DARIUS BRUBECK - Take Five No: 67
Can you tell us about your new album?
My latest album is, The Darius Brubeck Quartet: Live in Poland (Ubuntu Music) with Dave O’Higgins, tenor sax, Matt Ridley, bass, Wesley Gibbens, drums and me on piano and we are launching it at The Jazz Café in Camden Town on December 14th.
The album title is self-explanatory but the circumstances are really special. The Darius Brubeck Quartet tour of Poland in November, 2018 took place during a year of anniversaries. It was the 100th anniversary of Polish independence (1918) and it was also the 60th anniversary of the Dave Brubeck Quartet tour of 1958, the first of its kind ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ at the height of the Cold War. And, for me, it was also the 60th anniversary of my first appearance on stage as a 10-year-old playing ‘Take the A-Train’ with my father’s Quartet on their opening night in Szczecin. This was not a triumphant debut musically speaking but it was a stroke of diplomacy memorably demonstrating that the Brubeck family didn’t think of Poland as enemy territory. To some extent, the Darius Brubeck Quartet was taking a lap of honour on behalf of Cold-War era jazz fans. That said, we didn’t attempt to re-create the music played on that tour. We mainly played my own compositions from our last two albums and some we hadn’t recorded yet, a few of my father’s famous pieces that we knew people wanted to hear including ‘Dziekuje’, dedicated to the people of Poland and a few South African numbers. This play-list reflects our normal mixture of repertoires and influences.
Our last night was at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Poznan and we think that show was the best in terms of intensity and audience involvement, so that’s how ‘Live in Poland’ came about.
What other projects are you currently involved in?
A book and a movie. There is quite a back-story to this. An American producer hired a Dutch film-maker to shadow the Poland tour and make a documentary about jazz in the Cold War and the aftermath. Frankly, I knew the excitement surrounding this tour couldn’t be just about me, it was more the historical resonance and the timing. It seems that for Poles, jazz and specifically the Dave Brubeck Quartet tour, is associated with the early days of the movement that eventually culminated in freedom and sovereignty. Remarkably, the first display in the Solidarity Museum in the city of Sczcecin is a mid-50s vintage short-wave radio and a Polish-language Dave Brubeck concert program.
Cathy and I experienced something similar in the role of jazz in South Africa during and after the end of apartheid. We are writing a book together about our jazz life there, twenty-three years between 1983 and 2005, and about establishing jazz education at university level. The film director followed us to South Africa earlier this year when we went to do more research, so now the film has expanded to take in South Africa too. Both the book and the film will be called ‘Playing the Changes’.
My latest album is, The Darius Brubeck Quartet: Live in Poland (Ubuntu Music) with Dave O’Higgins, tenor sax, Matt Ridley, bass, Wesley Gibbens, drums and me on piano and we are launching it at The Jazz Café in Camden Town on December 14th.
The album title is self-explanatory but the circumstances are really special. The Darius Brubeck Quartet tour of Poland in November, 2018 took place during a year of anniversaries. It was the 100th anniversary of Polish independence (1918) and it was also the 60th anniversary of the Dave Brubeck Quartet tour of 1958, the first of its kind ‘behind the Iron Curtain’ at the height of the Cold War. And, for me, it was also the 60th anniversary of my first appearance on stage as a 10-year-old playing ‘Take the A-Train’ with my father’s Quartet on their opening night in Szczecin. This was not a triumphant debut musically speaking but it was a stroke of diplomacy memorably demonstrating that the Brubeck family didn’t think of Poland as enemy territory. To some extent, the Darius Brubeck Quartet was taking a lap of honour on behalf of Cold-War era jazz fans. That said, we didn’t attempt to re-create the music played on that tour. We mainly played my own compositions from our last two albums and some we hadn’t recorded yet, a few of my father’s famous pieces that we knew people wanted to hear including ‘Dziekuje’, dedicated to the people of Poland and a few South African numbers. This play-list reflects our normal mixture of repertoires and influences.
Our last night was at the Blue Note Jazz Club in Poznan and we think that show was the best in terms of intensity and audience involvement, so that’s how ‘Live in Poland’ came about.
What other projects are you currently involved in?
A book and a movie. There is quite a back-story to this. An American producer hired a Dutch film-maker to shadow the Poland tour and make a documentary about jazz in the Cold War and the aftermath. Frankly, I knew the excitement surrounding this tour couldn’t be just about me, it was more the historical resonance and the timing. It seems that for Poles, jazz and specifically the Dave Brubeck Quartet tour, is associated with the early days of the movement that eventually culminated in freedom and sovereignty. Remarkably, the first display in the Solidarity Museum in the city of Sczcecin is a mid-50s vintage short-wave radio and a Polish-language Dave Brubeck concert program.
Cathy and I experienced something similar in the role of jazz in South Africa during and after the end of apartheid. We are writing a book together about our jazz life there, twenty-three years between 1983 and 2005, and about establishing jazz education at university level. The film director followed us to South Africa earlier this year when we went to do more research, so now the film has expanded to take in South Africa too. Both the book and the film will be called ‘Playing the Changes’.
Click on the album cover to read our review.
What are your currently listening to and what was the last CD or download you bought?
Current listening is not easily definable because I really like BBC Radio 3, especially ‘Music Planet’ and ‘Late Junction’ when I’m up late and of course their jazz programs when I have a chance to tune in. I just bought ‘Duke Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite’ which I plan to play at my grandson’s apartment in Brooklyn on Boxing Day. Have you heard those arrangements? Wow.
What is your all-time favourite album and why?
Duke Ellington ‘Unknown Session’ from around 1960. I know it’s not the best jazz album ever, not even his best, but I can imagine hearing this on my death bed and believing that I’m going to a better place.
Who has caught your attention recently that we should be listening out for?
I want to mention ‘O’Higgins and Luft Play Monk and Trane’ since Dave O’Higgins and I are bandmates and label-mates. It’s really a good album, different enough, especially sonically, to stand out but grounded in solid jazzmanship.
Current listening is not easily definable because I really like BBC Radio 3, especially ‘Music Planet’ and ‘Late Junction’ when I’m up late and of course their jazz programs when I have a chance to tune in. I just bought ‘Duke Ellington: The Nutcracker Suite’ which I plan to play at my grandson’s apartment in Brooklyn on Boxing Day. Have you heard those arrangements? Wow.
What is your all-time favourite album and why?
Duke Ellington ‘Unknown Session’ from around 1960. I know it’s not the best jazz album ever, not even his best, but I can imagine hearing this on my death bed and believing that I’m going to a better place.
Who has caught your attention recently that we should be listening out for?
I want to mention ‘O’Higgins and Luft Play Monk and Trane’ since Dave O’Higgins and I are bandmates and label-mates. It’s really a good album, different enough, especially sonically, to stand out but grounded in solid jazzmanship.
