper grounding and a better sense of themselves. Cathy studied art, dance and drama at Interlochen Arts Academy during high school and went to Simon's Rock in Massachusetts for three years. She graduated with a BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 1976.
As a young adult, Cathy turned increasingly toward Christianity. She credits her parents for her strong feelings about faith. "Their wit, tolerance, and earnest desire to see injustices made right, whenever in their power, gave me a sense of personal responsibility to live as morally upright as I could," Cathy says. "Of course as a teenager in the 60's that deviated heavily for a while. But a boat eventually finds home port. When I had a shocking conversion at age 19, I felt I had finally come home to Jesus, a harbor my parents had found years before."
Cathy received a Bachelor of Theology from The Way College in Kansas in 1979. She has served as a missionary in the US twice. For the past twenty-five years, she has been a small-group leader and Bible teacher. Her husband, Arne, is a minister at a small, nondenominational church in Middletown, CT. (see www.biblerock.org).
Cathy remains philosophical and pragmatic about her life's path. "I used to struggle with my own identity and felt I was the black cat in the litter, but now I realize that 'godliness with contentment is great gain'. That I can be happy being part of God's plan whatever that may be. My life as a mom, a wife, even as a minister of God's grace is not turning out anything like I dreamed (some parts are better, some parts are harder). But I trust HE who runs the big show and "let go."
Music, for me is alot like the way smell is for people, like a scent identifies something. For me, hearing the way Dave plays piano, just reminds me of growing up.
Born in 1962, Matthew is the youngest and the tallest (at six-nine) member of the Brubeck family. His earliest memory of music was crawling under Dave's piano to pluck a bass that quartet member Eugene Wright left there after a practice session. He started playing piano at age three, mimicking either Dave or music he heard on television.
As a child, Matt wanted to take piano lessons, but found it awkward as a child to learn from Dave. So they invented a game where Dave would be an absentminded European piano teacher, Professor Nooseknocker. "He literally wore one of those Groucho Marx disguises, with the nose and the mustache," Matt remembers. "He would actually go out the back door and ring the front door and I would lead him down the stairs and we would have a short piano lesson."
In school, Matt began playing the cello, strictly for pragmatic reasons. The school orchestra needed a cello player and Matt knew how to read the base clef. He learned how to be an classical cellist for orchestra, but that approach didn't stick. "By the time I was in my twenties," said Matt, "I just naturally went back to by family roots and started exploring improvisation."
Matt is at home in a wide range of musical genres. Although classically trained at Yale, he is also at ease performing with avant-garde chamber groups, or playing jazz and pop/rock music. In addition to cello, Matt plays bass and keyboards. He is also a composer and arranger.
Matt has taken his cello improvisation into a wide range of musical territories. In the jazz realm, he founded Oranj Symphonette, which recorded two CD's for Rykodisc and played the New York, Montreal, and Monterey Jazz festivals. Oranj Symphonette received first place in Downbeat Magazine's 1997 critics poll for "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition." Matt has also recorded three duo CD's with guitarist David Widelock.
Matt has also performed in the pop/rock music world. He is currently a member of singer Sheryl Crow's band and has performed and/or recorded with singer/songwriters Tom Waits, Sarah MacLachlan, Indigo Girls, and Jonathan Richman, among others.
When he is at home, Matt continues to work with many of San Francisco's most creative musicians including John Schott, Pamela Z, and Ben Goldberg, as well as playing in the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Nagano.
As a composer, Matt has written music for silent movies, independent films, and for television. Among his arranging credits are the music of Thomas Mapfumo for the Kronos Quartet, the music of Nino Rota for Club Foot Orchestra, and his father's Blue Rondo for the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra of Boston. He is currently composing original music for a variety of small ensembles.
Matthew received his Master's degree in cello performance from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with renowned cellist Aldo Parisot. Quiet As The Moon (MusicMasters) marked his recording debut with his father. His work with his family includes playing and recording with Darius Brubeck (and Deepak Ram) in the group Gathering Forces. His most recent collaboration with his family was their 1997 recording In Their Own Sweet Way (Telarc).
I've given up the things of youth, like toys and dolls and trains
And traded them for others, like work and aches and pains.
Michael Brubeck is the second son of Dave and Iola. He is special to them and the rest of the family because, as a child he suffered from a mysterious and serious learning disability. When Michael was born in 1949, doctors noticed he was suffering from jaundice, and kept him in isolation. What they did not notice was his blood type was incompatible with his mother. In those days there was little known about the Rh factor of blood types. The trauma that Michael experienced then may have been the root of his disability.
He grew up a normal, healthy baby. His IQ testing was very high - the highest of all the Brubeck kids before pre-school according to Dave. Like the rest of the clan, Michael exhibited a love of music and took saxophone lessons. But formal education exposed his developmental problems and some teachers were unsympathetic. Michael became withdrawn.
His family rallied behind him. As did Brubeck Quartet members Joe Morello, Eugene Wright and Paul Desmond. Michael had an intense bond with the musicians, as they were often practicing in the Brubeck home. In 1958 he accompanied the Quartet on their tour behind the Iron Curtain. He was particularly close to Desmond - so close that when Paul died, he willed his saxophone to Michael. It remains one of his most important treasures.
Michael struggled but graduated high school. One of his poems was published in a national magazine and he received an award for his literary work. As an adult, Michael continued to write. His poem, Once When I Was Very Young, was set to music by Dave and appears on the MusicMasters album. It has also been a sung by the Gregg Smith Singers.
Today, Michael lives near his parents in Connecticut with Brubeck's assistant George Moore. George is a trained therapist who assists Michael in dealing with the challenges of daily life. Michael has overcome a great deal and is the only Brubeck to continue a time-honored family tradition. Like his father and grandfather before him, he loves riding and training horses.